Between Mountains and Sea: a Reconsideration of the Neolithic Monuments of South-west Scotland

Abstract

For many years the chambered tombs of south-west Scotland were considered important in understanding the origins of monumentality in Britain. In particular scholars focused on the classification of these monuments in order to understand how ideas about the Neolithic may have spread along and across the Irish Sea. However, the classification of these monuments may be rather more problematic than was once imagined. Among other things, the excavation of a number of them has revealed complex and diverse construction sequences. This paper presents the results of an examination of the landscape settings of the chambered tombs in south-west Scotland. It suggests that a landscape approach can assist in our understanding of the classification and use of these monuments. In addition, the setting of sites within the landscape can also inform us about the nature of the Neolithic in this region of Scotland.

Vegetation history at the multi-period prehistoric complex at Ballynahatty, Co. Down, Northern Ireland

“…Much attention has been given to the range of factors that influence the siting of a monument in the landscape, and frequently relevance is sought between the site's position in relation to other monuments, natural features or astronomical events (e.g. Tilley, 1994;Ruggles, 1999;Cummings, 2002). Some of these approaches have been criticised by Chapman and Gearey (2000) for failing to take into account the contemporary environment of monuments that will certainly have influenced the perception of the landscape.…”

Islandscapes and ‘Islandness’: The Prehistoric Isle of Man in the Irish Seascape

“…The Ronaldsway insularity can thus be understood as the adoption of a new cultural orientation focusing inwards towards places of exceptional importance to the living Manx, and away from the sea, from death, and from the rest of the world. A concentration on internal landscape references have elsewhere been suggested to indicate a social ‘fragmentation and regionalization’ (Cummings 2002, 142), and the development of a unique Ronaldsway‐style pottery, flint knapping and social practices seems to support this idea.…”

“…The central position of the Isle of Man, not to mention its visibility from the coasts around the Irish Sea, makes it a logical place for prehistoric seafarers to have stopped. Since the fourth millennium BC, this island seems to have played a moderating role in the social and economic interconnections between south‐west Scotland and Northern Ireland (Cummings 2002, 140). Moreover, monument styles at this time reflect a variety of cultural associations, with those at the north of the island related to the monuments of Antrim and Galloway while those at the south more closely reflect megalithic architecture from Cornwall, Wales and south‐east Ireland (Darvill 2002a, 83).…”

“…Barnwell, noted that the megalithic groups he found on the island ‘seem to show that, when possible, the builders of them selected sites commanding a sea view’ (1868, 98). Cummings (2002, 142) has suggested that the seawards orientation of megalithic monuments in south‐west Scotland was done to associate the people of that area physically with the region as a whole. In Wales and Ireland this same pattern of association seems generally to hold true and Neolithic megaliths seem to be intervisible with the Irish Sea (cf.…”

The Archaeology of Emotion and Affect

“…Harris (2009Harris ( , 2010Harris ( , 2011Harris ( , 2012Harris ( , 2013Harris & Sørensen 2010), starting from the position that emotions are culturally constructed and enormously variable and that the remote past is unfamiliar, does not attempt to identify or describe "specific emotional valances" (Harris 2013). Harris's approach is influenced both by emotional geographies of place, such as the work of Nigel Thrift, and by the phenomenological school of British prehistorians (e.g., Tilley 1994Tilley , 2004Thomas 1996Thomas , 2002Cummings 2002;see Brück (2005) for a critical review of this tradition) who emphasize the importance of understanding human experience of place and landscape in the past, but adds to their approach a recognition of the central importance of memory and emotion to knowing and experiencing places. Following www.annualreviews.org • Archaeology of Emotion and Affect Ahmed (2004), Harris argues that places (and things) can become "sticky" with emotions (2010, 2013) and therefore that things and places can be deliberately elaborated in order to "fix" memories (Harris 2009(Harris , 2010).…”