• Noble, G. & Brophy, K. (2014). ‘Construction, process, environment: altering the landscape in Neolithic lowland Scotland’. In D.Mischka (et al) (eds.). ‘Landscapes, Histories and Societies in the northern European Neolithic’: 65-80. Kiel: German Research Foundation Program SPP 1400. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Monumentality in Neolithic Britain: The Case of Southwest Scotland
New Light on the Neolithic of Northern England, 2020
The role of monuments of earth, timber and stone has long been identified as one of the key issues in the Neolithic archaeology of northwest Europe. And, as Andrew Sherratt once argued (1997: 148), it was the further development of monuments of prodigious size and scale, organised into ‘complexes’ that developed over an appreciable period of time, that set Britain and Armorica apart from central Europe in the later Neolithic. The defining characteristic of a monument may be seen as either its massiveness, its durability, or its commemorative capacity (Thomas 2013: 315), and consequentially archaeologists have addressed the phenomenon in a variety of different ways, only some of which are mutually compatible. Monument building has been identified as a conspicuous expenditure of effort, which may serve as a manifestation of elite power (Trigger 1990: 124). The scale of construction might represent an index of social complexity, reflected in the ability to mobilize labour (Renfrew 1973). But alternatively, building projects could be a means of bringing social cohesion or personal prestige into being, rather than reflecting any pre- existing situation, and this might prove a risky undertaking (Richards 2004: 108). The imposing scale and permanence of monuments can render them as presiding features of landscapes over the long term, and in traditional societies lacking state institutions, they can be connected with forms of authority that devolve from the past (Bradley 1984: 61). But monuments are also meaningful architecture, whose component materials may be significant, and which may serve as the settings for assemblies and performances of various kinds, some but not all of which might be ritualized in character. Furthermore, their physical endurance may have the result that their meanings change over time in ways that were not intended by their builders (Osborne 2014: 5). Therefore, the progressive development of regional groupings of monuments may be either planned or haphazard, with each new structure responding to and transforming the significance of earlier acts of construction.
2003
"The aim of this work is to contribute to the quantitative analysis and development of testable hypotheses concerning archaeological sites in the landscape. The initial intention was to ensure that valid and reliable outcomes regarding the original use of the freestanding megalithic monuments of western Scotland were possible through its use of appropriate spatial and statistical analyses. Whilst this objective remains, it is no longer the sole objective. Rather, more complex theories regarding the nature of the cosmology of those who built the monuments and the possible cosmological connections between them, other monuments and the environment are considered. Based upon the methodologies and outcomes of the initial investigations, further development of sound hypotheses and robust experimental designs that could be used in conjunction with GIS data and applications was then possible for those more complex considerations. This project attempts to incorporate systematic project design and quantitative analysis in archaeological investigations. Conferred 2003 Keywords: landscape archaeology, archaeoastronomy, cosmology, methodology, GIS, viewshed, orientation, spatial analysis, visibility, directionality, Scotland, megaliths, Bronze Age, Neolithic Age. "
This chapter reflects on one of the key discoveries of the authors’ research excavations conducted at Forteviot in lower Strathearn, central Scotland, between 2007 and 2010. Investigations here have revealed an extensive complex of late Neolithic monumentality and burial including a giant late Neolithic palisaded enclosure and a range of associated henges, timber structures and burials dating to the period 3000-2000 cal. BC. The catalysis for the creation of this extensive monument complex on a landscape scale may have been the establishment of a cremation cemetery at Forteviot where a minimum of 18 individuals were placed in the ground accompanied by bone pins and a handful of other grave goods in the early centuries of the 3rd millennium cal. BC. In the centuries following the establishment of the cremation cemetery at Forteviot, the aforementioned timber and earthwork enclosures were constructed, some encircling the cemetery; episodes of monument creation and burial continued into the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. At Forteviot we can perhaps identify these activities as ways in which subsequent generations attempted to control access to an important ancestral shrine and burial ground.
Palisaded enclosures were huge enclosed spaces with timber boundaries found across Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia in the Neolithic. Five such sites have been identified in Scotland dating to the later Neolithic, four of which have been excavated to varying degrees. These sites form the main focus of this paper, which draws in particular on interim results from the authors’ excavations at Forteviot, Perth and Kinross, during 2007–2009. The palisaded enclosures of Scotland are part of a wider British and Irish tradition and there are a number of European parallels, the closest of which lie in southern Scandinavia. The palisaded enclosures in Scotland are tightly clustered geographically and chronologically, constructed in the centuries after 2800 cal BC. This paper explores the function, role, and meaning of palisaded enclosures in Scotland and more generally, drawing not just on the architecture of the monuments, but also the individual posts that were used to create the enclosures. The role of these monuments in reconstituting nature is also considered.
Scottish Archaeological Internet Reports
This report sets out the results of a programme of topographic survey, geophysical survey, field walking and trial excavation, carried out in 1998-99 and funded by Historic Scotland, in and around an extensive upland prehistoric landscape in the Upper Clyde Valley. It was designed to build on the results of limited excavation of a large, late Neolithic enclosure at Blackshouse Burn, South Lanarkshire (centred at NGR NS 9528 4046) and preliminary survey of nearby monuments undertaken in the 1980s, and to identify and characterize prehistoric settlement in the adjacent valleys through field walking. Topographic survey of the enclosures at Blackshouse Burn, Meadowflatts and Chester Hill, and of hut circles, clearance cairns and a possible ring cairn on Cairngryffe and Swaites Hills, recorded a complex ritual and domestic landscape: evidence of the longstanding prehistoric occupation of the Pettinain Uplands. The geophysical survey of Chester Hill enclosure found traces of internal stru...
Continuity or change? A Microscopic Scale Analysis of Monuments and Ritual in Aberdeenshire
Journal of Skyscape Archaeology, 2015
General archaeological accounts of Scotland tend to demonstrate broad ideas of the Neolithic transition to farming and the subsequent economic changes in the Bronze Age. Whilst they concentrate on important economic and cultural advancement they tend to lack discussions on cosmological change. This paper looks at one small area in Aberdeenshire to examine four different classes of monument that are found there: long mounds and long cairns; Recumbent Stone Circles; henges and Beaker burial sites. It argues that skyscape archaeology, through the use of archaeoastronomical techniques, can provide clues to cosmological change.
"Landscape, Histories and Societies in the Northern European Neolithic" presents papers from two sessions of the conference of the European Association of Archaeologists held in 2011 in Olso. The papers of this volume describe new research on the relationships between landscape, history and society in the northern European Neolithic. They focus on the Funnel Beaker complex and related Neolithic contexts, with case studies extending from Poland and the Czech Republic to Norway and Scotland. Several case studies examine the significance of enclosures – from early causewayed enclosures in the north associated with the very beginnings of the Neolithic to the significance of palisade enclosures constructed towards the end of the Neolithic in Scotland and Sweden. The volume also includes new studies on the origin, significance and interpretation of Neolithic burial and megalithic architecture found in a range of landscapes across northern Europe. Importantly, the volume also outlines the significance of other kinds of places that were not monumentalised in the same way, such as fens, the seashore and the wider environment, in the construction of Neolithic worldview. Finally, it concludes with a series of articles that consider the significance of particular forms of material culture – axes, grinding stones, pottery and food – in social reproduction in the Neolithic of northern Europe. Overall, the volume presents an important body of new data and international perspectives concerning Neolithic societies, histories and landscapes in northern Europe.
The Antiquaries Journal
This paper presents the results of a survey project investigating a complex of prehistoric archaeological sites at Lochbrow, in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. An Early Neolithic timber cursus, Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age timber circles and Bronze Age round barrows were first recorded as cropmarks on aerial photographs in the 1980s and 1990s. The Lochbrow Landscape Project set out to investigate and understand this lesser-known complex of prehistoric sites and their layout in the landscape using non-destructive survey techniques, including geophysical survey, experiential survey and re-assessment of aerial photographs. A pilot survey was undertaken in 2010 followed by a series of short field seasons from 2011 to 2015. Interpretation of the results from geophysical survey has proved challenging because of strong geological and geomorphological signals, but has been successful in detecting both the features known from aerial photographs and additional archaeological features. ...
Around the beginning of the 3rd millennium cal BC a cremation cemetery was established at Forteviot, central Scotland. This place went on to become one of the largest monument complexes identified in Mainland Scotland, with the construction of a palisaded enclosure, timber structures, and a series of henge monuments and other enclosures. The cemetery was established between 3080 and 2900 cal BC, probably in the 30th century cal BC, which is contemporary with the cremation cemetery at Stonehenge. Nine discrete deposits of cremated bone, representing the remains of at least 18 people, were identified. In most instances they were placed within cut features and, in one case, a series of cremation deposits was associated with a broken standing stone. This paper includes the first detailed assessment of the cremated remains at Forteviot and the features associated with the cemetery, and explores how the establishment of this cemetery may have been both a catalyst and inspiration for the elaborate monument building and prolonged acts of remembrance that occurred at this location over a period of almost 1000 years. The paper also outlines the parallels for Forteviot across Britain and, for the first time, draws together the dating evidence (including Bayesian modelling) for this major category of evidence for considering the nature of late 4th/ early 3rd millennium cal BC society. The results and discussion have wide implications and resonances for contemplating the establishment and evolution of monument complexes in prehistoric Britain and beyond.