19 research outputs found
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Inhabiting Broxmouth: Biographies of a Scottish Iron Age settlement
Roundhouses are ubiquitous in prehistoric Britain, yet previous studies of these iconic features have tended to overlook their human occupants, focusing instead on their external morphology and structural engineering. Those studies which have attempted to move beyond functionalist frameworks, have often applied overarching and broad-scale cosmological models which, though
re-orientating study towards social considerations, have likewise failed to shed light on the interaction between roundhouse and their inhabitants, particularly at a household level.
This research reanalyses the Late Iron Age settlement at Broxmouth, East Lothian, using new theoretical approaches and advances in AMS dating to ask new questions of a 30 year old data-set. Biographical and materiality approaches, which draw heavily on relational analogy with the ethnographic record, have allowed for detailed reconstruction of the life-history of each structure, and important moments within these histories. Roundhouse replacement appears to have taken place on a roughly generational basis, as a means by which households renegotiated their social identities within the community. Structured deposition, and the materiality of the roundhouse fabric itself, appears to have played an important role in the communication of identity, where the retention of previous structural fabric, the deposition of curated items, and the referencing of former internal features, created physical and symbolic links with the past, and with the ancestors. As such, this study demonstrates that roundhouses were far more than mere dwellings, and were integral to the ways in which past societies rationalised the world around them.AHRC funding the affiliated Collaborative Doctoral AwardsThe full text was made available at the end of the extended embargo, 31st March 2020
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Encounters and transformations in Iron Age Europe: the ENTRANS Project
YesThe Iron Age in Europe was a period of tremendous cultural dynamism, during which the values and constructs of urbanised Mediterranean civilisations clashed with alternative webs of identity in ‘barbarian’ temperate Europe. Until recently archaeologists and ancient historians have tended to view the cultural identities of Iron Age Europeans as essentially monolithic (Romans, Greeks, Celts, Illyrians etc). Dominant narratives have been concerned with the supposed origins and spread of peoples, like ‘the Celts’ (e.g. COLLIS 2003), and their subsequent ‘Hellenisation’ or ‘Romanisation’ through encounters with neighbouring societies. Yet there is little to suggest that collective identity in this period was exclusively or predominantly ethnic, national or even tribal. Instead we need to examine the impact of cultural encounters at the more local level of the individual, kin-group or lineage, exploring identity as a more dynamic, layered construct.HERA, European Commissio
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A Brief Consideration of the Later Prehistoric Appearance and Possible Significance of the Great Auk (Pinguinus impennis) in the Covesea Caves of North-East Scotland
YesThis Short Note describes the distribution and composition of the great auk assemblage found within the Covesea Caves, and discusses its significance.Glasgow Natural History Society Professor Blodwen Lloyd Binns Bequest, the Prehistoric Society, and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Historic Environment Scotland and Aberdeenshire Council
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Cultural Encounters in Iron Age Europe
noCultural encounters form a dominant theme in the study of Iron Age Europe. This was particularly acute in regions where urbanising Mediterranean civilisations came into contact with ‘barbarian’ worlds. This volume presents preliminary work from the ENTRANS Project, which explores the nature and impact of such encounters in south-east Europe, alongside a series of papers on analogous European regions. A range of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches are offered in an effort to promote dialogue around these central issues in European protohistory.HERAOnly the cover and contents pages are available on Bradford Scholars
The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe
From around 2750 to 2500 bc, Bell Beaker pottery became widespread across western and central Europe, before it disappeared between 2200 and 1800 bc. The forces that propelled its expansion are a matter of long-standing debate, and there is support for both cultural diffusion and migration having a role in this process. Here we present genome-wide data from 400 Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age Europeans, including 226 individuals associated with Beaker-complex artefacts. We detected limited genetic affinity between Beaker-complex-associated individuals from Iberia and central Europe, and thus exclude migration as an important mechanism of spread between these two regions. However, migration had a key role in the further dissemination of the Beaker complex. We document this phenomenon most clearly in Britain, where the spread of the Beaker complex introduced high levels of steppe-related ancestry and was associated with the replacement of approximately 90% of Britain’s gene pool within a few hundred years, continuing the east-to-west expansion that had brought steppe-related ancestry into central and northern Europe over the previous centuries
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Materializing memories: inheritance, performance and practice at Broxmouth hillfort, southeast Scotland
Gardening may seem worlds away from Nuraghi and brochs, but tending a garden is a long process involving patience, accretion and memory. Scholars argue that memories are also cultured, developed and regained. The monuments in Scotland and Sardinia are testament to the importance of memory and its role in maintaining social relations.
This collection of twenty-one papers addresses the theme of memory anchored to the enduring presence of monuments, mainly from Scotland and Sardinia, but also from Central Europe and the Balkans.This book, and the conference upon which it was based, were funded by The ACE Foundation, The Fondazione Banco di Sardegna and the McDonald Institute. We are grateful to the British School at Rome and Magdalene College, Cambridge for their support
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Ancestral homes? Constructing memory at Broxmouth hillfort
NoWe take a look at the revolutionary findings from the largest investigation of an Iron Age hillfort ever undertaken in Scotland, which shed new light on life on the edge of the Roman Empire