With this book the contributors review funerary practices from the Mesolithic to the Chalcolithic in the Western Mediterranean, more specifically, in this first volume, on modern day Spain, Andorra, and Portugal. (A second volume will focus on the same periods in Southern France and the Italian Peninsula.) Contents: Preface. Funerary practices in the western Mediterranean from the Mesolithic to the Chalcolithic: the Iberian Peninsular (Juan Gibaja, Ant nio Faustino Carvalho and Philippe Chambon); 1) Funerary practices in Cantabrian, Spain (9000-3000 cal BC) (Pablo Arias); 2) From pits to megaliths: Neolithic burials in the interior of Iberia (Manuel Rojo-Guerra and Rafael Garrido-Pena); 3) Funerary practices during the Early-Middle Neolithic in north-east Iberia (Juan Gibaja et al); 4) Mesolithic and Neolithic funerary practices in the central Mediterranean region of Spain (Oreto Garcia Puchol et al); 5) Funerary practices and demography from the Mesolithic to the Copper Age in southern Spain (Marta Diaz-Zorita et al); 6) Mortuary archaeology of the Muge shell middens (Mary Jackes and David Lubell); 7) Algar do Bom Santo: a Middle Neolithic necropolis in Portuguese Estremadura (Antonio Faustino Carvalho et al); 8) The Sado shell middens: anthropological and paleodietary depiction (Claudia Umbelino and Eugenia Cunha); 9) Ditches, pits and hypogea: new data and new problems in south Portugal Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic practices (Antonio Carlos Valera); 10) Early Neolithic funerary practices in Castelo Belinho's village (western Algarve, Portugal) (Mario Varela Gomes)
The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines is the first text to offer a comparative survey of figurines from across the globe, bringing together myriad contemporary research approaches to provide invaluable insights into their function, context, meaning, and use, as well as past thinking on the human body, gender, and identity.
The articles in this volume provide examples of different approaches currently being developed on Prehistoric collective burials of southern Europe, mostly focusing on case studies, but also including contributions of a more methodological scope.
This is the first book-length treatment of Neolithic burial in Britain to focus primarily on cave evidence. It interprets human remains from forty-eight caves and compares them to what we know of Neolithic collective burial elsewhere in Britain and Europe. It reviews the archaeology of these cave burials and treats them as important evidence for the study of mortuary practice. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, anthropology, osteology and cave science, the book demonstrates that cave burial was one of the earliest elements of the British Neolithic. It also shows that Early Neolithic cave-burial practice was highly varied, with many similarities to other burial rites. However, by the Middle Neolithic, a funerary practice which was specific to caves had developed.
Western Iberia has one of the richest inventories of Neolithic chambered tombs in Atlantic Europe, with particular concentrations in Galicia, northern Portugal and the Alentejo. Less well known is the major concentration of tombs along the Tagus valley, straddling the Portuguese-Spanish frontier. Within this cluster is the Anta da Lajinha, a small megalithic tomb in the hill-country north of the River Tagus. Badly damaged by forest fire and stone removal, it was the subject of joint British-Portuguese excavations in 2006-2008, accompanied by environmental investigations and OSL dating. This volume takes the recent excavations at Lajinha and the adjacent site of Cabeço dos Pendentes as the starting point for a broader consideration of the megalithic tombs of western Iberia. Key themes addressed are relevant to megalithic tombs more generally, including landscape, chronology, settlement and interregional relationships. Over what period of time were these tombs built and used? Do they form a horizon of intensive monument construction, or were the tombs the product of a persistent, long-lived tradition? How do they relate to the famous rock art of the Tagus valley, and to the cave burials and open-air settlements of the region, in terms of chronology and landscape? A final section considers the Iberian tombs within the broader family of west European megalithic monuments, focusing on chronologies, parallels and patterns of contact. Did the Iberian tombs emerge through connections with older established megalithic traditions in other regions such as Brittany, or were they are the outcome of more general processes operating among Atlantic Neolithic societies?
This is an Element about some of the largest sites known in prehistoric Europe – sites so vast that they often remain undiscussed for lack of the theoretical or methodological tools required for their understanding. Here, the authors use a relational, comparative approach to identify not only what made megasites but also what made megasites so special and so large. They have selected a sample of megasites in each major period of prehistory – Neolithic, Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages – with a detailed examination of a single representative megasite for each period. The relational approach makes explicit comparisons between smaller, more 'normal' sites and the megasites using six criteria – scale, temporality, deposition / monumentality, formal open spaces, performance and congregational catchment. The authors argue that many of the largest European prehistoric megasites were congregational places.
The Celtic languages and groups called Keltoi (i.e. ‘Celts’) emerge into our written records at the pre-Roman Iron Age. The impetus for this book is to explore from the perspectives of three disciplines—archaeology, genetics, and linguistics—the background in later European prehistory to these developments. There is a traditional scenario, according to which, Celtic speech and the associated group identity came in to being during the Early Iron Age in the north Alpine zone and then rapidly spread across central and western Europe. This idea of ‘Celtogenesis’ remains deeply entrenched in scholarly and popular thought. But it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile with recent discoveries pointing towards origins in the deeper past. It should no longer be taken for granted that Atlantic Europe during the 2nd and 3rd millennia BC were pre-Celtic or even pre-Indo-European. The explorations in Celtic from the West 3 are drawn together in this spirit, continuing two earlier volumes in the influential series.
The excavation of shell middens and mounds is an important source of information regarding past human diet, settlement, technology, and paleoenvironments. The contributors to this book introduce new ways to study shell-matrix sites, ranging from the geochemical analysis of shellfish to the interpretation of human remains buried within. Drawing upon examples from around the world, this is one of the only books to offer a global perspective on the archaeology of shell-matrix sites. “A substantial contribution to the literature on the subject and . . . essential reading for archaeologists and others who work on this type of site.”—Barbara Voorhies, University of California, Santa Barbara, author of Coastal Collectors in the Holocene: The Chantuto People of Southwest Mexico