Böcker i Cardiff Studies in Archaeology-serien

This volume explores the landscape settings of megalithic chambered monuments in Wales. Set against a broader theoretical discussion on the significance of the landscape, the authors consider the role of visual landscapes in prehistory, meanings attached to the landscape, and the values and beliefs invested in it.

These fifteen papers came out of the eighth annual meeting of the Iron Age Research Student Seminar (IARSS) and are loosely grouped into three topics: settlement studies, deposition and material culture, and experimental archaeology.

From about 5500 cal BC to soon after 5000 cal BC, the lifeways of the first farmers of central Europe, the LBK (Linearbandkeramik or Linienbandkeramik), are seen in distinctive practices of longhouse use, settlement forms and location, landscape choice, subsistence, material culture and mortuary rites.

This report document the finds and research, and also addresses wider questions of how the early Neolithic inhabitants viewed their society through the barrow, and how the development of the site reflected memory and interaction with a changing world.

Chronology is the factual basis for contextualising archaeology. This collection of papers aims to integrate local chronogical schemes with more comprehensive and general "master" chronologies.

This collection of 24 papers aims to reconsider the nature and significance of the Irish Sea as an area of cultural interaction during the Neolithic period. The traditional character of work across this region has emphasised the existence of prehistoric contact, with sea routes criss-crossing between Ireland, the Isle of Man, Anglesey and the British mainland. A parallel course of investigation, however, has demonstrated that the British and Irish Neolithics were in many ways different, with distinct indigenous patterns of activity and social practices. The recent emphasis on regional studies has further produced evidence for parallel yet different processes of cultural change taking place throughout the British Isles as a whole. This volume brings together some of these regional perspectives and compares them across the Irish Sea area. The authors consider new ways to explain regional patterning in the use of material objects and relate them to past practices and social strategies. Were there practices that were shared across the Irish Sea area linking different styles of monuments and material culture, or were the media intrinsic to the message? The volume is based on papers presented at a conference held at the University of Manchester in 2002.