Aims
This course aims to:
• offer a broadly chronological survey of landscapes venerated by hunters and farmers from the Palaeolithic to the Bronze age
• enable students to place their own research interests within the broader context of developments in human society/culture from the Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age
• gain understanding of the new discoveries relating to these sites, and how these discoveries affect our understanding of the ceremonial significance of these landscapes
Content
The course will examine key landscapes around the British Isles and in France. It will discuss the ‘big questions’ about what significance these landscapes might have had for the generations of hunters and farmers who built and used them. Tracking from the Upper Palaeolithic site at Lascaux to Stonehenge in the Early Bronze Age, we will look at how the arrangement of space, whether it be art in caves or the topography of particular landscapes and the night sky, helps us understand why certain places were venerated. We will also be looking at the latest scientific research to ascertain who used these places and how they used them.
Presentation of the course
Class discussion (very important!), practical work, problem solving exercises, lecture and seminar formats (involving power points).
Course sessions
1. Introductions - understanding venerated landscapes from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age: why are they there? What are they for?
'Reading' the Upper Palaeolithic cave site of Lascaux, France
2. Where the wild ones were: (1) ritual at the Mesolithic site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire
(2) Blick Mead - new discoveries and interpretations
3. The Neolithic ceremonial complex sites at the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney
4. The late Neolithic ceremonial complex of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site
5. Overview – development of ritual landscapes c.14000 BC-2500BC
Learning outcomes
You are expected to gain from this series of classroom sessions a greater understanding of the subject and of the core issues and arguments central to the course.
The learning outcomes for this course are that students will be able to:
• demonstrate an understanding how the movement of people and ideas in the above areas contributed to the establishment of their later renowned ceremonial character
• understand how certain landscape contexts contributed to the selection of long term ‘special’ places that led to the establishment and adaption of ceremonial and ritualistic sites
• appreciate the importance of multi proxy dating, pollen and animal DNA evidence and other artefactual evidence for understanding what went on in such monuments: what was different about them and what were potential common denominators in their design, use and symbolism
