Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T14:10:05.911Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Individual and Community: The Changing Role of Megaliths in the Orcadian Neolithic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Niall Sharples
Niall Sharples*
Affiliation:
Trust for Wessex Archaeology, The Archaeology Centre, 65 The Close, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper is an exploration of the chronological development of a series of elaborate and architecturally distinctive chambered tombs on the Islands of Orkney. It begins with a short critique of the present views of the Orcadian Neolithic and highlights a failure to understand chronological developments as the most significant problem. Thus after a brief classification of the monuments there is a detailed discussion of the chronological evidence which consciously avoids typological assumptions. This is followed by an examination of the various uses the tombs were put to and involves an assessment of the location and architectural visibility of the monuments and the remains found in the chamber. When combined with the chronological evidence a series of changes in monument size, type, location and use can be hypothesized for the neolithic period. This culminates in a shift away from burial monuments to physically defined spaces, presumably used for ceremonial purposes. These changes can be interpreted as deliberate manipulation by groups within that society to change the ideological concepts which defined the role of the individual in relation to the other members of the society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , December 1985 , pp. 59 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrett, J. C., unpublished. ‘Artifacts and Society’.Google Scholar
Binford, L. R., 1972. ‘Mortuary practices: their study and potential’, in Brown, J. A. (ed.). Approaches to the Social Dimensions of Mortuary Practices. Mem. Soc. American Archaeol. 25.Google Scholar
Bloch, M., 1981. ‘Tombs and States’, in Humphreys, S. C., and King, H., Mortality and Immortality: The anthropology and archaeology of death, 137–47. London.Google Scholar
Bloch, M., 1982. ‘Death, women and power’, in Bloch, and Parry, 1982.Google Scholar
Bloch, M. and Parry, J., 1982. Death and the regeneration of life. Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradley, R., 1982. ‘Position and possession: Assemblage variation in the British Neolithic’, Oxford J. Archaeol. 1, 26–38.Google Scholar
Calder, C. S. T., 1938. ‘Excavations of three Neolithic chambered cairns — one with an upper and a lower chamber — in the islands of Eday and the Calf of Eday in Orkney’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 71 (1937–38), 193–216.Google Scholar
Callander, J. G. and Grant, W. G., 1934. ‘A long stalled chambered cairn or mausoleum near Midhowe, Rousay, Orkney’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 68 (1933–34), 320–35.Google Scholar
Callander, J. G. and Grant, W. G., 1935. ‘A long stalled cairn, the Knowe of Yarso, in Rousay, Orkney’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. 69 (1934–35), 325–51.Google Scholar
Callander, J. G. and Grant, W. G., 1936. ‘A stalled chambered cairn, the Knowe of Ramsay, at Hullion, Rousay, Orkney’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 70 (1935–36), 407–19.Google Scholar
Chapman, R. W., 1981. ‘The emergence of formal disposal areas and the ‘problem’ of megalithic tombs in Prehistoric Europe’, in Chapman, R., Kinnes, I. and Randsborg, K. (eds), The archaeology of death, 71–81. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Chapman, R. W., 1983. ‘Archaeology after Death’, Scot. Archaeol. Rev. 2, 88–96.Google Scholar
Chapman, R. W. and Randsborg, K., 1981. ‘Approaches to the archaeology of death’, in Chapman, R., Kinnes, I. and Randsborg, K. (eds), The archaeology of death, 1–24. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1931. Skara Brae, a Pictish Village in Orkney. London.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1954. ‘Re-excavation of the Chambered Cairn of Quoyness, Sanday, on behalf of the Ministry of Works in 1951–52’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 86 (1951–52), 121–39.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1956. ‘Maes Howe’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 88 (1954–56), 155–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Childe, V. G. and Grant, W. G., 1939. ‘A stone age settlement at the Braes of Rinyo’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 17 (1938–39), 6–31.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. and Grant, W. G., 1948. ‘A stone age settlement at the Braes of Rinyo, Rousay, Orkney (second report)’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 81 (1946–47), 16–42.Google Scholar
Clarke, D. V., 1976. ‘Excavations at Skara Brae: a summary account’, in Burgess, C. and Miket, R. (eds), Settlement and Economy in the Third and Second Millennia B.C., 221–41. Brit. Archaeol. Rep. 33, Oxford.Google Scholar
Clarke, D. V., Hope, R. and Wickham-Jones, C. R., 1978. ‘The Links of Noltland’, Current Archaeology 6, 44–46.Google Scholar
Corcoran, J. X. W. P., 1967. ‘The excavation of three chambered cairns at Loch Calder, Caithness’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 98 (1964–66), 1–75.Google Scholar
Davidson, D. A., Jones, R. L. and Renfrew, C., 1976. ‘Paleo-environmental reconstruction and valuation: A case study from Orkney’, Trans. Inst. Geog. 1, 346–61.Google Scholar
Evans, J. G., 1979. ‘The Paleo-Environment of coastal deposits in western and northern Britain’, in Early Man in the Scottish Landscape, 16–26. Scot. Archaeol. Forum 9.Google Scholar
Fraser, D., 1983. Land and Society in Neolithic Orkney. Brit. Archaeol. Rep. 117, Oxford.Google Scholar
Hedges, J. W., 1983. Isbister: A chambered tomb in Orkney. Brit. Archaeol. Rep. 115, Oxford.Google Scholar
Henshall, A. S., 1963. The Chambered Tombs of Scotland, Vol. I. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Henshall, A. S., 1972. The Chambered Tombs of Scotland, Vol. II. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Henshall, A. S., 1974. ‘Scottish chambered tombs and long mounds’, in Renfrew, C. (ed), British Prehistory: A new outline, 137–63. London.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., 1982. Symbols in action: Ethnoarchaeological studies of material culture. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., 1984. ‘Burials, houses, women and men in the European Neolithic’, in Miller, D. and Tilley, C. (eds), Ideology, power and prehistory, 51–68. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Keatinge, T. H. and Dickson, J. H., 1979. ‘Mid Flandrian changes in vegetation on Mainland Orkney’, New Phytol. 82, 585–612.Google Scholar
Leach, E., 1977. ‘A view from the bridge’, in Spriggs, M. (ed.), Archaeology and Anthropology, 161–76. Brit. Archaeol. Rep. S19, Oxford.Google Scholar
Moir, G., 1981. ‘Some archaeological and astronomical objections to scientific astronomy in British Prehistory’, in Ruggles, C. L. N. and Whittle, A. W. R. (eds), Astronomy and Society in Britain during the period 4000–1500 B.C., 221–41. Brit. Archaeol. Rep. 88, Oxford.Google Scholar
Parker-Pearson, M., 1982. ‘Mortuary practices, society and ideology: An ethno-archaeological study’, in Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and structural archaeology, 99–113. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1976. Before Civilisation: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe. London.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1979. Investigations in Orkney. Society of Antiquaries Research Report 38, London.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1984. The Prehistory of Orkney. Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Ritchie, A., 1983. ‘Excavation of a Neolithic farmstead at Knap of Howar, Papa Westray, Orkney’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland, 113, 40–121.Google Scholar
Ritchie, J. N. G., 1978. ‘The Stones of Stennes, Orkney’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 107 (1972–76), 1–60.Google Scholar
Shanks, M. and Tilley, C., 1982. ‘Ideology, symbolic power and ritual communication: a reinterpretation of Neolithic mortuary practices’, in Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and structural archaeology, 129–54. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sharples, N. M., 1981. ‘The excavation of a chambered cairn, the Ord North, at Lairg, Sutherland by J. X. W. P. Corcoran’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 111, 21–62.Google Scholar
Sharples, N. M., 1984. ‘Excavations at Pierowall Quarry, Westray, Orkney’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland 114.Google Scholar
Sharples, N. M., forthcoming. ‘Radiocarbon dates from three tombs at Loch Calder, Caithness’.Google Scholar
Thorpe, I. J. and Richards, C. C., 1984. ‘The decline of ritual authority and the introduction of Beakers into Britain’, in Bradley, R. and Gardiner, J. (eds), Neolithic Studies. Brit. Archaeol. Rep. 134, Oxford.Google Scholar
Tilley, C., 1984. ‘Ideology and the legitimation of power in the middle Neolithic of southern Sweden’, in Miller, D. and Tilley, C. (eds), Ideology, power and prehistory, 111–46. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Whittle, A. W. R., 1979. ‘Scord of Brouster’, Current Archaeology 65, 167–71.Google Scholar