In a slightly different form this paper was given as the Europa Lecture for 1994

The subject of this contribution is the origin of the diversity in the 19th century peasant landscape in the northern Netherlands. The first goal of the paper is to introduce a British audience to a line of research, which so far has been mainly reported on in Dutch and German. The second goal is to lay my finger on some basic properties of peasant landscapes elsewhere in the world. The third goal of my efforts in landscape archaeology is to identify ancient structures in today's landscape, which explain their identity, and to present this information to all those who are concerned with landscape conservation and landscape planning in the study area.

Excavation by Charles McBurney and John Clegg during the early 1960s revealed a sequence with a Mousterian occupation, of which the principal finds were two bout coupé handaxes, stratified close to the base of a Middle Devensian hyaena-den accumulation. The human occupation should belong within the period 64–38 ka with comparative and stratigraphic evidence favouring a date within the earlier part of this range before 50 ka. The hyaena-den occupation probably extends from at least 40 ka (if not 60 ka) until c. 24 ka.

Evidence for the early Postglacial use of upland environments in the Mesolithic in various parts Britain has been known for a long time. However, until relatively recently such evidence had been remarkably absent from upland south Wales, which includes some of the highest mountain ranges in southern Britain. In this paper we report on new work at the upland location of Waun Fignen Felen which consists of discrete Early and later Mesolithic artefact scatters on the edge of a former lake basin. In describing this example, we focus on the timing of Mesolithic movements into the interior uplands and examine the relationship between humans and the landscape, particularly in respect to the long distance transport of materials and factors likely to have influenced the choice of site location. Some comparative observations are made on the use and perception of landscapes by ethnographic hunter-gatherers.

Recent studies have illustrated a series of marked regional differences in the distribution and design of Neolithic monuments throughout lowland England. They fail, however, to provide an interpretative framework for the discussion of these contrasts. This paper proposes that such regional variability can only be understood with a scale of analysis which outlines the fundamental distinctions between political communities in different parts of lowland England. It is argued that factors such as population size and density can be clearly related to the variability from area to area in the number and structural complexity of causewayed enclosures. It is also possible to link these demographic factors to a long-term process of social change whereby the small autonomous groups of the earlier Neolithic were transformed into larger political units. The cursus and henge monuments were an important component of this process, and regional variability in the distribution and design of these sites can be taken to demonstrate that the extent of this transformation differed throughout lowland England. It is evident that there were important contrasts between those regions which had previously been distinguished by the variability in the layout of causewayed enclosures. The stylised morphology of the cursus and henge monuments appears to have deliberately accentuated such contrasts. These sites therefore provide clear evidence for the existence of long-term regional traditions across lowland England.

This paper presents evidence for intentionally structured deposition at the later Neolithic earthwork and timber setting of Woodhenge, near Amesbury, Wiltshire. Deposition is seen as a process through which a variety of connotations and symbolic references were incorporated in the monument, in addition to contributing towards a complex classification of space that served to order ceremonial and ritual practices. The evidence for formal deposition is also considered in the context of comparable, contemporary, activity at two other extensively excavated monuments in the region — Durrington Walls and Stonehenge I. Finally, complementarity and contrast in such special practices are viewed in relation to individual monument histories and the possiblity that, whilst the product of a general sacred tradition, the way in which each of the monuments was used was structured by different sets of meanings.

The analysis of Bronze Age barrow sites excavated as long ago as 25 years can provide information on more significant and wide ranging topics than basic funerary rites. At Buckskin no primary burial rite was recorded nor any high status artefacts found. The analysis, of stored soil samples and animal bones however, produced evidence for ceremonial activity and feasting prior to the construction of the barrow mound. This encourages discussion on both the role of this barrow and the primary function, other than interment, of similar monuments, especially from the evidence of environmental data. Study of both land Mollusca and faunal remains enabled a greater explanation of the cultural history of this monument and aided the site phasing.

A complex of settlement and ritual monuments with chronological depth covering a core area of c. 4 km2 on the western side of the Monavullagh mountains in Co. Waterford is described. The morphology of the monuments is portrayed and the development of the settlement and ceremonial areas is elucidated. The ritual monuments are situated in three cemeteries or sanctuaries, one of which is united through elaborate geometric themes. This ritual geometry and the religious insights which this affords raises the importance of this complex to an international level. Analogies with similar monuments from Ireland and the upland regions of Britain are discussed. The overseas parallels demonstrate close contact throughout the Early Bronze Age with many parts of Britain, especially Wales. The unique character of the complex amongst Irish prehistoric landscapes is stressed as it fills an apparent gap in the Irish monumental record of the period.

The disappearance of an archaeologically visible burial rite at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age has puzzled archaeologists for some years yet has never formed a specific focus of research. This paper aims to look at the problem in detail for the first time. A corpus has been compiled listing sites from which human remains dating to this period have been recovered. The contexts in which these remains are found are documented and discussed; these include, for example, finds from settlements, hoards, and wet places. It is argued that many of the sites do not represent the residues of ‘normal’ mortuary rituals but may instead result from other ritual practices or from refuse disposal activities. It is concluded from contextual patterning in the data that human remains were used in situations where concepts of liminality, identity, continuity, and renewal needed to be highlighted. The potential of human remains for symbolising these themes was drawn upon in activities during which concerns central to Late Bronze Age communities were confronted. The nature of these concerns is discussed in relation to wider developments that occur over the Late Bronze Age. It is argued that the ways in which human remains were deposited were intimately related to the development of new discourses within society as the basis of socio-political power changed from practices surrounding the consumption and exchange of bronze to the control of agricultural production and human and agricultural fertility. The symbolic themes dealt with during the deposition of human remains in specific locations relate to these changing concerns and allowed individuals to situate themselves within a changing society and to negotiate their relationships with others.

This paper considers some of the relationships between people and things. It develops a broadly-based model of the later life-histories of prehistoric stone axes in the south-central Mediterranean region, taking account of their production, circulation, and consumption, and their cumulative transformation by physical and conceptual processes, of which the latter may have included personification, sacralisation, and animation. Attention is focused upon the value, meanings, and uses of axe-pendants, and intepretations are placed within a dynamic historical and political context of changing social practices and strategies in central and southern Italy, Sicily Malta, and Sardinia.

As part of the research of the joint Anglo-Maltese project on the island of Gozo, a Zebbug period rock-cut tomb was discovered in the south-east corner of the Brochtorff Circle. The integrity of this tomb and the interdisciplinary approach applied to its study make it a unique find from the Maltese islands and rare within the southern central Mediterranean.

The article presents the stratigraphy, pottery, stone, shell and bone artefacts, skeletal remains, animal bone, molluscan samples, and radiocarbon dates from the tomb. At the same time the significance of the tomb for the formative phases of collective burial, exchange and symbolic processes in the central Mediterranean and the origins of Maltese insularity is explained.

This paper discusses the relationship between the earlier prehistoric pattern of settlement in Atlantic Europe and the creation of rock art. It investigates the organisation of the Copper Age and Early Bronze Age landscape of north-west Spain using the evidence provided by the distribution, siting, and composition of rock carvings. It presents the results of field survey in three sample areas extending from the centre to the outer edge of their distribution. Although these drawings cannot be interpreted as illustrations of daily life, they may have helped to define rights to particular resources in an area which experienced abrupt changes of ground conditions over the course of the year.

For well over a decade archaeological theory has been discussed in terms of a number of problematic yet familiar dichotomies. Prominent examples would include the distinction between processualist (scientific) and postprocessualist (post-modernist) thinking, and its concomitant distinctions of biology versus culture, Positivism versus Relativism, and Realism versus Idealism. This paper outlines a novel framework (Cultural Virus Theory) which crosscuts these familiar dichotomies, while also suggesting new explanatory possibilities. Recent convergent trends in archaeological theory are summarised. Some of the basic principles of the theory are defined. It is argued that ideas, rituals, and artefact production systems are culturally reproduced life-forms (‘viral phenomena’ or ‘living artefacts’); that people are therefore biocultural ecosystems of more than one lifeform (‘personal ecosystems’); and that the internal constituent life-forms of personal ecosystems may be found in both symbiotic, and parasitic or predatory relationships, just as are those of larger ecosystems. Human actions, therefore, cannot be approached as if they constitute the behaviour of a single united organism; as ecosystems, people are often subject to internal adaptive conflict and are, in short, ‘biocultural schizophrenics’. Lastly, the anatomy of the synthesis is briefly discussed with reference to first post-processual, and then processual approaches to the familiar ‘megalith icon’ of monuments and their associated rituals — termed ‘megalithic religions’ for convenience — in Neolithic north-west Europe.

Vessey Ponds are a pair of irregularly-shaped hollows high on the Chalk Wolds of East Yorkshire at about 220 m OD (Fig. 1). Recent fieldwalking recovered a large flint scatter in the vicinity of these hollows. Mesolithic activity was represented by worked flint displaying soft hammer technology whereas hard hammer technologies indicate Neolithic and Bronze Age tool production and usage. The presence of large numbers of cores and a vast quantity of industrial waste indicates on-site preparation of tools. Statistical analysis of the fieldwalking data implies that the flints are concentrated around the hollows. Auger sampling across the ponds revealed natural clay deposits that still hold water close to the pond surface. Consideration of exploitation of mineral resources on the Wold top and possible mechanisms of formation of Vessey Ponds highlights the complex effects of glacial activities on the local surface geology. Karstic origins for some features of surface geology are suggested. The nature of the ‘prehistoric’ economies represented by the flint scatter is considered along with ethnoarchaeological evidence to support the assumption that the ponds at Vessey were a potential water supply during the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages. Evidence from Vessey Ponds and elsewhere in Yorkshire implies an association between areas of ‘prehistoric’ activity and the availability of surface water. Above all else, this work highlights the impact of water supply on settlement pattern and land use on the Chalk of the Yorkshire Wolds.

This paper examines the evidence for specialist artefact production during the later Neolithic on the Yorkshire Wolds. It is proposed that such an industry was responsible for the production of some of the highly distinctive lithic artefacts present in that period, such as polished discoidal knives, ripple-flaked and polished oblique arrowheads, and polished flint axes. It is suggested that much of the value attached to these items derived from the highly organised but restricted nature of their production. Two sites on the Wolds were fieldwalked and the finds subjected to both technological and spatial analysis. Results indicate that an industry exercising a higher level of skill existed alongside more everyday knapping activities. This industry was divided into two phases, consisting of the roughing out of flint nodules at the stone source and the completion of the specialised artefacts in spatially restricted workshops within settlements.

Fieldwork by the Dyfed Archaeological Trust during 1989–92 has identified clear evidence for the manufacture of stone axeheads at two locations on the eastern flanks of the Preseli Mountains, Dyfed: at Glyn-y-Fran, Llanfyrnach (SN 186 307) and near Glandy Cross (SN 143 266). At both sites, small quantities of lithic debris were collected from field surfaces after cultivation; unfortunately, no contemporaneous features were found by subsequent, very limited, trial trenching. In this report we describe the fieldwork at these two sites, and the resulting lithic collection, concluding that the latter represents evidence for small-scale and opportunistic exploitation of locally abundant erratics during the Neolithic. The Glandy Cross area was later a focus for the construction of ritual monuments during the Bronze Age, and there is also some evidence for continuing activity at Glyn-y-Fran at this time.

Petrological thin section analysis of some of the artefacts is reported and demonstrates a probable identity with petrological Group VIII; geochemical analysis of some of the same artefacts places the likely geological origin of these at local igneous exposures also in the Preselis. These conclusions are reviewed in the light of current discussion on the usage and origins of raw materials in later prehistory.

Since the discovery of Neolithic flaking debris around Great Langdale almost 50 years ago, a number of surveys and excavations have taken place in the heart of the Lake District. These have shown that the outcrop of Seathwaite Tuff was the most productive source for stone axes in Britain. People were procuring the raw material from the outcrop in a number of locations, notably the Langdale Pikes, Scafell Pike, and Glaramara (Claris & Quartermaine 1989; Bradley & Edmonds 1993).

The creation and dissemination of the majority of Cumbrian stone axes can be divided into four processes: i) procurement of the raw material from the outcrop; ii) shaping of the stone into axes; iii) movement of the roughouts to the lowlands for polishing; and iv) movement of the axes across Britain until their eventual deposition. While it is valid to examine all aspects of this phenomenon, it is apparent that investigating the processes employed at the source may provide some of the most revealing information.