Rock-art - the ancient images which still scatter the rocky landscapes of Europe - is a singular kind of archaeological evidence. Fixed in place, it does not move about as artefacts as trade objects do. Enigmatic in its meaning, it uniquely offers a direct record of how prehistoric Europeans saw and envisioned their own worlds. This book provides a number of case studies, covering a range of European locations including Ireland, Italy, Scandinavia, Scotland and Spain, which collectively address the chronology and geography of rock-art as well as providing a series of methodologies for future...

Rock-art - the ancient images which still scatter the rocky landscapes of Europe - is a singular kind of archaeological evidence. Fixed in place, it does not move about as artefacts as trade objects do. Enigmatic in its meaning, it uniquely offers a direct record of how prehistoric Europeans saw and envisioned their own worlds.
European Landscapes of Rock-Art provides a number of case studies, covering arange of European locations including Ireland, Italy, Scandinavia, Scotland and Spain, which collectively address the chronology and geography of rock-art as well as providing an...

The Archaeology of Semiotics and the social order of things is edited by George Nash and George Children and brings together 15 thought-provoking chapters from contributors around the world. A sequel to an earlier volume published in 1997, it tackles the problem of understanding how complex communities interact with landscape and shows how the rules concerning landscape constitute a recognised and readable grammar. The mechanisms underlying landscape grammar are both physical and mental, being based in part on the mindset of the individual; the same landscape can thus evoke different meanings...

It seems that, over recent years, the term landscape has received much discussion, albeit based on the mechanics of landscape. What has been omitted is the construction of landscape in terms of aesthetics, knowledge, emotion, interpretation and application. Although landscape is 'there', we control the imagination and cognitive construction of it. Fundamentally, landscape can be defined as a series of 'spaces' that become 'places', and, within this volume (the product of a number of conference sessions run between 1997-99 by the Theoretical Archaeology Group), 17 contributors re-address the...

The present book explores the complexity of the past, by analysing the relationships between place, territory, the material value of objects and landscapes, time and ritual, during archaeological investigations. It presents the archaeology of place as a series of interconnecting and interactive relationships. It is clear that things and places do not emerge without some form of agency, usually through the concept of material manipulation, coupled with elaboration, innovation and time. Depending on the raw material used and the process of manipulation and its relationship with the environment,...