Overview
Mobility is a fundamental facet of being human and should be central to archaeology. Yet mobility itself and the role it plays in the production of social life, is rarely considered as a subject in its own right. This is particularly so with discussions of the Neolithic people where mobility is often framed as being somewhere between a sedentary existence and nomadic movements. This latest collection of papers from the Neolithic Studies Group seminars examines the importance and complexities of movement and mobility, whether on land or water, in the Neolithic period. It uses movement in its widest sense, ranging from everyday mobilities – the routines and rhythms of daily life – to proscribed mobility, such as movement in and around monuments, and occasional and large-scale movements and migrations around the continent and across seas. Papers are roughly grouped and focus on ‘mobility and the landscape’, ‘monuments and mobility’, ‘travelling by water’, and ‘materials and mobility’. Through these themes the volume considers the movement of people, ideas, animals, objects, and information, and uses a wide range of archaeological evidence from isotope analysis; artefact studies; lithic scatters and assemblage diversity.
Full Product Details
Author: Jim Leary ,
Thomas Kador
Publisher: Oxbow Books
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Volume: 14
Dimensions:
Width: 17.00cm
, Height: 0.80cm
, Length: 24.00cm
Weight: 0.499kg
ISBN: 9781785701764
ISBN 10: 1785701762
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 29 February 2016
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Overall, this is a useful assemblage of papers… It is encouraging to see engagement with different scales and kinds of evidence. * Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society * This is a must-have book and will be essential reading for those interested in physical and ideological movement within Neolithic Europe – something that many scholars have in the past tended to ignore. * Current Archaeology * Whatever your taste, the well produced volume is worth having for the more regionally based review articles. * British Archaeology * The book is the implicit invitation to all historians interested in the movement of people, objects and ideas to change their point of view and embrace this new, interesting and challenging analytical tool. * The Journal of Transport History *
Whatever your taste, the well produced volume is worth having for the more regionally based review articles. -- Rob Ixer British Archaeology This is a must-have book and will be essential reading for those interested in physical and ideological movement within Neolithic Europe - something that many scholars have in the past tended to ignore. -- George Nash Current Archaeology
Ten articles in this Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers, including the editor's introduction, discuss mobility in the neolithic at a variety of levels from the pan-European to within single buildings. All but one of the articles deal with evidence from structures and artefacts found in the British Isles, from the regional siting or patterning of causewayed enclosures and cursuses, the logistics of building Stonehenge (whole oak forests) and thresholds within single Irish passage tombs, to fieldwalking lithic scatters. Many writers stress the use of rivers and the coastal seas as routeways of the neolithic , from St Kilda to the Isle of Sheppey. Some papers are slighter and further from the main topic than most: I wonder if these say more about modern perceptions of how distance should be perceived than perceptively illuminating prehistoric mobility? Whatever your taste, the well produced volume is worth having for the more regionally based review articles. Rob Ixer -- Mike Pitts, Reviews Editor British Archaeology
Author Information
Jim Leary is a lecturer in archaeology at York University and previously held posts at Reading University and English Heritage. He has also published several books and numerous research papers. He is a co-editor of NSG 10 (see above) and also NSG 14 (Moving on in Neolithic Studies: understanding mobile lives).
