Details
Winner, Current Archaeology Book of the Year 2023!
This volume brings together several years of work devoted to the wider landscape of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site. It documents the results of a programme of geophysical and related survey across an area of c. 285 hectares between Skara Brae on the west Orkney coast and Maeshowe, by the Loch of Stenness. The project has made it possible to talk for the first time about the landscape context of some of the most remarkable and renowned prehistoric monuments in Western Europe.
The aims are to synthesise the data from different forms of survey and to document the changing character and development of this landscape over time. The results are genuinely remarkable are presented in a manner which makes the material of interest and value to a relatively wide readership, with an array of images which fully document and interpret the evidence.
Survey work at a landscape scale tends to deal with palimpsests. Here descriptive sections are set within a thematic structure designed to explore the changing use and significance of different areas over time. The results shed important new light on the character and extent of known prehistoric sites and ceremonial monuments. But they also document the afterlives of these and other places and their relation to the lived landscapes of the historic and more recent past. In tracing the changing configuration of the World Heritage Area, we can begin appreciate this landscape as an artefact of several millennia of dwelling, working land, attending to wider worlds and to the past itself.
Read the full Current Archaeology Book of the Year 2023 review at
href="https://the-past.com/review/books/revealed-geophysical-survey-in-the-heart-of-neolithic-orkney-world-heritage-area/">https://the-past.com/review/books/revealed-geophysical-survey-in-the-heart-of-neolithic-orkney-world-heritage-area/
This volume brings together several years of work devoted to the wider landscape of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site. It documents the results of a programme of geophysical and related survey across an area of c. 285 hectares between Skara Brae on the west Orkney coast and Maeshowe, by the Loch of Stenness. The project has made it possible to talk for the first time about the landscape context of some of the most remarkable and renowned prehistoric monuments in Western Europe.
The aims are to synthesise the data from different forms of survey and to document the changing character and development of this landscape over time. The results are genuinely remarkable are presented in a manner which makes the material of interest and value to a relatively wide readership, with an array of images which fully document and interpret the evidence.
Survey work at a landscape scale tends to deal with palimpsests. Here descriptive sections are set within a thematic structure designed to explore the changing use and significance of different areas over time. The results shed important new light on the character and extent of known prehistoric sites and ceremonial monuments. But they also document the afterlives of these and other places and their relation to the lived landscapes of the historic and more recent past. In tracing the changing configuration of the World Heritage Area, we can begin appreciate this landscape as an artefact of several millennia of dwelling, working land, attending to wider worlds and to the past itself.
Read the full Current Archaeology Book of the Year 2023 review at
href="https://the-past.com/review/books/revealed-geophysical-survey-in-the-heart-of-neolithic-orkney-world-heritage-area/">https://the-past.com/review/books/revealed-geophysical-survey-in-the-heart-of-neolithic-orkney-world-heritage-area/
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER 1: SCENES AND SETTINGS
CHAPTER 2: APPROACHING THE LANDSCAPE
CHAPTER 3: BAY OF SKAILL
CHAPTER 4: NORTH OF BOOKAN
CHAPTER 5: BOOKAN TO BRODGAR
CHAPTER 6: STENNESS TO MAESHOWE
CHAPTER 7: TAPESTRIES AND THREADS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX
A1.1 Field-survey Methodology1.1.1 Gradiometer Surve1.1.2 Earth Resistance Survey1.1.3 Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey1.1.4 Electrical Imaging Tomography (ERT)A1.2 Data Processing1.2.1 Gradiometer Data1.2.2 Earth Resistance Data1.2.3 ERTA1.3 Data Display1.3.1 Gradiometer Survey1.3.2 Earth Resistance Survey
1.3.3 GPR Survey
Reviews & Quotes
"This lavishly illustrated book gets to the heart of what a total Neolithic landscape is, exposing through various non-intrusive surveys, through targeted excavation, and thoughtful synthesis the complexities of later prehistoric island life. Supported by excellent mapping, geophysics plans, and atmospheric photography, this book makes an important statement on the way non-intrusive methods should be employed in one of Europe’s most archaeologically sensitive areas."
Amy Brunskill
Current Archaeology
