Description
Book SynopsisPrehistoric Europe: Theory and Practice provides a comprehensive overview of the wide-ranging contemporary debates in the study of European prehistory. Written to reflect the immense changes in the field, the volume presents essays by some of the most dynamic researchers and leading European scholars in the field today.
Trade Review"Extensive and current bibliographies and illustrations accompany the highly stimulating discussions. [This is] Clearly a volume for colleges and universities with programs in archaeology and anthropology." (
CHOICE, December 2009)
"This edited volume provides a welcome break from the traditional chronological approach to European prehistory. Important disciplinary themes are addressed here in innovative ways by a group of scholars with active field projects as well as impressive publication records."
Bettina Arnold, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee "An impressive compilation of papers which successfully combines novel and theoretical approaches with detailed regional studies. Jones has assembled a galaxy of leading scholars to produce an authoritative overview of key themes and subjects within European prehistory, from the Iron Gates Mesolithic to Iron Age Scandinavia."
Chris Scarre, University of Durham
"Massive amounts of new information exist from all periods of prehistoric Europe and older frameworks of interpretation are increasingly inadequate to the task of making sense of these. Prehistoric Europe brings together a wide range of approaches which show exciting possibilities for novel ways of understanding the past. It is a book to be debated and argued with - I am sure new insights will result."
Chris Gosden, University of Oxford
Table of ContentsList of Figures and Tables vii
Notes on Contributors xi
Preface xv
Introduction 1
Andrew Jones
1 Frameworks for the Analysis of European Prehistory 14
Introduction 14
(a) Hunter-Gatherers to Farmers? 16
Mark Pluciennik
(b) The Celts as ‘Grand Narrative’ 35
John Collis
2 Landscape and Place 54
Introduction 54
(a) From Monuments in Landscape to Landscapes in Monuments: Monuments, Death and Landscape in Early Bronze Age Scandinavia 56
Joakim Goldhahn
(b) Everything in its Right Place? On Selective Deposition, Landscape and the Construction of Identity in Later Prehistory 86
David Fontijn
3 The Living House – Architecture, the Everyday and the Human Lifecycle 107
Introduction 107
(a) First Households and ‘House Societies’ in European Prehistory 109
Dušan Boric´
(b) Domestic Times: Houses and Temporalities in Late Prehistoric Europe 143
Fokke Gerritsen
4 Materiality, Technology and Transformation – The Emergence of Novel
Technologies 162
Introduction 162
(a) The Emergence of Pottery 164
Dragos Gheorghiu
(b) The Emergence of Metalworking 193
Barbara S. Ottaway and Ben Roberts
5 Death, Remembrance and the Past 226
Introduction 226
(a) Engaging Memories of European Prehistory 228
Katina T. Lillios
(b) The Past in Later Prehistory 255
Bryan Hanks
6 Identity, Community, the Body and the Person 285
Introduction 285
(a) Neolithic Bodies 287
Daniela Hofmann and Alasdair Whittle
(b) Bodies and Identities in the Scandinavian Late Iron Age 312
Ing-Marie Back Danielsson
7 Interaction, Trade and Exchange 330
Introduction 330
(a) Approaches to Trade and Exchange in Earlier Prehistory (Late Mesolithic–Early Bronze Age) 333
John Chapman
(b) Trade and Exchange in Later Prehistory 356
Peter Wells
Index 373
