Theme:
4. People of the Present – Peopling the Past
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Beyond Architecture: Neolithic Tomb Builders in Context
Content:
The inspiration for this session comes from the ‘Passage Tomb People’ project (IRC Laureate 2018-2023), currently investigating the social drivers of passage tomb construction in the Irish Sea area in the later Neolithic. The connectedness of these tombs (in terms of iconography, building methods, and material culture) has long been recognised, but to date there has been little targeted research on the societies that built them. Erected several centuries after the arrival of farming in each region, these monuments may be responses to economic stress or, equally, the result of surplus and increasing social competition. In this session we welcome fresh approaches to exploring the societies behind the megalithic architecture of Neolithic Europe, in particular contributions that probe the connections between monument construction and wider changes in social, cultural and technological practice. Did similar factors trigger similar architectural responses in different areas? Papers can draw on a range of methodologies or analytical techniques – from osteology to biomolecular archaeology and material culture studies – but must have ‘people’ at their core and be framed in terms of the communities and social networks that supported these extraordinary feats of engineering, logistics and belief.
Keywords:
Neolithic Europe, Farming, Megalithic, Subsistence, Osteology, Bioarchaeology
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Jessica Smyth (Ireland) 1
Co-organisers:
Jonny Geber (United Kingdom) 2
Lilly Olet (United Kingdom) 3
Affiliations:
1. University College Dublin
2. University of Edinburgh
3. University of Bristol
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