The idea of order : the circular archetype in prehistoric Europe / Richard Bradley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bradley, Richard, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Antiquities, Prehistoric--Europe.

Antiquities, Prehistoric.

Round buildings.

Europe.

Round buildings--Europe.

Earthworks (Archaeology).

Europe--History--To 476.

History.

Physical Description:

xv, 242 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2012.

Summary:

Richard Bradley investigates the idea of circular buildings-whether houses or public architecture-which, though unfamiliar in the modern West, were a feature of many parts of prehistoric Europe. Why did so many people build circular monuments? Why did they choose to live in circular houses, when other communities rejected them? Why was it that those who preferred to inhabit a world of rectangular dwellings often buried their dead in round mounds and worshipped their gods in circular temples? Why did people who lived in roundhouses decorate their pottery and metalwork with rectilinear motifs, and why was it that the inhabitants of longhouses placed so much emphasis on curvilinear designs?

Although their distinctive character has engaged the interest of alternative archaeologists, the significance of circular structures has rarely been discussed in a rigorous manner. The Idea of Order uses archaeological evidence, combined with insights from anthropology, to investigate the creation, use, and ultimate demise of circular architecture in prehistoric Europe. Concerned mainly with the prehistoric period from the origins of farming to the early first millennium AD, but extending to the medieval period, the volume considers the role of circular features from Turkey to the Iberian Peninsula and from Sardinia through Central Europe to Sweden. It places emphasis on the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic coastline, where circular dwellings were particularly important, and discusses the significance of prehistoric enclosures, fortifications, and burial mounds in regions where longhouses structures were dominant. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I Times and Spaces

1 The Circular Ruins 3

The middle land 3

A circular archetype? 7

The distribution of circular architecture in prehistoric Europe 10

The organization of space and the adoption of farming 10

An accommodation between circular and rectilinear forms 13

Identities, exchange, and the persistence of circular architecture 17

Circular monuments and rectangular dwellings 19

The organization of the argument 20

The four parts of the book 20

The individual chapters 20

The circular ruins 24

2 Conceptions and Perceptions 25

Two ways of looking at houses 25

Functional considerations in the study of houses 27

Some caveats 32

Symbolic considerations in the study of houses 33

Modelling the cosmos 36

Perceptions and preconceptions 39

Summary: three relationships 41

Another caveat 43

3 Life and Art 46

Introduction: unearthing ancient art 46

Cultural geometry 48

Symbols in action 49

The Nuba 50

The Nankani 51

Patterning in prehistory 52

The Linear Pottery Culture 53

Grooved Ware and megalithic art 53

Bell Beaker artefacts, settlements, and monuments in the British Isles 56

Bronze Age settlements, pottery, and metalwork in Northern Europe 57

Art styles and the domestic architecture of the European Iron Age 59

The 'ultimate La Téne' in Ireland 62

Ideas of order 64

Sacred and secular 65

Female and male 67

Conclusion 68

Part II Circular Structures in a Circular World

4 Houses into Tombs 71

Aillevans and Sant' Andrea Priu 71

The deaths of houses 74

Circular tombs, rectangular tombs 76

The connection between houses and tombs 79

Circular houses and circular monuments 79

Rectangular houses and rectangular monuments 81

Insights from ethnography 84

Chronological relationships between circular and rectilinear tombs 86

The cemetery at Bougon 88

Summary and conclusions 89

5 Turning to Stone 93

Stone and wood 93

Statues and standing stones 95

Stone circles and stone alignments 98

Stone circles and passage graves 102

Stone circles and henge monuments 107

Summary 112

6 The Enormous Room 115

Sea and Sardinia 115

The growth of towers 115

The language of size 120

The round earth 125

Circles, ringworks, and royal centres 125

Neolithic monuments 126

Late Bronze Age and Iron Age monuments 130

Uisneach again 135

Part III Circular Structures in a Rectilinear World

7 Significant Forms 139

Tells, roundels, and fiat settlements 139

Barrows, sanctuaries, and shrines 146

Ismantorp and Eketorp 151

An overview 156

Coda 159

8 The Attraction of Opposites 161

Thorny Down and De Bogen 161

Stora Kalvö 164

Mortuary houses and cult houses 167

Mortuary houses and domestic dwellings 169

Juxtaposition, succession, and belief 169

Degrees of separation 173

Chronological patterns 175

Round barrows and roundhouses in the Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland 177

Barrows and houses in Northern Europe: a speculative model 180

9 The New Order 184

Observations in Africa 184

From huts to houses 186

Roundhouses in Britannia 189

Two examples 192

Silchester 192

Piercebridge 194

The end of an archetype: the Castro Culture in Portugal and Spain 195

The end of an archetype: Early Medieval Ireland 199

Part IV Summing Up

10 From Centre to Circumference 207

Dialogues between designs 207

Histories of the circle 209

Geographies of the circle 213

Epilogue: the view from Loughcrew 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [219]-238) and index.

ISBN:

9780199608096

0199608091

OCLC:

802293736