Product Description
Prehistoric barrows were not only monuments to the dead but mounds for the living—making out land, defining pathways, acting as powerful symbols, and forming a major part of perceived landscapes which welded nature and human history together. Concentrating on the long and round barrows of Neolithic and Bronze Age date, but also covering Iron Age square barrows, Ann Woodward employs accounts of many excavations and field projects, as well as her own research, to provide one person's view of how barrows fit into British prehistory.
From the Back Cover
Barrows are the most numerous, enduring and evocative monuments to survive from prehistoric Britain. Many were built above or around the graves of people and then were altered or enlarged over the years. They were monuments to the dead and home of the ancestors, but also mounds for the living. They marked out land, defined pathways, acted as powerful symbols, and formed a major part of perceived landscapes which welded nature and human history together.
The only reason we know anything about barrows is because people of the present, and of the recent historic past, have been interested in them. They have looked at barrows, drawn and photographed them, described and excavated them. Concentrating on the long and round barrows of Neolithic and Bronze Age date, but also covering Iron Age square barrows, Ann Woodward employs accounts of many excavations and field projects, as well as her own research, to provide one person's view of how barrows fit into British prehistory.
The two themes that run through her book are first the complexity and variety of barrow structure and cemeteries, and secondly the importance of context - how objects were placed in graves, how mounds relate to other barrows and how barrows formed part of the wider landscape. It is a study which will delight and enthuse the amateur archaeologist, just as it will satisfy the demands of the student and the interests of fellow academics.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
