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The Marlborough Mound has recently been recognised as one of the
most important monuments in the group around Stonehenge. It was
also a medieval castle and a feature in a major 17th century
garden. This is the first comprehensive history of this
extraordinary site. Marlborough Mound, standing among the buildings
of Marlborough College, has attracted little attention until
recently. Records showed it to be the motte of a Norman castle, of
which there were no visible remains. The local historians and
archaeologists who had investigated it had found very little in the
way of archaeological evidence beyond a few prehistoric antler
picks, the odd Roman coin, and a scatter of medieval pottery. It
was to be archaeology which provided the most dramatic discovery
after the Mound Trust began to restore the mound in 2003. English
Heritage were investigating Silbury Hill, and arranged to take
cores from the Mound for dating purposes. The results were
remarkable, as they showed that the Mound was almost a twin of
Silbury Hill and therefore belonged to the extraordinary assembly
of prehistoric monuments centred on Stonehenge. For the medieval
period, this book brings together for the first time all that we
know about the castle from the royal records and from chronicles.
These show that it was for a time one of the major royal castles in
the land. Most of the English kings from William I to Edward III
spent time here. For Henry III and his queen Eleanor of Provence,
it was their favourite castle after Windsor. It marks the end of
the first stage of the work of the Mound Trust, which, following
the restoration, turns to its second objective of promoting public
knowledge of the Mound based on scholarly research. As to its final
form as a garden mound next to the house of the dukes of Somerset,
in the eighteenth century, this emerges from letters and even
poems, and from the recent restoration. Much of this has been slow
and painstaking work, however, involving the removal of the trees
which endangered the structure of the Mound, the recutting of the
spiral path and the careful replanting of the whole area with
suitable vegetation. By doing this, the shape of the Mound as a
garden feature has re-emerged, and can now be seen clearly. This
book marks the end of the first stage of the work of the Mound
Trust, which, following the restoration, turns to its second
objective of promoting public knowledge of the Mound based on
scholarly research.
The new mobilities paradigm has yet to have the same impact on
archaeology as it has in other disciplines in the social sciences -
on geography, sociology and anthropology in particular - yet
mobility is fundamental to archaeology: all people move. Moving
away from archaeology's traditional focus upon place or location,
this volume treats mobility as a central theme in archaeology. The
chapters are wide-ranging and methodological as well as
theoretical, focusing on the flows of people, ideas, objects and
information in the past; they also focus on archaeology's
distinctiveness. Drawing on a wealth of archaeological evidence for
movement, from paths, monuments, rock art and boats, to skeletal
and DNA evidence, Past Mobilities presents research from a range of
examples from around the world to explore the relationship between
archaeology and movement, thus adding an archaeological voice to
the broader mobilities discussion. As such, it will be of interest
not only to archaeologists and historians, but also to
sociologists, geographers and anthropologists.
The new mobilities paradigm has yet to have the same impact on
archaeology as it has in other disciplines in the social sciences -
on geography, sociology and anthropology in particular - yet
mobility is fundamental to archaeology: all people move. Moving
away from archaeology's traditional focus upon place or location,
this volume treats mobility as a central theme in archaeology. The
chapters are wide-ranging and methodological as well as
theoretical, focusing on the flows of people, ideas, objects and
information in the past; they also focus on archaeology's
distinctiveness. Drawing on a wealth of archaeological evidence for
movement, from paths, monuments, rock art and boats, to skeletal
and DNA evidence, Past Mobilities presents research from a range of
examples from around the world to explore the relationship between
archaeology and movement, thus adding an archaeological voice to
the broader mobilities discussion. As such, it will be of interest
not only to archaeologists and historians, but also to
sociologists, geographers and anthropologists.
'Lucid, poetic and fascinating' ALICE ROBERTS 'Engaging,
authoritative and full of fascinating stories of the past' RAY
MEARS 'A gentle, personal and very readable book' JULIA BLACKBURN
AUTHOR OF TIME SONG 'A triumph!' JAMES CANTON, AUTHOR OF THE OAK
PAPERS 'I loved this book' FRANCIS PRYOR On paths, roads, seas, in
the air, and in space - there has never been so much human
movement. In contrast we think of the past as static, 'frozen in
time'. But archaeologists have in fact always found evidence for
humanity's irrepressible restlessness. Now, latest developments in
science and archaeology are transforming this evidence and
overturning how we understand the past movement of humankind. In
this book, archaeologist Jim Leary traces the past 3.5 million
years to reveal how people have always been moving, how travel has
historically been enforced (or prohibited) by people with power,
and how our forebears showed incredible bravery and ingenuity to
journey across continents and oceans. With Leary to show the way,
you'll follow the footsteps of early hunter-gatherers preserved in
mud, and tread ancient trackways hollowed by feet over time.
Passing drovers, wayfarers and pilgrims, you'll see who got to
move, and how people moved. And you'll go on long-distance journeys
and migrations to see how movement has shaped our world.
The chronological disjuncture, LBK longhouses have widely been
considered to provide ancestral influence for both rectangular and
trapezoidal long barrows and cairns, but with the discovery and
excavation of more houses in recent times is it possible to observe
evidence of more contemporary inspiration. What do the features
found beneath long mounds tell us about this and to what extent do
they represent domestic structures. Indeed, how can we distinguish
between domestic houses or halls and those that may have been
constructed for ritual purposes or ended up beneath mounds? Do so
called 'mortuary enclosures' reflect ritual or domestic
architecture and did side ditches always provide material for a
mound or for building construction? This collection of papers seeks
to explore the interface between structures often considered to be
those of the living with those for the dead.
How did small-scale societies in the past experience and respond to
sea-level rise? What happened when their dwellings, hunting grounds
and ancestral lands were lost under an advancing tide? This book
asks these questions in relation to the hunter-gatherer inhabitants
of a lost prehistoric land; a land that became entirely inundated
and now lies beneath the North Sea. It seeks to understand how
these people viewed and responded to their changing environment,
suggesting that people were not struggling against nature, but
simply getting on with life - with all its trials and hardships,
satisfactions and pleasures, and with a multitude of choices
available. At the same time, this loss of land - the loss of places
and familiar locales where myths were created and identities formed
- would have profoundly affected people's sense of being. This book
moves beyond the static approach normally applied to environmental
change in the past to capture its nuances. Through this, a richer
and more complex story of past sea-level rise develops; a story
that may just have resonance for us today.
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