The Megalithic Monuments of Britain & Ireland

From Stonehenge to Newgrange, one of the richest arrays of megalithic monuments in Europe is found in Britain and Ireland. Using massive stone blocks, timber posts and mounds of earth or chalk, the people of these islands built great monuments from the beginning of the Neolithic and the arrival of pottery and farming some 6000 years ago down into the Bronze Age. The number and sheer diversity of these structures is astonishing. Stone circles and chambered tombs, burial mounds and earthwork enclosures, henges and cursus monuments, all belong to the same general category of monumental prehistoric architecture. Tombs, sanctuaries, places of cult and of memory: these Neolithic monuments had numerous functions in prehistoric societies. Transforming the lanscape, such grand structures must have represented for their communities a particular way of responding to changing social and symbolic needs, whether processing the dead, gathering for ceremonies, or embellishing locations that were of sacred significance. Organized by geographical area this authoritative overview is ideal for traveller and student alike.

Author: Christopher Scarre
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Published: 06/01/2007
Pages: 160
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.11lbs
Size: 9.44h x 7.10w x 0.57d
ISBN: 9780500286661

About the Author
Scarre, Christopher: - Chris Scarre is Professor in the Department of Archaeology, University of Durham. He has wide-ranging research interests in the prehistory of western Europe, with a particular interest in the archaeology of the Atlantic facade (Portugal, France, Britain & Ireland), most recently inthe study of patterns of burial evidence in Britain and the Levant from the Neolithic to the Roman period. he is editor of the interrnationally renowned journal Antiquity

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