Prehistoric Journeys

by Vicki Cummings (Editor), Robert Johnston (Editor)

This collection of thirteen papers focuses on what it meant to be 'on the move' at different times in prehistory. Ideas of journeys and travel are integral to many traditions of interpreting the prehistoric archaeological record. Travel was after all the driving force behind the formation and trans formation of identity. How ironic it is that this feature of prehistory has been so overlooked when the ancient world's 'discovery' in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries occurred primarily as the result of travel. The contributors to this volume see journeys as an integral part of prehistoric life - socially meaningful - which must be understood within their (pre)historic contexts.

Table of Contents

Leaving an introduction to prehistoric journeys ( Vicki Cummings and Robert Johnston )
'Stretched thin, like butter on too much bread…': some thoughts about journeying in the unfamiliar landscapes of late Palaeolithic Southern Scandinavia ( Felix Riede )
On the trail of the Caribou archaeological surveys in Western Greenland ( Ulla Odgaard )
Stone age motion an object's perspective from early prehistoric Ireland ( Thomas Kador )
'It's 17km as the crow flies…': Neolithic journeys seen through the material at either end ( Duncan Garrow )
Megalithic moving around the monumental landscapes of Neolithic western Britain ( Vicki Cummings )
Monumental Neolithic monument complexes and routeways across Scotland ( Gordon Noble )
Ritual journeys and landscapes of the a cognitive mapping approach to the Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts of the Ancient Egyptian afterlife ( Peter Robinson )
Journeying into different travel, pilgrimage and rites of passage at Graig Lwyd ( Bronwen Price )
Short journeys, long distance thinking ( John Roberts )
Journeys through the seascapes of Scilly ( Gary Robinson )
Prehistoric sea journeys and port the south coast and Poole Harbour ( Eileen Wilkes )
Trackways, hooves and memory-days - human and animal movements and memories around the Iron Age and Romano-British rural landscapes of the English north midlands ( Adrian M Chadwick )

152 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2007

Reviews

[Del · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly enjoyable & thought provoking read that helps conceptualise the kind of relationships prehistoric people would have had with the landscapes within which they lived & travelled.