George Nash (editor) - Decoding Neolithic Atlantic and Mediterranean Island Ritual

Published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by

OXBOW BOOKS

10 Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford OX1 2EW

and in the United States by

OXBOW BOOKS

1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083

Oxbow Books and the individual authors 2016

Hardcover Edition: IS BN 978-1-78570-050-7

Digital Edition: IS BN 978-1-78570-051-4

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Nash, George, editor of compilation.

Title: Decoding neolithic Atlantic and Mediterranean island ritual/edited by George Nash & Andrew Townsend.

Description: Philadelphia : Oxford Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015041253 (print) | LCCN 2015047759 (ebook) | ISBN 9781785700507 (hardback) | IS BN 9781785700514 (epub) | IS BN 9781785700521 (mobi) | IS BN 9781785700538 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Neolithic periodEurope. | Prehistoric peoplesEuropeRites and ceremonies. | Island archaeologyEurope.

Classification: LCC GN776.2.A1 D43 2016 (print) | LCC GN776.2.A1 (ebook) | DDC 930.1/4094dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041253

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing.

Printed in the United Kingdom by Short Run Press, Exeter

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Front cover image: Diego Meozzi

Back cover image: Diego Meozzi

For Bronislaw Malinowski - an island man throughout

Coastal sailing as long as it is perfectly safe and easy commands no magic. Overseas expeditions are invariably bound up with ceremonies and ritual. Man [humans] resorts to magic only where chance and circumstances are not fully controlled by knowledge .

Bronislaw Malinowski (1931)

P AOLA A ROSIO is a journalist, registered in the Italian Professional Journalists Register since June 1986. Paola has worked as assistant editor, associate editor and senior editor for a number of magazines that deal with science, nature and travel. She has also worked in the press office of the World Wide Foundation for Nature in Milan, and also as a translator and page layout artist on a series of books on nature, tourism and walks for several Italian publishers. Since 1996 Paola has been involved in social media, writing for online magazines. She, along with Diego Mezzi established Stone Pages , the first online guide concerned with the ancient stone monuments of Europe. In 1998 she created along with Diego Meozzi Ancient Stones of Scotland , a CD-ROM and website for SCRAN (Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network). In 2002 she founded with her husband Diego Cartabianca Publishing snc , a company producing CD-ROMs, interactive kiosks, websites and e-books.

N ICHOLAS B RANCH is an Associate Professor in Palaeoecology, and Head of Geography and Environmental Science, at the University of Reading, UK. Dr Branchs research and teaching focuses on aspects of Late Quaternary environmental and climate change, and human modification of the natural environment, with a specific emphasis on Mediterranean Europe, South America and the UK.

P AUL -D AVID D RISCOLL is Archaeology and Historic Environment Record Officer at South Gloucestershire Council and Tutor in Archaeology at the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, where he acts as course director and lecturer on the part-time degree. Paul specialises in the archaeology of the Channel Islands, with a particular focus on their prehistory, and in heritage management and conservation.

S TAO F ORENBAHER is Research Advisor at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia. He received his PhD from Southern Methodist University, Dallas. His research interests cover Mediterranean prehistory with a focus on the Adriatic, and include the transition to farming, the formation of early elites, the archaeology of caves, and lithic analysis.

R EUBEN G RIMA lectures in Cultural Heritage Management in the Department of Conservation and Built Heritage at the University of Malta. He previously served in various curatorial roles with Maltas Department of Museums and with Heritage Malta, where he was responsible for Maltas prehistoric World Heritage Sites. He received his PhD from the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. His current research interests include the archaeology of landscapes, the history of archaeology, and the engagement of the public with the past.

K EVIN J ELLY BBA (hons) MA, is an independent archaeological researcher and IT Governance consultant based in Amsterdam. Key areas of academic interest are the Mesolithic/Neolithic Atlantic Culture, proto-cultural systems, comparative mythology, Oceania/Pacific tattoo traditions, and proto-to-12th Dynasty Egypt.

T IMOTHY K AISER is Professor of Anthropology at Lakehead University and a Research Associate of the Royal Ontario Museum, both in Canada. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include Adriatic archaeology, the prehistory of Southeast Europe, ceramic analysis, and archaeometry.

C HRISTOPHER J. K ERNS is a current Doctoral candidate at the University of Southampton, but resides in Boulder Colorado, USA. He completed his Master of Arts degree at the University of Manchester and recently was examined for a Master of Philosophy degree at the University of Bristol. His doctoral research is on the Neolithic of Orkney, specifically focusing on the cultural responses and lifeway patterns brought about by the introduction and development of agriculture. In the recent past, Christopher was project director for excavations conducted at the Iron Age site of Reads Cavern. He is currently a field director for SWCA Environmental Consultants in Broomfield Colorado where he oversees archaeological fieldwork for compliance with national heritage laws.

T REVOR K IRK is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of History and Archaeology, University of Chester. He was a Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Wales from 1993 to 2006, before moving to the Isles of Scilly where he was the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) Partnership Manager until 2014. He now lives in Leeds where he is a part-time tutor with the Open University. His research interests include archaeological theory, the politics of interpretation, ritual and funerary archaeology, and Neolithic monumentality.

M ARCOS L LOBERA is a landscape archaeologist and an associate professor at the University of Washington (Seattle, USA). His main areas of interest are the archaeology of western Mediterranean landscapes, computing in archaeology (more specifically the development of archaeological information science), the design of new methods for landscape analysis and the relation between archaeological field methods and theory.

P AULA L UTESCU -J ONES is a Project Manager for AC Archaeology Ltd in Devon, and an independent academic researcher. Within AC Archaeology, Paula is responsible for managing historic environment and settings impact assessments, including desk-based studies and EIA contributions. Paulas research focuses on landscape, death and memory in the EpipalaeolithicAceramic Neolithic of Cyprus and the Levant, human/animal interrelationships, and more broadly on archaeological theory and philosophy. To date her undergraduate teaching has covered subjects such as mortuary practices, European prehistory, landscape archaeology, the body in archaeology, and archaeological theory.