Anyone working on the reuse of prehistoric monumental structures is bound to know of the work of Richard Bradley, FSA. The author is very well known for his influential publications on British prehistory. Indeed, Bradley’s second book, The Prehistoric Settlement of Britain (Reference Bradley1978), helped inspire me to undertake my PhD research during the early 1980s. Bradley writes widely about prehistory, concentrating in particular on the Neolithic and Bronze Age. He has published a series of key works on, among other topics, hoards and the origins of monuments. Bradley’s new book is a sequel, as he notes in the Preface, to his earlier volumes, Altering the Earth: the origins of monuments in Britain and continental Europe (Reference Bradley1993). This new work focuses on monuments and time, allowing Bradley to revisit the topic of ancient architecture and to rethink earlier ideas by incorporating new information.
Bradley’s book provides a highly readable and well-illustrated addition to his earlier studies of monuments, particularly because he can draw upon a wealth of new ideas and materials that address the construction and reuse of such monuments, from the Neolithic to the early medieval period. The influence of Bradley’s earlier work on the afterlives of monuments is evident in the wealth of new case studies that this author is able to draw upon. One example of such high-profile research is Gordon Noble’s excavations at Forteviot (Grampian), which investigated the reuse of a site with Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments during the early medieval period. Bradley dedicated this new volume to Noble to reflect the considerable significance of the new findings in Grampian.
In addition to the Introduction, the volume contains eight chapters that draw directly upon archaeological examples of the construction and afterlives of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments across northern and western Europe. The book is divided into two Parts. Part 1 addresses the construction of monuments from when early farmers came into contact with hunter-gatherers and throughout the Neolithic. Chapter 2 explores whether hunter-gatherers had differing conceptions of time from Neolithic agriculturalists. The following chapter considers that the innovation of constructing Neolithic monuments in stone rather than wood suggests a concern with the idea of the future. Chapter 4 seeks to argue for two groups of Neolithic structures with differing histories. Earlier Neolithic monuments were designed for short periods of use and were often erected as the final stage of activity at a place that went out of use. Other types of monuments with a shared form were the starting point for long development sequences. Chapter 5 addresses the topic of ‘megalithic astronomy’, identifying a transition in Ireland and Britain from tombs aligned on the rising sun to those inclined toward sunset.
Part 2 of the book explores case studies that address how these Neolithic monuments were modified and reused in later ages. Chapter 6 is concerned with how these monuments were often brought back into use in the Bronze Age by additions to the structures or by becoming the focus for burials. Chapter 7 explores the reuse of many earlier monuments when they had become ancient, particularly during the early medieval period, including the advent of Christianity. Chapter 8 extends this analysis by drawing on literary accounts derived from early medieval Britain and Ireland and Classical Greece to shed light on the history of reusing Neolithic monuments, and the final chapter summarises many of the observations in the earlier chapters through an extended case study of the Upper Kennett complex in southern England. Bradley explores how the impressive Neolithic/Bronze Age monuments at West Kennett, Avebury and Silbury Hill have dominated much of the archaeological discussion, which has downplayed the evidence for an extensive Roman-period settlement at the foot of Silbury Hill. This Roman site is known mainly through geophysical survey, but may have included a significant sanctuary. I have long wondered whether Silbury Hill acted as a viewing platform for the henge at Avebury just to the north. There is little Roman activity recorded in and around the henge, and perhaps access was prohibited to all but a few.
Another interesting topic that Bradley does not explore in any detail is the modern construction of Neolithic-style monuments. He does mention a mock-Mycenean tomb constructed by the Baltic Sea during the 1930s (pp 4–5). This leads to a discussion of the management and display of the tombs in the Boyne Valley (Ireland) to the public and how this has simplified and obscured the complex sequence of construction and reuse on this site. Building Neolithic-inspired monuments on new sites is a growing fashion. Decades ago, I started collecting information on modern stone circles, which have continued to proliferate across Britain. There are also indications from a swift search on the internet of a growing fashion for constructing Neolithic-inspired chamber tombs as places to deposit the remains of the dead. Understandably, Bradley’s coverage of the afterlife of Neolithic monuments in his book ends with the medieval period. He does raise a significant point, however, about how these monuments are displayed today.
The book is well-written, clearly illustrated and engaging. My only sight grumble is, like many Oxbow publications, there is no index. This is not so much an issue for those who have access to the ebook, but an index would have helped readers of the printed book to find the examples discussed in Bradley’s excellent narrative.
