Chris Scarre

• Durham University

Many of the most significant archaeological sites in Europe were excavated by antiquarians over one hundred years ago. Modern museum collections therefore frequently contain human remains that were recovered during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Here we apply multi-isotope analysis (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, δ¹⁸O, δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) and ¹⁴C dating to eval...

Version anglaise en OPEN ACCESS https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803273204

Megaliths of the World brings together the latest research on megalithic monuments throughout the world. Many of these sites are well known, others less familiar, yet equally deserving of close attention. Megalithic monuments in different regions of the world are far from being a single unified phenomenon, having varied chronologies, and diverse or...

The World of Stonehenge is the latest in a series of impressive exhibitions at the British Museum devoted to European prehistory: a worthy successor to Ice Age Art in 2012 and Celts: art and identity in 2015. Like them, it has already attracted significant public attention, with a raft of positive reviews in the press. Indeed, given the quality and...

The Dolmen of Pedras Grandes (Odivelas, Lisboa, Portugal) was discovered and excavated at the end of the 19th century by Carlos Ribeiro. In 2004, this monument was re-excavated by Rui Boaventura and a complete study was conducted. The Dolmen of Pedras Grandes presents a polygonal chamber and a very short passage and may have had a short period of b...

Link : https://www.sidestone.com/books/megalithismes-et-monumentalismes-funeraires Depuis vingt ans, le tumulus C de la nécropole de Péré à Prissé-la-Charrière (Deux-Sèvres) fait l’objet de travaux archéologiques menés par une équipe internationale. Cet article en est un bilan. Tout d’abord, la taille imposante des architectures mégalithiques n’es...

Activity patterns at large prehistoric sites are often difficult to interpret, as they frequently combine productive, domestic and funerary components. Valencina, the largest of the Copper Age mega-sites in Iberia, has proved particularly challenging in this regard. Macrolithic tool assemblages have been generally neglected in these debates but can...

Isotope ratios of tooth enamel from ten Early Neolithic individuals buried in a long cairn at Whitwell in central England were measured to determine where they sourced their childhood diet. Five individuals have low Sr concentrations (11-66 ppm) and high 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios (0.7164-0.7212). Three individuals have relatively low 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios...

Starting from 12,000 years ago in the Middle East, the Neolithic lifestyle spread across Europe via separate continental and Mediterranean routes. Genomes from early European farmers have shown a clear Near Eastern/Anatolian genetic affinity with limited contribution from hunter-gatherers. However, no genomic data are available from modern-day Fran...

The dolmen of Carrascal (Sintra, Portugal) was discovered at the end of the 19th century. The human bones housed in the Museu dos Serviços Geológicos (Lisbon) were re-analysed in the scope of a research program that is investigating the past lifeways of Late Neolithic populations from the central and southern regions of Portugal. Recent fieldwork u...

Alasdair Whittle. The Times of their Lives: Hunting History in the Archaeology of Neolithic Europe (Oxford & Philadelphia: Oxbow Books, 2018, 253pp., 48 figs, 41 plates, hbk, ISBN 978-1-78570-668-4) - Volume 22 Issue 4 - Chris Scarre

The nature of landscape use and residence patterns during the British earlier Neolithic has often been debated. Here we use strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel, from individuals buried at the Hambledon Hill causewayed enclosure monument complex in Dorset, England to evaluate patterns of landscape use during the earlier Neolithic....

Methodology Aerial and terrestrial, nadir and oblique photography were captured and used for VL1 modelling. In order to capture aerial photographs, a DJI P3P drone with a 12Mpix sensor (2-20m agl.) and equipment with an APS-C sensor of 28Mpix was used to capture terrestrial photography. The photogrammetric processing was performed in the software P...

The Atlantic peninsulas of western Europe present intriguing cultural parallels that reach back into later prehistory. Furthermore, direct evidence of interconnections from the fifth millennium BC is revealed by the movement of specific materials such as Iberian variscite. Brittany and Galicia were key nodes within this potential network of maritim...

Study of the Iberian Copper Age has experienced a remarkable upheaval in the last two decades. The discovery in central and south-western Iberia of a significant number of ditched enclosures, a site type almost unknown in this region until the mid-1990s, has opened up new lines of research. Particularly interesting is the existence of some exceptio...

During the 1980 s, acoustic studies of Upper Palaeolithic imagery in French caves—using the technology then available—suggested a relationship between acoustic response and the location of visual motifs. This paper presents an investigation, using modern acoustic measurement techniques, into such relationships within the caves of La Garma, Las Chim...

Objectives: The nature of land use and mobility during the transition to agriculture has often been debated. Here, we use isotope analysis of tooth enamel from human populations buried in two different Neolithic burial monuments, Penywyrlod and Ty Isaf, in south-east Wales, to examine patterns of land use and to evaluate where individuals obtained...

Most people think of Maya civilisation, if they do at all, while on vacation. A daytrip from a beach takes them to ruins nearby, crowded with tourists in correct holiday gear. In the recent past, others might have grown anxious about the portentous significance of the year 2012. Maya glyphs, so the hucksters affirmed, predicted a cascade of dire ev...

Development of agriculture is often assumed to be accompanied by a decline in residential mobility, and sedentism is frequently proposed to provide the basis for economic intensification, population growth and increasing social complexity. In Britain, however, the nature of the agricultural transition (ca 4000 BC) and its effect on residence patter...

Actes du colloque international de Rennes, IVth Meeting of the European Megalithic Studies Group, mai 2012

Book reviews - Robin Guillaume . L'architecture des signes: l'art pariétal des tombeaux néolithiques autour de la mer d'Irlande. 364 pages, 202 illustrations, 11 tables. 2009. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes; 978-2-7535-0961-0 paperback €27. - Volume 84 Issue 326 - Chris Scarre

Cunliffe Barry . Facing the ocean: the Atlantic and its peoples 8000 BC-AD 1500. viii + 600 pages, 346 figures. 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 0-19-924019-1 hardback £ 25 & $ 40. - Volume 75 Issue 289 - Chris Scarre

Bakker Jan Albert . Megalithic research in the Netherlands, 1547–1911: from ‘Giant's beds’ and ‘Pillars of Hercules’ to accurate investigations. viii+318 pages, 67 illustrations. 2010. Leiden: Sidestone; 978-90-8890-034-1 paperback £26. - Volume 85 Issue 329 - Chris Scarre

Book Reviews - Salanova Laure . Laquestion du Campani-forme en France et dans les iles anglo-normandes: productions, chronologie et rolesd’un standard ceramique. 392 pages, 289 figures, maps, tables. 2000. Paris: CTHS/Societe Prehistorique Francaiase; 2-7355-0443-3 paperback F300 & €45.74. - Volume 75 Issue 288 - CHRIS SCARRE

There can be few “bigger” questions than the nature and development of human experience and self-awareness and few better ways to study it than through the changing treatment of the dead over time. Funded by the John Templeton Foundation, the ‘Invisible Dead’ project (Durham University) is exploring diachronic changes in mortuary practices across t...

Lewis-Williams David & Pearce David . Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of Gods. 320 pages, 75 illustrations, 29 colour plates. 2005: London: Thames & Hudson; 0-500-05138-0 hardback £18.95. - Volume 81 Issue 311 - Chris Scarre

If you are reading this instalment of NBC while eating a sandwich at your keyboard, you may conclude that we have lost touch with the ways in which people produced and consumed food in the past. The books under review here—on palaeoethnobotany and feasting—might encourage you to enjoy tomorrow's lunch in the more convivial atmosphere of the common...

Provision for visiting Stonehenge was radically reorganised in 2013. Why was it so difficult to achieve? Will the new scheme work? Here we present a multi-part review of the new arrangements. Christopher Chippindale is a former editor of Antiquity and author of Stonehenge complete , which recounts the changing fortunes of the monument down the ages...

Recent research has led to a re-evaluation of the defensive role formerly assigned to the Late Neolithic enclosures of western France. Excavation of the distinctive pince de crabe entrances which are a feature of many of these enclosures has suggested that these were not single but multi-phase structures, with a purpose which must have been monumen...

The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of sands and palaeosol horizons, sampled as part of an archaeological investigation and supported by geomorphological analysis, has been applied to identify critical stages in the development of the landscape on Herm, one of the Channel Islands that lies off the coast of Guernsey, on which megalith...

It is, with a few exceptions, only in very recent years and with works such as that by Guilaine and his colleagues on the Abri Jean-Cros (Guilaine et al. 1979) that the site locational and ecological approaches have made their appearance in the French archaeological literature. Studies of this type are still not common, despite the richness of cert...

The ancestry of the long mound has long been a key focus in debates on the origins of monumental and megalithic architectures in western France. Typological schemes and absolute dates have alike been invoked in support of different models of monument development, but with limited success. Recent excavations at Prissé-la-Charrière, a 100-metre long...

The small Channel Island of Herm combines several distinct habitats ranging from steep rocky coasts and a rolling upland plateau in the south to a dune-fringed sandy lowland in the north. Where upland and lowland meet, a line of megalithic tombs constitutes the island's most striking archaeological feature. Four seasons of fieldwork (2008-2011) hav...