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E-book The Development of Neolithic House Societies in Orkney

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Penilaian

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Orkney is an archipelago that lies off the rugged northeastern coast of Caithness in northern Scotland (Fig. 1.1). It is separated from the Scottish mainland by the volatile Pentland Firth, one of the roughest and unpredictable stretches of water in the world. On calm summer days the southern isles of Orkney appear colourful, tranquil and easily accessible across glassy waters when viewed from Caithness. However, even in these conditions this imagery is deceptive as treacherous currents are always present in the Pentland Firth. On stormy days Orkney becomes obscured and the Firth becomes a maelstrom of enormous seas. Deceptively reachable, and yet clearly defined as another world, this is the view of Orkney today, and as it would have appeared over five thousand years ago when viewed from the steep cliffs of the Scottish mainland (Fig. 1.2). Although of similar geology, the topography of Orkney appears very different from that of Caithness. From the dominant hills of northern Hoy (Fig. 1.3), to the stepped terraces of Rousay, to the rolling hill-slopes of western Mainland, the Old Red Sandstone flagstone series creates a varied but ‘subdued topography’ (Mykura 1976, 1). Unlike Shetland or the Outer Hebrides, stone does not obviously appear to be a dominant component of the Orcadian terrain. Yet, before the 2nd millennium cal bc formation of peat (Davidson and R. L. Jones 1985, 28), dramatic cliff sections, projecting flagstone beds along the shore, and outcropping rock on the upper hill terraces would have together constituted highly visible constituents of landscape. The browns, yellows and reds of the different strata give the rock a warm and rich colouring, but on closer inspection it is the unusual laminate character of the flagstone that makes it so distinctive. At different scales it is this quality that gives rise to the stepped appearance of the towering cliffs of Orkney (Fig. 1.4) and provides all the features of an excellent building material with variable strata thickness and geometric secondary jointing. Of course, it is these qualities that were exploited in Orcadian prehistory to create architecture that in many cases has endured.Today, the archipelago (Fig. 1.5) can be described as a place of sea and sky, where open vistas are produced by expansive treeless landscapes, weakly punctuated by ridges, hills and lochs. The ‘smooth contours clothed by green pasture or peat’ (Ritchie 1995, 14) could easily describe the open landscapes of the majority of islands, and it is this picture of Orkney that colours the popular imagination. Because of the seemingly timeless qualities of the islands it is easy to project this image back into the past, for instance, it had been assumed that from the early Neolithic the vegetation had been reduced to ‘scrub woodland cover’ (Sharples 1992, 325), which in turn ‘began to be replaced by more open vegetation about 3500 bc’ (Davidson and R. L. Jones 1985, 25). This situation was lamented by R. L. Jones because ‘if early man [sic] in Orkney adapted to a shrubland environment, as seems almost certainly to be the case on the basis of available palynological evidence, clearance phases...characteristic of neolithic peoples operating in forested conditions will not be found in the pollen spectra’ (1979, 21). Indeed, it is this narrative of scant woodland cover being removed by early agricultural clearance in the middle of the 4th millennium cal bc that has been identified by Farrell et al. (2014) as the dominant discursive framework for interpreting vegetation cover at the beginning of the Neolithic.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

930.14 RIC t

Penerbit

London : Oxbow Books., 2021

Deskripsi Fisik

593 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9781909686908

Klasifikasi

930.14

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

Neolithic Age, New Stone Age

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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