Beyond the Core: Reflections on Regionality in Prehistory

This volume explores the idea of regionally-based archaeology across the British Isles which are not necessarily defined by modern political boundaries or through comparisons with regions such as Wessex and Orkney. In the past these intensively studied areas have often been assumed to represent the 'typical' - other areas with apparently different narratives have generally been labeled 'peripheral' and their diversity and distinctiveness overlooked. Assumptions about these core-based models have been challenged, especially by archaeologists in Ireland and Scotland and to some extent Wales. In England, despite more than two decades of intensive developer-funded archaeological investigation, new regional narratives are only just beginning to emerge. The 12 contributions to the collection - based on a session at the Exeter TAG conference in 2006 - identify distinctive elements of the prehistoric archaeology of a number of discrete areas across the British Isles, from Cornwall to Scotland and southeast England to Ireland. Some also consider how archaeologically coherent regions might be defined and the associated methodological problems in approaching such definitions. Others examine the ways in which 'universal' artefact forms and monument types have been interpreted in different areas, and how different patterns of contact, with the Continent or other regions, may have affected the construction of identities.

Table of Contents

1. Regionality in prehistory: some thoughts from the periphery (Andy M Jones)
2. Borders and belonging: exploring the Neolithic of the Anglo-Welsh borderland (David Mullin)
3. Moving on in landscape studies: goodbye Wessex, hello German Bight? (David Field)
4. Pattern, perception and preconception: recognising regionality in Scottish prehistory (Strat Haliday)
5. Scale and senses of belonging: thinking about regionality in the Neolithic of the Irish sea zone (Vicki Cummings)
6. Social and geographical scale: regionality and the Cumbrian stone circles (Helen Evans)
7. Islandscapes and standing stones: homogeneity and difference (Joanna Wright)
8. The Alien Within: the forgotten sub-cultures of Early Bronze Age Wessex (Andrew Martin)
9. The Botrea barrow group: regional identity in Early Bronze Age Cornwall (Andy M Jones)
10. Into the west: placing Beakers within their Irish contexts (Neil Carlin)
11. Something different at the Land’s End (Graeme Kirkham)
12. Any questions? (Richard Bradley)

Andy M Jones is Principal Archaeologist with the Cornwall Archaeological Unit, Cornwall Council. He has had a long career in development controlled field archaeology with recent emphasis on the Earlier Bronze Age ceremonial monuments and barrow complexes south-west Britain. His research interests include the Neolithic, Bronze Age periods, as well as the archaeology of the uplands and coastal areas of western Britain.