Signifying Place and Space: World Perspectives of Rock Art and Landscape (British Archaeological Reports (BAR) International, 902)

vii, 171 pages : illustrations, maps ; 30 cm. It seems that, over recent years, the term landscape has received much discussion, albeit based on the mechanics of landscape. What has been omitted is the construction of landscape in terms of aesthetics, knowledge, emotion, interpretation and application. Although landscape is there, we control the imagination and cognitive construction of it. Fundamentally, landscape can be defined as a series of spaces that become places, and, within this volume (the product of a number of conference sessions run between 1997-99 by the Theoretical Archaeology Group), 17 contributors re-address the importance of space/place and suggest both may be considered as part of an archaeological assemblage. Some chapters also attempt to place rock art into a narrative, placing its historical value into a prehistoric context.