Christopher Evans

Life in the Woods: Tree-throws, 'Settlement' and Forest Cognition

The deposition of Early Neolithic material within tree-throw hollows in described, and the possible role of fallen trunks as places of occupation, settlement foci and landscape markers is discussed. Having implications for the interpretation of ubiquitous later Mesolithic pit dwellings, the evidence suggests a continuity of forest ‘identity’. Accordingly, patterns of clearances are also explored in relationship to modes of occupation, and the employment of ‘big wood’ in Neolithic monuments discussed.

Communicating Climate Knowledge

This forum article is the product of interdisciplinary discussion at a conference on climate histories held in Cambridge, United Kingdom, in early 2011, with the specific aim of building a network around the issue of communicating cultural knowledge of environmental change. The lead articles, by Kirsten Hastrup as an anthropologist and Simon Schaffer as a historian of science, highlight the role of agents and proxies. These are followed by five interdisciplinary commentaries, which engage with the lead articles through new ethnographic material, and a set of shorter commentaries by leading scholars of different disciplines. Finally, the lead authors respond to the discussion. In this debate, climate change does not emerge as a single preformed “problem.” Rather, different climate knowledges appear as products of particular networks and agencies. Just as the identification of proxies creates agents (ice, mountains, informants) by inserting them into new networks, we hope that these cross-disciplinary exchanges will produce further conversations and new approaches to action.

Assembly and Collection – Lithic Complexes in the Cambridgeshire Fenlands

Campaigns of large-scale fieldwalking and in-depth evaluation on later Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age lithic scatters are reported. In a regional context they are remarkable in their scale, density, and resolution, and raise questions concerning the character of early settlement and its corollary in landscape mobility – variously an archaeology of ‘meeting/return’, ‘task’, and ‘trace’.

The Hinxton Rings – A Late Iron Age Cemetery at Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, with a Reconsideration of Northern Aylesford-Swarling distributions.

The excavation of a 1st century BC cremation cemetery having ring-ditch surrounded interments is reported. One of its two richly accompanied burials included an unparalleled drapery-cast stud/knob – an extraordinary object found within a cemetery with uniquely delineated graves. Given its location on the northern fringe of the distribution of Aylesford-Swarling cremation burials, the site prompts questions of core/periphery interrelationships, regionally and group definition.

Wearing environment and making islands: Britain's Bronze Age inland north sea

Abstract Dramatic environmental changes have had an enormous impact on human populations in the past, sometimes expressed through objects that might easily be overlooked. The later prehistory marine inundations within the fenland of East Anglia—and the eventual creation of its islanded marsh-landscape—demanded a social response open to investigation. Did they alter the ways that communities expressed their identity? Did larger communities develop to exploit the new economic potential of things such as salt? Behind these major shifts, smaller signifiers such as shell necklaces may offer clues about use of resources and the identity of those who lived through these changes.

Making time work: sampling floodplain artefact frequencies and populations

The expansion of large-scale excavation in Britain and parts of Continental Europe, funded by major development projects, has generated extensive new datasets. But what might we be losing when surfaces are routinely stripped by machines? Investigation by hand of ploughsoils and buried soils in the Fenlands of eastern England reveals high densities of artefacts and features that would often be destroyed or overlooked. These investigations throw new light on the concept of site sequences where features cut into underlying ground may give only a limited and misleading indication of the pattern and timing of prehistoric occupation. The consequential loss of data has a particular impact on estimates of settlement density and population numbers, which may have been much higher than many current estimates envisage.

Megalithic Follies Soane’s ‘Druidic Remains’ and the Display of Monuments

The context of, and sources for, illustrations produced by Soane’s studio on the theme of prehistoric monuments are explored. Reflecting upon the ‘embedding’ of style within the distant past (i.e. the ‘project of origins’), these tell of the changing configuration of the nation’s cultural landscape and provide further insight into the role of ruination in the architect’s work. Two out of the three images considered have ‘fantastic’ attributes and raise issues relating to the interaction of monuments and follies. Others have a direct relation with 3-dimensional model-based presentations, and the nature of the ‘translation’ of imagery between different media is also discussed.

After-Lives of the Mongolian Yurt The ‘Archaeology’ of a Chinese Tourist Camp

The Mongolian yurt, now abandoned as a dwelling in much of Inner Mongolia (China), has an after-life in architecture, especially in public buildings in cities. We discuss the case of a failed tourist camp, constructed of brick ‘yurts’, which was built to exploit the exoticism of the Mongolian culture for the Han Chinese. This is an example of skeuopmorphic architecture, with deliberate slippage between the original and the copy, and we describe how this situation gives rise to various symbolic interpretations of the ‘yurts’. It is argued that, despite certain similarities with post-modern vernaculars (e.g. Las Vegas), the political and ethnically confrontational situation in China means that the imitation ‘yurts’ do not in fact constitute a vernacular.

History, Timelessness and the Monumental: the Oboos of the Mergen Environs, Inner Mongolia

Concerned with the ‘meaning’, variability and material transformation of the sacred oboo cairns of Inner Asia, this study focuses upon four of these stone settings within the environs of Mergen Monastery. Two have been rebuilt since their destruction during the Cultural Revolution, and one markedly registers its recent history. The layout of these complex monuments (involving diverse ancillary elements) reflects the processes of Buddhicization of the landscape. Comparison between their form and Buddhist texts outlining oboo construction allows appraisal of their prescription and actuality. These monuments raise issues relevant beyond their immediate cultural and geographical context, as they express an interplay between history and ‘timelessness’; the latter effectively amounting to a ‘reincarnation’ of material culture (i.e. denial of change). Finally, the deployment of oboos relates to broader concepts of landscape orientation; their relationship with Mongolian directional systems is explored.

Small devices, memory and model architectures: Carrying knowledge

Documenting instances of model-rendering amongst the Gurung communities of central Nepal (and, also, now in London), the article considers issues relating to information-transfer in non-/subliterate and past archaeological circumstances. It variously reflects upon ‘play’, craft reproduction and the limitations of memory, as well as scientific/technological representation and, particularly, Himalayan modes of ritual substitution.