LEADER 04026nam 2200481 450 001 9910157527303321 005 20220712182935.0 010 $a1-914427-09-2 010 $a1-909686-92-1 010 $a1-909686-90-5 035 $a(CKB)3710000001001299 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC4774329 035 $a(ScCtBLL)41923d70-0161-49c0-bdfd-6e7e3adbaf52 035 $a(EXLCZ)993710000001001299 100 $a20170119h20162016 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcnu|||||||| 181 $2rdacontent 182 $2rdamedia 183 $2rdacarrier 200 04$aThe development of neolithic house societies in Orkney $einvestigations in the Bay of Firth, Mainland, Orkney (1994-2014) /$fedited by Colin Richards and Richard Jones 210 1$aOxford, [England] ;$aHavertown, Pennsylvania :$cWindgather Press,$d2016. 210 4$d©2016 215 $a1 online resource (593 pages) $ccolor illustrations, maps, photographs 311 $a1-909686-89-1 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 330 $aConsidering that Orkney is a group of relatively small islands lying off the northeast coast of the Scottish mainland, its wealth of Neolithic archaeology is truly extraordinary. An assortment of houses, chambered cairns, stone circles, standing stones and passage graves provides an unusually comprehensive range of archaeological and architectural contexts. Yet, in the early 1990s, there was a noticeable imbalance between 4th and 3rd millennium cal BC evidence, with house structures, and 'villages' being well represented in the latter but minimally in the former. As elsewhere in the British Isles, the archaeological visibility of the 4th millennium cal BC in Orkney tends to be dominated by the monumental presence of chambered cairns or tombs. In the 1970s Claude Lévi-Strauss conceived of a form of social organisation based upon the'house' - sociétés à maisons - in order to provide a classification for social groups that appeared not to conform to established anthropological kinship structures. In this approach, the anchor point is the 'house', understood as a conceptual resource that is a consequence of a strategy of constructing and legitimising identities under ever shifting social conditions. Drawing on the results of an extensive programme of fieldwork in the Bay of Firth, Mainland Orkney, the text explores the idea that the physical appearance of the house is a potent resource for materialising the dichotomous alliance and descent principles apparent in the archaeological evidence for the early and later Neolithic of Orkney. It argues that some of the insights made by Lévi-Strauss in his basic formulation of sociétésà maisons are extremely relevant to interpreting the archaeological evidence and providing the parameters for a 'social' narrative of the material changes occurring in Orkney between the 4th and 2nd millennia cal BC. The major excavations undertaken during the Cuween-Wideford Landscape Project provided an unprecedented depth and variety of evidence for Neolithic occupation, bridging the gap between domestic and ceremonial architecture and form, exploring the transition from wood to stone and relationships between the living and the dead and the role of material culture. The results are described and discussed in detail here, enabling tracing of the development and fragmentation of sociétés à maisons over a 1500 year period of Northern Isles prehistory. 606 $aNeolithic period$zScotland$zOrkney 606 $aExcavations (Archaeology)$zScotland$zOrkney 607 $aOrkney (Scotland)$xAntiquities 615 0$aNeolithic period 615 0$aExcavations (Archaeology) 676 $a936.1132 686 $a6,11$2ssgn 702 $aRichards$b Colin 702 $aJones$b Richard 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910157527303321 996 $aThe development of neolithic house societies in Orkney$92895892 997 $aUNINA