Monuments and Landscape in Atlantic Europe

Atlantic Europe is the zone par excellence of megalithic monuments, which encompass a wide range of earthern and stone constructions from impressive stone circles to modest chambered tombs. A single basic concept lies behind this volume - that the intrinsic qualities encountered within the diverse landscapes of Atlantic Europe both informed the settings chosen for the monuments and and played a role in determining their form and visual appearance. This, in part, derives from the use of local materials and the manner in which they were displayed within the monuments: for example, how stone, clearly taken from the local geology, was visibly incorporated. Yet we may go further than this in some instances and propose that the 1ature of local land-forms itself both atracted monuments, providing meaningful or dramatic settings, and offered a series of ideas which played some part in influencing the form of these monuments. Monuments and Landscape in Atlantic Europe goes significantly beyond the limits of existing debate by inviting archaeologists from different countries within the Atlantic zone to examine the relationship between landscape features and prehistoric monuments in their specialist regions. By placing the issue within a broader regional and intellectual context the authors illustrate the diversity of current archaeological ideas and approaches converging around this central theme. The regions represented include Britain, France, Ireland, Iberia and Scandinavia. The result constitutes a remarkable testament to the convergence of conceptual approaches to prehistoric monuments in the diverse landscapes and diverse intellectual traditions of Atlantic Europe.