Exploring places and landscapes of everyday experience in the Outer Hebridean Iron Age : a study of theory, method and application in experiential landscape archaeology
This thesis explores aspects of everyday experience and the creation of place within the Iron Age island landscapes of the Outer Hebrides. While investigations of place and landscape, as experiential phenomena, are well developed in the context of Neolithic and Bronze Age research such approaches have been largely neglected within British Iron Age studies and in the study of the Outer Hebridean Iron Age more specifically. A hitherto focus upon ritual landscapes partly explains the lack of uptake within British Iron Age contexts more frequently defined by concepts of domesticity. The experience of place and landscape, however, are not only of significance within 'ritual' contexts but play an important role in the shaping of human action in the realm of the everyday. Instead, the principal barrier appears to be methodological - how does one go about investigating everyday experiences within prehistoric landscapes? A major component of this research has therefore been to explore and develop a methodology for this research. Current archaeological practice provides two contrasting methods for the study of landscape experience - one rooted in the analysis of field observations, inspired more directly by phenomenology,
Rennell, R.
Exploring places and landscapes of everyday experience in the Outer Hebridean Iron Age : a study of theory, method and application in experiential landscape archaeology. This thesis explores aspects of everyday experience and the creation of place within the Iron Age island landscapes of the Outer Hebrides. While investigations of place and landscape, as experiential phenomena, are well developed in the context of Neolithic and Bronze Age research such approaches have been largely neglected within British Iron Age studies and in the study of the Outer Hebridean Iron Age more specifically. A hitherto focus upon ritual landscapes partly explains the lack of uptake within British Iron Age contexts more frequently defined by concepts of domesticity. The experience of place and landscape, however, are not only of significance within 'ritual' contexts but play an important role in the shaping of human action in the realm of the everyday. Instead, the principal barrier appears to be methodological - how does one go about investigating everyday experiences within prehistoric landscapes? A major component of this research has therefore been to explore and develop a methodology for this research. Current archaeological practice provides two contrasting methods for the study of landscape experience - one rooted in the analysis of field observations, inspired more directly by phenomenology,
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