The Neolithic period, when agriculture began and many monuments--including Stonehenge-- were constructed, is an era fraught with paradoxes and ambiguities. Students of prehistory have long found the highly theoretical interpretations of the period perplexing and contradictory. Starting in the Mesolithic and carrying his analysis through to the Late Bronze Age, Richard Bradley sheds light on this complex period and the changing consciousness of these prehistoric peoples. "The Significance of Monuments" studies the importance of monuments tracing their history from their first creation to six thousand years later. The book begins with a discussion of how monuments first developed and their role in developing a new sense of time and space among the inhabitants of prehistoric Europe. The second part goes on to study how such monuments were modified and reinterpreted to suit the changing needs of society through a series of detailed case studies.

List of Figures Preface Part One: From the House of the Dead 1. Structures of Sand: Settlements, Monuments and the Nature of the Neolithic 2. Thinking the Neolithic: the Mesolithic World View and its Transformation 3. The Death of the House: the Origins of Long Mounds and Neolithic Enclosures 4. Another Time: Architecure, Ancestry and the Development of Chambered Tombs 5. Small Worlds: Causewayed Enclosures and their Transformations Part Two: Describing a Circle 6. The Persistence of Memory: Ritual, Time and the History of Ceremonial Monuments 7. The Public Interest: Ritual and Ceremonial, from Passage Graves to Henges 8. Theatre in the Round: Henge Monuments, Stone Circles and their Integration with the Landscape 9. Closed Circles: the Changing Character of Monuments, from Enclosures to Cemeteries 10. An Agricultural Revolution: the Domestication of Ritual Life during later Prehistory References.

Richard Bradley is Professor of Archaeology at Reading University. Current interests include landscape archaeology and rock art. Recent books include Altering the Earth and Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe. He is the general editor of the Routledge Journal World Archaeology.