A recreation of visual engagement and the revelation of world views in Bronze Age Scotland

Abstract

Focussing on the earliest periods of intensive monument building in prehistoric Scotland (3000–1000 bc), this study identifies how humans chose and made places that were important to them. It examines how monuments and the natural environment were used to create landscapes embedded with cultural meaning and remembrance. This project addresses a gap in knowledge about prehistoric Scotland, namely the lack of understanding of the place that many hundreds of free-standing stones (F-SS) in circles, rows, pairs or on their own, had for their creators, especially the smaller monuments. This work with its special focus on the islands of Coll and Tiree goes some way to rediscover the perceptions and decisions made by people in the past about their monumental landscape.