145
burial strategies and imagined journeys of the spirits of dead to an afterlife and
otherworld?
2 Landscape, Skyscape, Monuments and Perception
Theoretical considerations of landscape and space, and how these may have been
comprehended in the prehistoric past, are of fundamental importance in Irish and
wider archaeological studies (e.g. Cooney, 2000; Tilley, 1991). Then, people lived
in places ‘that were imbued with meaning’, ‘derived from a pre-existing world’ and
‘materialised through monuments and by association with elements of the natural
landscape’ (O’Brien, 2002: 156). More broadly, recent discourses on the crucial
importance and role of the sky have now rightly corrected the omission of its role in
archaeological narratives and brought human engagement with the celestial dome
central to archaeological thought (Henty & Brown, 2019; Prendergast, 2013; Silva
& Campion, 2015). Skyscape as a concept, but here linked to perceptions of the
horizon, captures this universal human awareness of the heavenly portion of the
total environmental domain. Fabio Silva (2017: 4), for example, defines this comparatively new term as ‘indigenous conceptual frameworks that constitute a society’s understanding of “the heavens and the celestial bodies and how they relate
back down to human beliefs and practices”, to their notions of time and place, to
their structures and material remains’ (Silva, 2015: 3). The importance of understanding past perceptions of the landscape, especially if connected with the sky,
introduces wider contexts critical to understanding the interrelated meaning and
symbolism of both. Also by the presence/absence of writing and our knowledge of
religious beliefs and mythology, attempts at imagining, interpreting or reexperiencing how humans engaged with their landscape and skyscape in the distant
past are inevitably constrained by our own temporal separation and cultural differences. Advisedly then, any enquiry must be carefully approached and shaped using
the widest range of perspectives ideally supported by spatial data analysis, mindful
that (and with applicability to the meaning of skyscape) ‘it is important not to forget
that the contemporary term “landscape” is highly ideological’ (Tilley, 1994: 24).
In viewing space, modern regard for landscape and skyscape as an aesthetic
source of human interest and pleasure is likely to be in sharp contrast to what this
meant to societies in prehistory. Cycles of birth and death, identity and memory
would have been intertwined with complex strategies for survival that had little in
common with contemporary notions of aesthetics and perceptions of cosmos and
landscape. Furthermore, myths and legends pertinent to the Neolithic, but clearly
lost to us, also ‘have an immediate interest to archaeology in trying to unravel the
nature and meaning of ancient events and traditions’ (Darvill, 2002: 278). On the
true nature of myth, the anthropologist Levi-Strauss notes how some claimants suggest that human societies express fundamental feelings through their mythology
and use myths to ‘try to provide some kind of explanations for phenomena which
they cannot otherwise understand—astronomical, meteorological, and the like.’
The North Sky and the Otherworld: Journeys of the Dead in the Neolithic Considered
burial strategies and imagined journeys of the spirits of dead to an afterlife and
otherworld?
2 Landscape, Skyscape, Monuments and Perception
Theoretical considerations of landscape and space, and how these may have been
comprehended in the prehistoric past, are of fundamental importance in Irish and
wider archaeological studies (e.g. Cooney, 2000; Tilley, 1991). Then, people lived
in places ‘that were imbued with meaning’, ‘derived from a pre-existing world’ and
‘materialised through monuments and by association with elements of the natural
landscape’ (O’Brien, 2002: 156). More broadly, recent discourses on the crucial
importance and role of the sky have now rightly corrected the omission of its role in
archaeological narratives and brought human engagement with the celestial dome
central to archaeological thought (Henty & Brown, 2019; Prendergast, 2013; Silva
& Campion, 2015). Skyscape as a concept, but here linked to perceptions of the
horizon, captures this universal human awareness of the heavenly portion of the
total environmental domain. Fabio Silva (2017: 4), for example, defines this comparatively new term as ‘indigenous conceptual frameworks that constitute a society’s understanding of “the heavens and the celestial bodies and how they relate
back down to human beliefs and practices”, to their notions of time and place, to
their structures and material remains’ (Silva, 2015: 3). The importance of understanding past perceptions of the landscape, especially if connected with the sky,
introduces wider contexts critical to understanding the interrelated meaning and
symbolism of both. Also by the presence/absence of writing and our knowledge of
religious beliefs and mythology, attempts at imagining, interpreting or reexperiencing how humans engaged with their landscape and skyscape in the distant
past are inevitably constrained by our own temporal separation and cultural differences. Advisedly then, any enquiry must be carefully approached and shaped using
the widest range of perspectives ideally supported by spatial data analysis, mindful
that (and with applicability to the meaning of skyscape) ‘it is important not to forget
that the contemporary term “landscape” is highly ideological’ (Tilley, 1994: 24).
In viewing space, modern regard for landscape and skyscape as an aesthetic
source of human interest and pleasure is likely to be in sharp contrast to what this
meant to societies in prehistory. Cycles of birth and death, identity and memory
would have been intertwined with complex strategies for survival that had little in
common with contemporary notions of aesthetics and perceptions of cosmos and
landscape. Furthermore, myths and legends pertinent to the Neolithic, but clearly
lost to us, also ‘have an immediate interest to archaeology in trying to unravel the
nature and meaning of ancient events and traditions’ (Darvill, 2002: 278). On the
true nature of myth, the anthropologist Levi-Strauss notes how some claimants suggest that human societies express fundamental feelings through their mythology
and use myths to ‘try to provide some kind of explanations for phenomena which
they cannot otherwise understand—astronomical, meteorological, and the like.’
The North Sky and the Otherworld: Journeys of the Dead in the Neolithic Considered