A Phenomenology of Landscape

The book I chose for the 2022 NONFICTION READER CHALLENGE in the category Geography is A Phenomenology of Landscape, by Christopher Tilley, 1994.

This book was recommended reading for a course I took about the Archaeology of Pilgrimage. While it wasn’t directly relevant to my course, it presented a number of ideas that relate to interests I have in ancient monuments and spiritual sites. And his overview of what he proposes in the book was interesting for me. When I read about Stonehenge in England or the Ring of Brodgar in the Orkney Islands, I wonder why they were constructed in their particular location.

In his introduction, Tilley writes that “The key question addressed is deceptively simple: why were particular locations chosen for habitation and the erection of monuments as opposed to others?” He proposes that it is not merely due to “factors of the environment such as relief, climate, soils, water supply and the seasonal availability of exploitable resources,” which he refers to as the “standard approach.” Instead, he theorizes that in addition to the practical concerns, there is the “symbolics of landscape perception and the role of social memory in choice of site location.”

The first part of the book is focused on background to the topic; for example, theories of the significances of landscape and spaces and the landscape use in hunter-gatherer societies in terms of ethnography. The second part presents examples of these in three prehistoric landscapes: the coast of south-west Wales, the Black Mountains in Wales, and the settlement of Cranborne Chase in southern England.

However, I wasn’t convinced that he answered the question he proposed in his introduction on why these particular areas were chosen for settlement and monuments. For each of the three sections in the second part he gives extensive detail about the landscape. But then his connection to what significance these features had in terms of the archaeology of landscape is very short and vague. For example, after describing the features of the landscape of coastal south-west Wales, his conclusion is more about what it was not chosen for. In referring to the meager samples from the excavations of the megaliths there, he writes:

            “Their primary purpose, in fact, seems to have been neither for burial nor deposition. It is difficult to make out a case that they acted as central territorial markers. There is no evidence to suggest that they were marking the centres of areas of land with a high arable component. They rather seem to have acted primarily as symbolic reference and culturally important ceremonial meeting-points on paths of movement, drawing attention to the relationship between local groups and the landscape – itself already a constructed symbolic form of names places, pathways and significant locates from the Mesolithic onwards. I argue in Chapter 6 [the final chapter] that the nature of this relationship with the landscape was essentially transformative.”

But in this chapter, he hasn’t presented evidence or support for why he concludes that they “acted primarily as symbolic reference and culturally important ceremonial meeting-points.” And, oddly, in Chapter 6 he indicates that the purpose of the megaliths in this area could have been “central territorial markers.” It seems to me that he contradicts himself in his conclusion by claiming:

            “I have suggested that, as cultural markers, one of the purposes of the megaliths in the Black Mountains and south-west Wales and the long barrows on Cranborne Chase would seem to have been to draw attention to the symbolic and social significance of the natural topography and markers within it, such as the coast, rivers, rock outcrops, spurs, escarpments and ridges. Such markers and places were almost certainly in use during the Mesolithic preceding the construction of these Neolithic monuments. The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers would have used them, as they can be used today, as reference points and orientational foci.”

In addition, he makes claims that he hasn’t supported, such as that the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers “would have used them” as reference points. He also presents assumptions without support when he writes, referring to Penbury Knoll at Cranborne Chase, “This hill, today capped, as perhaps in the past, by gnarled pines (Fig. 5.2), was undoubtedly steeped in ancestral associations, social memories and myth.” Maybe the hill was regarded that way, but I don’t think it is “undoubtedly” true, especially since he gives no evidence.

Other than the lack of evidence for his theories, in my view, the information presented was extremely interesting. However, it is written in a very academic style with a lot of citations, so it's not exactly easy reading. The book has more than 70 illustrations and photos, and is very well researched for the information about the physical aspects of landscape

Since it was written in 1994, it’s a bit out of date now. In the first chapter he writes that ‘landscape’ is not focused on in archaeological writing. But now one can find many scholarly articles and books about landscape archaeology, and courses in The Archaeology of Landscape are being offered at many universities. I’m interested in finding another book – perhaps not so academically written – about aspects of landscape archaeology so that I can learn other theories to answer the question, “why here?”