Hamilton Et Al 2006 Phenomenology in Practice. Towards A Methodology For A - Subjective - Approach

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European Journal of Archaeology
DOI: 10.1177/1461957107077704
2006; 9; 31 European Journal of Archaeology
Mike Seager Thomas
Sue Hamilton, Ruth Whitehouse, Keri Brown, Pamela Combes, Edward Herring and
Approach
Phenomenology in Practice: Towards a p Methodology for a `Subjective'
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HENOMENOLOGY IN PRACTICE: TOWARDS A
METHODOLOGY FOR A SUBJECTIVE
APPROACH
Sue Hamilton and Ruth Whitehouse
University College London, UK
with Keri Brown, Pamela Combes, Edward Herring and
Mike Seager Thomas
Abstract: The article deals with the practice of phenomenological archaeological fieldwork, which
is concerned with sensory experience of landscapes and locales. Phenomenological approaches in
archaeology have cast light on aspects of past human experience not addressed by traditional
archaeological methods. So far, however, they have neither developed explicit methodologies nor
a discussion of methodological practice and have laid themselves open to accusations of being
subjective and unscientific. This article describes and explores three experiments in phenomeno-
logical archaeology developed in the context of the TavoliereGargano Prehistory Project and car-
ried out on Neolithic settlement sites of the type known as villaggi trincerati. Our aims are both to
develop explicit methods for this type of fieldwork and to combine phenomenology with other
more traditional approaches, such as those concerned with technological, economic and environ-
mental aspects of landscapes and sites. Our work also differs from other phenomenological
archaeology in its concern with familiar, everyday experience and domestic contexts, rather than
exceptional, special experience in ritual contexts. We consider how our particular approach might
be used to further understandings of past lives.
Keywords: graphic representation, landscape, Neolithic, phenomenology, site catchment analysis,
sound, Tavoliere, villaggi trincerati, vision
INTRODUCTION
Phenomenology has its passionate advocates, but is more often regarded cynically
or with outright hostility. A small body of published articles constitutes an aca-
demic critique; these are highlighted later. More problematic is the hearsay reputa-
tion that phenomenology has acquired; this is passed on by word of mouth, often by
those with a superficial acquaintance with the subject. One of the terms commonly
used is touchy-feely. This is a pejorative term for the concern of phenomenology
with sensory experience. As such, it serves to devalue these aspects of human
European Journal of Archaeology Vol. 9(1): 3171
Copyright 2006 SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com) and
the European Association of Archaeologists (www.e-a-a.org) ISSN 14619571 DOI:10.1177/1461957107077704
32 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 9
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experience, both through its baby-language form and its everyday use where it is
often applied to non scientific things such as alternative medicine, crystals, water-
divining, or anything else out of line with mainstream social thought.
1
Another
term used about phenomenology is subjective, again applied pejoratively to sug-
gest an individual intuitive understanding that is not open to assessment by the
methods of objective science. The implication is that phenomenology lacks
methodology and is thus disqualified from serious consideration as a distinct
archaeological approach. The main purpose of the current article is to address this
issue of methodology and its potential for development.
Phenomenology is concerned with sensory aspects of past human experience
(Johnson 1999:192; Tilley 1994: chapter 1) that cannot easily be addressed by tradi-
tional archaeological methods. We believe that its concern with sensory experience
does not, per se, make it less amenable than any other archaeological approach to
the development of a rigorous methodology, which would allow its results to be
assessed in normal academic ways (see Fleming 2005 for an example of such an
assessment). We also believe that it can and should be combined with other, more
established approaches to the understanding of sites and landscapes. Indeed this is
necessary to achieve a more holistic understanding of the past. This view is not
controversial and is recurrently expressed (e.g. Brck 2005; Robb and Van Hove
2003:241242). A way forward might be to take the practices associated with the
different approaches and their widely differing assumptions and reconcile them. In
this scenario attempts to understand the lived experience of place do not necessar-
ily conflict with more traditional concerns with land-use, resources and adaptation
to the environment and in combination could provide an alternative framework
for investigating these components of past lives.
In this article we describe methodologies for three different phenomenological
exercises, which we developed during the TavoliereGargano Prehistory Project.
2
We offer these methodologies as a focus for on-going discussion. In doing so, we
hope to open up a debate on the potential role of a methodology of phenomenol-
ogy, which will lead to better understandings of its aims, practices and limitations
and suggest ways in which it can be combined with other archaeological tech-
niques. We should emphasize that in our project as a whole we are employing a
wide range of methods, including many that would be regarded as traditional or
mainstream, as well as phenomenology.
As part of a range of methods of exploring places, phenomenology can enrich
the scope of our thoughts, questions, and understanding of the behavioural param-
eters concerning past site contexts (Brck 2005:64). Its application in archaeological
fieldwork is a contemporary experience in which we have to wrestle with the idea
that its results may be incompatible with the motives and consciousness of people
in the past. Many aspects of place are mutable through time, including vegetation
cover, and the presence of other proximate sites. However, in addition to investi-
gating the impact of such change on our present-day perceptions, it is possible
to focus on more constant aspects of site locales and landscapes. The latter might
include large-scale geological and topographic formations and the distances
over which it is possible to register sounds and vision under maximal human,
HAMILTON & WHITEHOUSE ET AL.: PHENOMENOLOGY IN PRACTICE 33
topographic, and weather conditions. Some of these are considered in the present
article. The focus of our applied study the Neolithic ditched enclosure sites of the
Tavoliere Plain comprises a large database of 567 sites identified from aerial pho-
tographs, but few excavated sites (Brown 2004). Analysis of the landscape locales,
as sensuously experienced by the human body, offers a way of characterizing,
investigating and prompting place-specific research questions about these essen-
tially unexplored sites.
In this article we particularly consider phenomenology in terms of how it has
been used elsewhere versus our new approaches in the Tavoliere and we indicate
how our results could be used to enrich the interpretative possibilities of past sites.
Chapman (2001:6) has used the term soft phenomenology for this focus on ele-
mentary phenomenological responses, such as sight and sound, in combination
with the evidence of traditional archaeological data.
The traditions of phenomenological studies of prehistoric
landscape locales
Phenomenology has become an established archaeological concept (Hodder
1999:132; Johnson 1999:114; Magnusson Staaf 2000:135), but its use has been res-
tricted to a limited range of archaeological contexts. It has most often been applied
to the Neolithic sites of north-west Europe, particularly those of the British Isles
(Brck 2005). Work has focused on the highly visual, monumental, and mostly rit-
ual sites such as megalithic structures. Studies have included the Neolithic monu-
ments of south-east, south-west, and mid Wales, (Cummings and Whittle 2003;
Cummings et al. 2002; Tilley 1994), south central Britain (Cranbourne Chase: Tilley
1994; the Avebury region: Thomas 1995), and Sweden (Tilley 1995a). The Bronze Age
monuments of Bodmin Moor have also been the subjects of major phenomeno-
logically-orientated fieldwork (Bender et al. 1997, in press; Tilley 1995b, 1996). All
of these studies have centred on a single sense vision. Their concern has been
with what can be seen from specific viewpoints at the monuments, changes in vis-
ibility journeying to and between monuments, and, more recently, the parameters
of visibility in wooded landscapes (Cummings and Whittle 2003). Whether it is
right to privilege this sense, specifically its positive aspect, must be open to ques-
tion. The experiential impact of light deprivation, for instance, has been recently
explored for the Neolithic ritual cave sites of southern Italy (Betts 2003; White-
house 2001b). Sound has received limited mainstream archaeological attention. A
little work has been undertaken on megalithic monuments in prehistoric Britain;
Watson and Keating (1999) and Lawson et al. (1998) have reviewed specific site
categories and their potential sound characteristics (Palaeolithic caves and various
Neolithic megalithic monuments). Whitehouse (2001b) also briefly discusses
sound effects in Mediterranean cult caves. The sound phenomena identified
include the distancing of sounds from the outside world, parameters of audible
ambience, the impact of architecture and natural phenomena on sound amplifica-
tion and sound screening. Clearly, these must have impacted on the ways in
which monuments and sites were used.
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The primary use of phenomenology in the study of archaeological landscapes
has postulated a direct relationship between individuals and the environment
without the intervention of the mind or any intermediary concepts (Ingold
1992:46; Tilley 1994:74). Others, in direct contradiction, favour the idea of an inter-
vening perceptual framework (Jones 1998:9) that mediates between the environ-
ment (natural, cultural, historic, and economic contexts within which an individual
lives) and the individual (see also Brck 1998). This work has emphasized a need
to explore the mechanisms through which the perceptual framework was cre-
ated, if we wish to elucidate how past perceptual frameworks may have been
structured. In this context construction, movement, ritual, and exploitation
are isolated as being key mechanisms of interaction between people and space
(Jones 1998). To some extent such an approach framed our questions with respect
to the Tavoliere. Here, phenomena were monitored with specific cultural ques-
tions in mind, such as how the sites were constructed in their landscapes and the
possible types of movement and communication that would have pertained
within and between sites.
Critiques of phenomenology
A key issue is the perception that phenomenology assumes the universality of the
human body. In this guise phenomenology is at odds with a post-processual
agenda of historical specificity and its rejection of the universal laws of processual
archaeology (Brck 1998; Jones 1998:10). Brcks critique (1998:276) emphasizes
that the nature of Being may vary widely across time and space and also accord-
ing to context, class, gender, and the natural variability of the human body (e.g.
small child, pregnant woman and so on). The implication is that phenomenology
can take us little further than the most basic generalizations about the past. This is
an extreme perspective, given that the application of phenomenology in disparate
contexts (including differing seasonal and weather conditions), using a diverse
range of individuals as participants, has not been fully explored. Our work on the
Tavoliere did take account of our human variability, and found that even the most
basic generalizations offered significantly recontextualized presumptions concern-
ing the societal functioning of the Neolithic sites.
Methods of practical application
To date, descriptions of phenomenological fieldwork have not made their practical
methodology (as opposed to their theory and observations) explicit (Cummings
2004 being an exception). What is actually done in the field is of course highly spe-
cific to the sites and issues in question (Drewett and Hamilton 1999; Hamilton
1998; Hamilton and Manley 2001). The lack of exposition on the modes and issues
of phenomenological fieldwork may of course be deliberate. It could be argued
that de facto phenomenological practice involves allowing physical responses and
the observation of phenomena to be secured as immediate revelations and that
the outcome would be either distorted or impossible if a methodology were overtly
considered, but even this is a methodology and lacks discussion. Alongside this,
there is reluctance to colour-in the communities of the past in whose name the
phenomena are being observed. While the I of the phenomenologist is resonant in
descriptions of site experiences, the they of past communities is rarely situated in
the active tense. Indisputably it is a delusion to think that we could ever wholly
know how they thought and interfaced with domestic and ritual landscapes, but
we are actively and we would argue unnecessarily distancing ourselves from
the past if we do not consider phenomena in human social terms. Key considera-
tions include the age and gender ranges and group size of the individuals involved
both as practitioners of phenomenology and as members of past communities
and the possible scales of past activities. The absence of such considerations within
the existing phenomenological literature may be a reflection that phenomenology,
with a few exceptions (Bender et al. 1997; Cummings 2003; Hamilton and Manley
2001), has been dominated by lone male observers, and has focused on the monu-
mental and spectacular (often ritual) rather than the more mundane range of expe-
riences that constitute daily life.
Our current work on the Neolithic ditched enclosures of the Tavoliere has begun
to explore sound and smell, as well as other visual phenomena, such as colour. We
are considering these with particular respect to social distance mapping. We are
concerned with developing a methodology that is explicit and therefore open to
examination, critique and development by other scholars and will contribute to an
understanding of the conditions under which phenomenological knowledge is
produced. This work focuses on the visual and auditory phenomena of everyday
life, rather than those of the ritual realm. We recognize that there may be no rigid
division between the sacred and the secular in prehistoric societies, but suggest
that there is an important distinction between experiences which take place on rel-
atively rare occasions and in special locations, and the habitual experiences of
everyday life, taking place in mainly domestic environments.
THE TAVOLIEREGARGANO PREHISTORY PROJECT
Introduction
The TavoliereGargano Prehistory Project had its first full season in 2003 (Fig. 1). Its
aim is to investigate the relationships between the flat Tavoliere plain and the adjacent
mountainous Gargano Promontory in later prehistory (Neolithic to Iron Age). The
two zones are likely to have been exploited in a complementary fashion,
3
but little
work has been done to explore such links. The project involves a number of different
survey approaches, on different scales, including GIS and phenomenological survey,
as well as re-examination of previous excavation and survey results to provide a
chronological and contextual framework for the new work. In this article we concen-
trate on the site interiors and site-territories of some of the well-known Neolithic
ditched enclosure sites of the Tavoliere, known in Italian as villaggi trincerati (for
an introduction to these sites, see Brown 1997, 2004; Cassano 1981; Cassano and
Manfredini 1983; Jones 1987; Manfredini 1981; Odetti 1975; Skeates 2000; Tin 1983).
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The primary studied sites were four ditched villages Monte Aquilone, La
Panetteria 1, Masseria La Quercia and Masseria Bongo (Table 1; Fig. 1). Of these,
the first three have been excavated to some extent (Monte Aquilone: Manfredini
1972; La Panetteria 1: Jones 1987:137143; La Quercia: Jones 1987:130135), while
Masseria Bongo has never been either surveyed or excavated. We shall use some of
our results from these sites by way of examples.
Methods developed for the Tavoliere sites: starting issues and problems
For us, the Tavoliere sites provided immediate problems. The sites are not sign-
posted, they lack surface architecture or monuments to locate them, and they are
in apparently featureless locales. This meant they were difficult to find in the first
place, and, once found, did not fit with any pre-existing phenomenological strat-
egy, such as considering how site architecture and dramatic localized landscape
features channelled experience.
0 10
km
FOGGIA
MANFREDONIA
VIESTE
SAN MARCO IN LAMIS
SAN SEVERO
LAGO DI LESINA
LAGO DI VARANO
Grotta Scaloria
Monte Aquilone
Torrione del Casone
La Quercia
Masseria Bongo
T
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r
r
e
n
te
C
e
r
v
a
ro
T
o
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t
e

C
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F
i
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F
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TAVOLIERE
F
iu
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O
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La Panetteria
LUCERA
GARGANO
ROME
Figure 1. Location map for the Neolithic ditched enclosures of the Tavoliere Plain, Puglia, southern
Italy. The shaded area represents land over 200m; solid circles represent Neolithic sites.
Mapped space: finding the sites
Maps and aerial photograph images are represented as the antithesis of the phe-
nomenological experience of space (Tilley 1994:21). At its most basic this is due to a
three-dimensional world being represented on a two-dimensional surface, thus
rendering the viewer as outside the experience. These birds-eye views all imply a
considerable distance between the subject and the object, and present a picture of
the landscape which its inhabitants would not recognize (Thomas 1995:25). Maps
and grid references, however, are the tools that get us to sites and in practice can-
not be wholly eschewed.
The Neolithic ditched enclosures of the Tavoliere are, at their largest, strikingly
complex architectural forms (the largest site, Passo di Corvo, measures 730 460m),
but are known primarily from the air (Fig. 2); there is nothing to see on the ground.
Their gross landscapes are flat and few architectural and landscape markers have
survived unchanged since the 1940s, when the most useful aerial photographs
were taken (Bradford 1949; Bradford and Williams-Hunt 1946). While artefact scat-
ters occur on ploughed sites, there is usually nothing physically to indicate when a
visitor has arrived at a site boundary, or passed into its interior. Thus, before we
could embark upon a phenomenological study we had to locate the centre and
boundaries of each site. The process by which we got the plans of the sites from the
aerial photographs on to a 1:25,000 map, thereby supplying a full grid reference
that would then lead us to the centre of the site on the ground, using a Global
Positioning System (hereafter GPS)
4
is summarized in Table 2.
5
Table 1. Size classifications of the study sites
Monte
Aquilone
(called Masseria
Masseria Masseria Maremorto III by
Site Bongo La Quercia La Panetteria 1 Jones 1987)
Class III II (but at the II I (inner enclosure),
(Jones maximal size) but needs
1987) reclassifying in the
light of
Manfredinis
(1972) plan which
includes an outer
enclosure
Site number 71 72 1 207
(Jones
1987)
Area (ha) 8.56 5.8 4.5 2.5
Maximal 450 384 240 180
distance
(m) across
longest
axis of the site
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PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHODS USED ON THE TAVOLIEREGARGANO
PREHISTORY PROJECT
1 Mapping visual perception of landscape from a single
standing point at the centre of each site
Introduction
The impression of circularity is the modus operandi for registering human vision
from a single viewpoint. Human visual perception defines a circle wherever the
standing body is positioned. This is self-evidently the outcome of the human body
being able to turn through 360 degrees at any given fixed point, and the head being
able to swivel through an arc of approximately 180 degrees. The use of arcs and cir-
cular configurations in the mapping of such visual perspective is recurrent and
diachronic. A common twentieth-century example is the European tradition of
orientation plaques or the French tables dorientation, placed at elevated beauty
spots. These utlilize a circular or arc-shaped skyline format to mark out key topo-
graphic features at specific compass orientations (Monnet n.d.; see Fig. 3). In a sin-
gle traditional photograph a horizon is a line from one side of the frame to the
other. Particularly since the 1990s archaeological publication has experimented
with photograph images to portray the reality that we look around as opposed to
at. The now commonplace use of a wide-angle camera lens to achieve panoramic
images of archaeological sites effectively packs a curved image onto a flat surface
to produce a more all-encompassing view. More recently this has been achieved by
Figure 2. Aerial photograph of the site of La Panetteria showing single enclosure ditch and internal
C-ditches. The maximum width of the enclosure is c. 240m. (Photograph: Bradford archive)
the use of fan-shaped collages (Shanks 1992:197) and circular photo montages
(Bradley 1998: cover image by Mark Johnston).
The drawn archaeological record potentially allows fully situated images of phe-
nomenological experiences to be reproduced not retrospectively by collage but
directly in the field. The idea of a circular view is pre-figured in the drawings that the
eighteenth-century antiquary William Stukeley made of the Wiltshire Avebury monu-
ments and their settings (Peterson 2003; see Fig. 3). He was clearly concerned to pro-
vide a third dimension to his renderings. His circular views where the horizon was
represented as a continuous circle, were an innovation. Within these, key points of the
Avebury landscape were illustrated using compass bearings, thus allowing the land-
scape settings in all directions to be represented simultaneously as lived-in views
(Peterson 2003:396 and fig. 2). With the modern dominance of the plan view in archae-
ology, revisiting such techniques has opened up debate on the most effective means of
drawing visual phenomenological experiences of sites and their landscape setting. A
central issue for us was how to record such observations in the field in a way that
would allow the accumulation of a database of comparable images. Experiments in
achieving this, using the idea of 360-degree horizon, are Cummingss diagrams of the
landscape contexts of monuments in south-west Wales and south-west Scotland
Table 2. Procedures used for locating the centre and boundaries of the ditched enclosures
on the ground
Stage Task Task details
1 Establishing the scale Find something measurable on the aerial
of the ditched enclosure photograph of the ditched enclosure that is also
present on the 1:25,000 map. This enables one to
work out the scale of ditched enclosure on the
aerial photograph.
2 Placing the plan of the Locate something on aerial photograph that is
ditched enclosure proximate to the ditched enclosure and can be
on the map readily orientated on the map (generally not
the same as 1) and measure from that in a known
direction to points on the ditched enclosure.
Calibrate the measurement to the scale of the map,
and mark off that distance, at the measured
orientation, on to the map (used 1: 25,000).
3 Finding the centre of the Take grid reference of the centre of the ditched
ditched enclosure on enclosure. Put this information into the GPS and
the ground using a GPS use it to lead you on the ground to the centre
point of the site.
4 Finding the perimeters Using the map locate points of interest which need
and points of interest of to be located on the ground. Measure the orientation
the ditched enclosure of these points of interest from the centre and also
on the ground using a GPS their distances from the centre. Load this
information into the GPS and use the GPS to walk to
these spots on the ground.
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(Cummings 2003: figs 3 and 4; Cummings and Whittle 2004; Peterson 2003: fig. 3; see
Fig. 3); Hamilton and Manleys (2001: figs 3, 4 and 7) pie charts of hillfort view zones
in south-east England; and Hamiltons circular view perspectives from Hallstatt D
Figure 3. Examples of uses of the concept of the circular view perceived by a static person situated in
a landscape: (A) a version of Stukeleys 1724 drawing of the view from the end of the Beckhampton
Avenue, Avebury, Wiltshire, UK (after Peterson 2003, fig. 2, modified); (B) circular view from the
location of the Vix Early Iron Age tumulus wagon burial, Burgundy, France (from recording sheet of
UCLs Burgundy fieldwork in 2000, S. Hamilton); (C) example of Cummings circular view dia-
grams, here for the settings of chambered tombs in the Black Mountains, Wales (after Cummings et al.
2002, fig. 2, modified); (D) explanatory example of how to present a French Table dorientation of
the type commonly placed at notable landscape viewing points (after Monnet n.d.).
Burgundian barrows (Fig. 3). Importantly, these are all open to checking by others in
the field, with respect to assessing the sustainability of the interpretative arguments
they may support (for a critical reassessment of Cummings and Whittle 2004, see
Fleming 2005).
Method
For the Tavoliere, we developed these ideas by using four concentric horizons in our
image representation of the visual phenomenology from the centres of the ditched
enclosures (Fig. 4). These four continuous circles represented the near, middle,
Figure 4. Comparative circular views for four Neolithic ditched enclosures of the Tavoliere Plain
(see Fig. 3 caption for further explanation). Key: A = Apennines; Aq = Monte Aquilone (hill); G =
Gargano massif; L = Lucera ridge; M = Melfi; V = Monte Vulture. The areas shaded as obscured
are rendered invisible by intermediary hills.
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Figure 5. Filled-in recording sheet (for Monte Aquilone) for perception of circular views as experi-
enced from the centre of the Neolithic ditched enclosures of the Tavoliere. Initially we worked in
terms of near, middle and far views (as is illustrated here). By consensus this was later devel-
oped into near, middle, far and distant views which increasingly became relevant for sites
more centrally situated on the Tavoliere plain, see Fig. 4.
distant and far horizons and their dominant features. We should emphasize that
these drawings are not Cartesian representations; although they are obviously two-
dimensional images, they do not represent birds-eye views as normal maps do, but
indicate concentric profiles as seen by a central observer on the ground. Moreover,
the different circles indicate the horizons as perceived; they do not have any direct
correlation with the absolute distances of landscape places from site centre. The idea
was to establish whether the visual experience of inhabiting a ditched enclosure was
site specific, or had any distinct regional or general patterns. Our remit was to record
this experience in a way that was comparable over a large number of sites and that
could accommodate diverse team members and groups of people working together
(Fig. 5). For each horizon the features that were perceived to be dominant were
sketched around a continuous circle, using the control of compass bearings. This was
quickest using two people a sketcher and a bearing taker. The compass bearings
allowed us to locate the features on the map and name them. For the more distant
horizons this involved the use of large-scale maps and a consideration of relative
heights of intermediary tracts of landscape.
Results
This process produced an in situ thinking engagement and familiarization with the
landscape, and was important for our understanding of place in several ways.
From our preliminary study, there appeared to be clear differences in the scale of
landscape panorama, and the dominance of key topographic features associated
with the ditched enclosures. These differences highlighted that the Tavoliere is not
the uniform environment that its designation as a plain suggests. Proximity to the
Gargano, proximity to the Apennines, and central locations within the plain would
have variously generated very different landscape identities to the inhabitants of
the ditched enclosures. At Monte Aquilone, the smallest site in our survey, the
Gargano and its foothills dominated the middle and distant view, with Monte
Calvo being a dominant presence. The Apennines were barely visible in the far dis-
tant view. At La Panetteria, the Gargano and the Apennines equally filled the far
views, with the Lucera scarp as the dominant middle view. At the largest sites
Masseria La Quercia and Bongo the Apennines dominated the distant view and the
Gargano was just a hazy outline in the far distant view.
6
Approximately circular site diagrams around the sites had been produced by
Jarman and Webley (1975) in the context of site catchment analysis (discussed in
detail later in this article, in section 3, phenomenological site catchment analysis).
When these are compared to our own circular views, the total lack of any visual
sense of place in Jarman and Webleys diagrams is striking. There is for instance no
topographic information to allow assessment of the extent to which a sites walk-
ing/economic territory was observable from the centres of the sites. While of
course this was not the aim of the 1975 article, the contrast raises interesting ques-
tions. Visually dominant places beyond the daily walking distance territory of a
site may have been considered as part of a sites physical, social or conceptual ter-
ritory and may have been important to the resident communitys understanding
of its site locale. Equally, areas within the daily walking distance territory which
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were out of view from the site may have been of lesser importance, for different
uses, or may only have had restricted members of the community working on
them. One example occurs at Masseria Bongo where the area of the modern farm,
situated below the saddle upon which the Neolithic site sits, is invisible from most
of the site, although it is very close to the site boundary and inter-audible with
more of the northern side of the site than it is visible from. While a strictly eco-
nomic perspective would not differentiate this area from other parts of the site ter-
ritory considered suitable for crop-growing or pasture, we would suggest that it
might in fact have been regarded as unsafe with respect to leaving children, crops,
or animals unattended.
2 Mapping and recording sentient social space
Introduction
Our aim was to use phenomenology to explore the social parameters that may have
characterized the Neolithic ditched enclosure sites of the Tavoliere. These sites have
always been assumed to be settlement sites, and as such would have been loci for a
range of social and practical tasks involving both face-to-face and longer-distance
communication. The sites have been classified on the basis of their size into four cate-
gories (Jones 1987, and summarized in Table 3). Owing to their uniformity of mate-
rial culture and lack of evidence for any form of social differentiation, Class I and II
sites are held to be the dwellings of single social groups (possibly families) and their
communities thought of as autonomous, acephalous, and egalitarian (Brown
1997:130). It is suggested that the spatial pattern of smaller sites often encircling the
larger sites suggests a process of nucleation, with the larger settlement sites
(Classes III and IV) appearing only in the Middle Neolithic. Of the four sites that we
focus on here, one is Class I (Monte Aquilone: we studied the inner enclosure), two
are Class II (La Panetteria 1 and Masseria La Quercia, the latter being at the maximal
end of the size of Class II), and one is Class III (Masseria Bongo) (see Tables 1 and 3).
We recognize that there are problematic aspects of this typology, but we are using it
as a convenient means of categorizing the sites by spatial scale.
Because we were dealing with sites that today lack features on the ground, we
used flags to mark the boundary ditches of each enclosure, and also the centre
point from which we took our readings (Fig. 6). This device of flagging the land-
scape was used on the Bronze Age site of Leskernick, Bodmin Moor, Cornwall
(Tilley et al. 2000: fig. 15). The flags effectively created images, which activated our
sense of being on and within invisible sites. At the same time they were working
tools from which to monitor sound, and visual phenomena. The poles (bamboo)
were 2m high and the flags were made of red-coloured A3-sized card. Our choice
of flag size worked effectively on Monte Aquilone and reasonably well on
Masseria La Quercia and La Panetteria, but the flags were barely big enough to be
seen across the scale of Masseria Bongo.
Table 3. Size classification of the ditched enclosures of the Tavoliere (information from
Brown 1997:129)
Class Size Description Features
I less than 4ha Very small Single or multiple
enclosure ditches
II 47ha Small to medium More complex enclosure
ditches, sometimes with
internal C-ditches, often
interpreted as hut-
compounds
III above 716ha Large Large, single or multiple
enclosures often filled
with C-ditches
IV more than 628ha with Extremely large Extremely large sites
Passo di Corvo being with concentric ditches
the largest site of all, and/or outer enclosures,
with an inner enclosure some apparently empty
of 28ha and an outer of internal features, others
enclosure of 172ha with C-shaped enclosures
Figure 6. Flagging a visually lost site: part of the flagged boundaries of Monte Aquilone.
(Photograph: M. Seager Thomas)
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Methods
As Tables 4, 5 and 6 indicate, our work focused on basic phenomena relating to the
experience of sound and visual signalling communication. We first monitored
these on the sites using an observer/recorder, usually with two other people at the
site centre to record the sight and sound phenomena generated by people placed at
evenly spaced flagged stations on the otherwise invisible perimeters of the sites
and at staged positions beyond (Tables 4, 5 and 6). The upper half of the body is vital
to effective bodily sound and signalling communication (Drewett and Hamilton
1999) and its visibility was thus monitored. We also distinguished between simply
seeing and hearing and recognizing specific body movements and details, and
speech patterns, the latter being essential to complex communication and instruc-
tion giving. In order to ascertain degrees of communication, we focused on the
possibilities of hearing basic sounds such as a shout, a whistle, or percussion noises
(bell, wooden cymbal) versus being able to distinguish individual words and sen-
tences. Similarly with vision and movement, we distinguished between seeing
merely a body outline, as opposed to recognizing sweeping arm instructions and
finally distinguishing finer details of hand movements and facial expressions (Fig.
7). Self-evidently, these different scales of communication are elemental to the
types of social tasks that can be carried out within and across sites from fixed
points. It was disconcerting to realize that our unthinking inclusion of a metal
sound (a traditional sheep bell) in the first seasons work on Neolithic sites was
wholly inappropriate to the period (the project also covers Bronze and Iron Age
sites), and a simantron (a wooden cymbal improvised as a small wooden
upturned bowl and stick beater) was subsequently introduced.
Figure 7. Two examples of the variable visibility of large scale (left) and small scale (right) bodily
movements, such as might be used in social communication. (Photograph: M. Seager Thomas)
Table 4. Maximum distances from a standing person that specific human sound and visual communi-
cation phenomena could generally be distinguished. (Summer measurements)
NB: These are the suggested general patterns based on measurements from study site cen-
tres and more ad hoc tests that we undertook from various points within the site interiors
and their immediate surroundings. It would be spurious to take these measurements as
absolute, but they do suggest a broad patterning that is relevant to the interpretation of indi-
vidual site function and to use.
DISTANCE GENDER
PARAMETERS COMPARISONS
Maximum Cumulative totals
distance in of communication
metres from scores, for each
the site centre gender, with
at which each increasing
communication nearness
phenomenon to the centre point
was viable COMMUNICATION of a site/the recipient
Sound and visual allocated score* Female Male
phenomena
390316 Human body outline 1 1 1
distinguishable
250 Simple sweeping body 2 3 3
actions recognizable e.g.
hand-waving
215 Male whistle 2 (male only) 3 5
195350 Female shout 4 (female only) 7 5
185 Smaller-scale hand and 3 10 8
feet actions become clearer
180 Female whistle 2 (female only) 12 8
110 Female spoken words 5 (female only) 17 8
stressed in sentences
67118 Male shout 4 (male only) 17 12
7050 Male spoken words 5 (male only) 17 17
40 Male and female chat 6 23 23
* The scores are ascribed on the basis of increasing possibilities of communication as follows:
1 = recognition of the presence of a person, or faint sound recognition but no further detail-
ing possible
2 = very basic instructions possible based on a simple sound (whistle) or hand waving
3 = more complicated instructions possible based on more complex body movement
(smaller scale hand and feet actions)
4 = shouted communication possible
5 = more detailed communication possible based on simple stressed sentences
6 = normal conversation possible chat
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Table 5. Maximum distances from a standing person that specific human sound and visual communi-
cation phenomena could generally be distinguished. (Spring measurements)
DISTANCE GENDER
PARAMETERS COMPARISONS
Maximum Cumulative totals
distance in of communication
metres from the scores, for each
site centre at gender, with
which each increasing
communication nearness to the
phenomenon centre point of a
was viable COMMUNICATION site/the recipient
Sound and visual Allocated score Female Male
phenomena (see key for Table 4)
390316 Human body outline 1 1 1
distinguishable
350 Male whistle 2 (male only) 1 3
340 Female, and male, 4 5 7
shout
310 Female whistle 2 (female only) 7 7
250 Simple sweeping body 2 9 9
actions recognizable e.g.
hand-waving
185 Smaller-scale hand and 3 12 12
feet actions become clearer
170 Female spoken words 5 (female only) 17 12
120 Male spoken words 5 (male only) 17 17
50 Male and female chat 6 23 23
Our results, discussed in the next section, are not absolute but this is not the
point. Obviously perception of maximum visibility and the distances over which
sound will travel at any given site will vary depending on the conditions. Stubble for
example generates the worst heat hazes. Audibility is affected by wind direction
(which was noted) and communication was sometimes not mutual due to this (and
therefore not registered as such). Our interpretations are based on the most regular
patterns that occurred during the periods (mornings and mid-to-late afternoons),
seasons, and years of our study. On-going fieldwork in different seasons continues to
refine and add to our observations (e.g. Table 5). Recurrent everyday and seasonal
domestic, subsistence, and social tasks are generally organized on the expectation of
normal conditions, and on this basis we particularly consider our focus on sum-
mer parameters (though resulting from pragmatic considerations) to have inductive
value for, what is today, a major farming-related task season of the year.
During the Neolithic the sites, we can but presume, would have had buildings
and noisy people, activities, and animals, which would have baffled and chan-
nelled vision and sound. Probably none of these would have ever fully obscured
Table 6. Examples of the communication possibilities of the Tavoliere ditched enclosures, and their
gender parameters, on the basis of communication from boundary to centre and vice versa (informa-
tion taken from Tables 4 and 5)
Possible year-round modes of
communication from boundary
Site Size class to the centre of the site
Masseria III Communication phenomena restricted
Bongo to: recognition of human body outline;
simple percussion sounds (e.g.
simantron or stone striking);
simple sweeping body actions
(e.g. hand-waving).
Masseria II As above plus: male whistle and
La Quercia female shout.
La II All of the above plus:
Panetteria 1 smaller scale actions; female whistle.
Monte I All of the above plus: male shout;
Aquilone female spoken words stressed in
sentences.
the range of views achievable while living within the site and crossing its various
parts, or the maximal communication achievable. Thus our results must be taken
as benchmarking maximal possibilities and highlighting issues of site function
when less than the maximum was achievable. Given that we do not perceive phe-
nomenology as a stand-alone approach, we view our current results as a way of
generating new questions that can then be explored by multiple means. These
should include surveying the patterning of surface artefacts within the site interi-
ors and considering the spatial and social scale of activities which they represent,
and locating the on-site positions of the internal features evident on the aerial pho-
tographs and considering their impact on phenomena.
Results
The order in which sites on the Tavoliere developed is by no means established,
owing to problems of pottery classifications and the restricted number of radiocar-
bon dates (Skeates 2000). Our work indicates that, in terms of their construction and
use, there is a clear split at the upper end of Class I. Tables 4 and 5 summarize the
maximal ranges of sound and body signalling possible across the ditched enclosure
sites that we studied. Monte Aquilone stood out as being the only site where refined
communication was possible from the centre of the site to the outer perimeter
(specifically of the inner set of enclosing ditches) throughout the year. It was the only
site where a male shout (which in Tavoliere summer and dry conditions carries less
far than a female shout) and both male and female conversation could be transmitted
from centre to perimeter and vice versa (Tables 4 and 6). Given that Monte Aquilone is
also comfortably within the parameters for recognizing refined body signalling
movements over centre-boundary distances, tasks relating to a single homestead
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could have been co-ordinated across the site with no female/male imbalance. Of the
Class II sites, we found that at La Panetteria I (Fig. 2) this kind of communication
from the centre to the boundary would not have been possible, but between one
compound (c-ditch) and its neighbour, raised voices would have been audible,
though not normal conversation, or babies crying (Table 7). We also noted that when
we flagged the positions of the c-ditch enclosures at this site, it became evident that
these positions would have afforded a series of radial maximal vision zones and
sound transects from site centre to site boundary.
The second Class II site in our study, Masseria La Quercia, lies at the very upper
margins of the Class II size category. Here, a female shout from the centre can be
heard to all stations on the perimeter, and a level of refined signalling is possible.
Masseria La Quercias perimeter however lies beyond the boundaries of registering
(from the centre) male shouting or spoken words stressed in sentences (Table 6).
Masseria La Quercias perimeter is therefore on the margins of effective co-
ordination of the tasks of a single household. Instead, tasks would have to have
been located to take account of the type of communication required. A man could
for instance not shout, or not easily shout, instructions from centre to the periph-
ery, whereas a woman could do both with ease. Much of Masseria La Quercia had
been ploughed prior to our first survey; surface finds were prolific, and it was
interesting to note a concentration of querns and large storage vessels at the centre
of the site. If women were occupied in grinding tasks at the site centre, they would
have had priority in communicating across the site. This serves to emphasize that,
socially and economically, the larger sites must have functioned very differently
because of the impact of their scale on the basic communication phenomena of
daily life. The difficulties of communicating across the longest axes of Masseria
Bongo are in a class of their own. The only form of communication possible from
centre to perimeter was broad sweeping actions such as hand waving (Table 6).
Given that individuals are not recognizable at these distances, the communication
value of this was restricted. However, our current experiments suggest that charac-
teristic clothing silhouettes (such as distinctive hats) and clothing colours would
effectively have distinguished insiders from outsiders over the same kind of dis-
tances as hand-waving type actions.
We can then postulate that effective practical functioning of the largest sites
(Classes II, III and IV) would have necessitated the spatial concentration of co-
socializing or co-working people. This may have led to fixed site layouts and a
greater zonation of tasks. The centres of these sites would have been isolated from
the wider world of the site boundaries and beyond. This isolation, however, relates
specifically to human sound and vision and its impact on communication. The
time taken to walk across or around a site even the size of Masseria Bongo is rela-
tively minor. Awalk directly across the site via its centre took just under 8 minutes
for a female, and a walk around the complete perimeter took 18 minutes for a male
and 21 minutes for a female. Collectively, these communication parameters raise
the issue of how the site perimeters were laid out in the first place. It would have
been possible to fix the boundaries of a Class I site by merely commanding from the
centre. The Class II and larger sites afford none of these possibilities of centralized
Table 7. Opportunistic, and controlled experiments of comparative distances over which diverse
everyday sound and smell phenomena can be sensed. All sites mentioned are the locations of
Neolithic villaggi trincerati, unless otherwise stated.
Sites at which
Environmental Limit/scale monitoring took
Metres Noise/smell/colour conditions of sense place
940 simantron Warm, still, damp, Audible Jones Site 32
after storm
550 Horse whinny Hot, still, dry Audible Arpi (Iron Age)
400 Barking dogs Downwind, warm, Audible Tiati (Iron Age)
slightly damp,
slight breeze
370 Metal sheep bell Cool, damp, still Limit of Monte Aquilone
audibility
300350 Stone strike Warm, still, dry Limit of Monte Aquilone
audibility
250 Metal sheep bell Warm, still, dry Limit of Masseria Bongo,
audibility Masseria La Quercia,
La Panetteria,
Monte Aquilone
230 Metal sheep bell Cool, damp, still Reliable Masseria Bongo,
sound Masseria La Quercia,
La Panetteria,
Monte Aquilone
190 Metal sheep bell Warm, dry, still Reliable Masseria Bongo,
sound Masseria La Quercia,
La Panetteria,
Monte Aquilone
130 Outdoors Warm, dry, Faint Jones Site 227
conversation: slight wind,
3 male tomato downwind
pickers
122 Small hunting dogs Warm, damp, wind Audible Jones Site 227
blowing across
line of sound
122 Hand clapping Warm, damp, wind Audible Jones Site 227
blowing across
line of sound
122 Meat cooking Enclosed space, Indisputable Project campsite
outdoors near sea, hot, odour (Fontana delle
dry, fairly Rose, Mattinata)
still, downwind
70 Smell of sheep Hot, dry, wind Indisputable Jones Site 218
direction odour
towards us
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instruction and co-ordination. The shapes of these larger sites interestingly demon-
strate a greater adherence to precise landscape topography. The outermost of
Masseria Bongos three ditches on the north side follows exactly the highest point
of the site, suggesting that the three ditches were constructed as a single project.
Table 7. (Continued)
Sites at which
Environmental Limit/scale monitoring took
Metres Noise/smell/colour conditions of sense place
46 Children playing Cliff enclosed Point at Project campsite
outdoors 2 boys, space, near sea, which sound (Fontana delle Rose,
3 girls, 410 years hot, dry, fairly audible when Mattinata)
old still walking
towards
children
44 Barking dog Cliff enclosed Maximum Project campsite
outdoors with space, near sea, distance at (Fontana delle
near background hot, dry, fairly still. which barking Rose, Mattinata)
noise 10 talking heard
people including
children
27 High volume Hot, still, Audible Project campsite
crying baby, immediately (Fontana delle Rose,
outdoors following storm Mattinata)
27 Raised voices Enclosed space, Walking Project campsite
from lightly near sea, hot, towards (Fontana delle Rose,
enclosed structures dry, fairly still settlement Mattinata)
of settlement point at which
noise heard
26 Young baby Warm, dry, still Furthest Project campsite
inside a caravan distance at (Fontana delle
which sound Rose, Mattinata)
audible
22 Normal volume Enclosed space Maximal Project campsite
crying baby, outdoors near sea, hot, distance to (Fontana delle
dry, still which sound Rose, Mattinata)
fully audible
17 Meat cooking Enclosed Indisputable Project campsite
outdoors space, near sea, odour (Fontana delle
hot, dry, fairly Rose, Mattinata)
still, hot upwind
5 Intimate Hot, dry, fairly still Walking Project campsite
conversation of towards (Fontana delle
5 men from lightly settement, Rose, Mattinata)
enclosed structures point at
of settlement which
noise heard
Likewise, the correlation of Class II sites with scarp edges has been noted (Brown
2004; Sargent 2001). La Quercia not only uses a scarp edge as one of its boundaries,
but also its ditches follow down the line of a truncated valley. Given that these dif-
ferent classes of site present very different relationships with their landscape set-
tings and highly different maximal social parameters, we might contend that they
fulfilled different functions, rather than representing some form of linear social
change/development, which is the conventional view.
On-going work: sentient landscapes
With further field seasons, we are accumulating more information of the travel-
ling distances and potencies of other everyday sounds and smells (Table 7). The
examples discussed later are the outcome of a combination of necessarily opp-
ortunistic observations and controlled on-site observations measuring sensual
perception at mapped intervals along measured transects from the point of
dissemination.
Interestingly, when we, by self-evident necessity, removed the sheep bell (the
results remain summarized in Table 7) from our consideration of Neolithic sites, it
prompted consideration of the nature and scale of Neolithic animal herding.
Would it, for instance, have been viable for Neolithic communities to
supervise/track large free-roaming sheep and cattle herds and locate strays (one
reason for belling sheep and cattle)? The lack of metal bells perhaps suggests
smaller herds and a greater reliance on voice communication on the part of the
herders, and perhaps (given these suppositions) the females would have been the
more effective herders. An alternative possibility is the use of a whistling language
(not gender specific) of the kind recently revived on the Canary Island of La
Gomera (Hamilton and Whitehouse 2006:168169). This provides an example of
the new avenues of interpretation that such work can lead to.
Our addition of the simantron, to our sound experiments produced (for us)
surprising results. This sound could be heard from 940m away at the location of
one Neolithic enclosure, Jones Site 218 (Table 7). This suggested the viability of
simple signalling over very long distances, and in many cases between sites, in the
Neolithic. Equally the noises, smells, and visual by-products of domestic activities
both on and off site infer presence, and help to create a socialized landcape; they
would have alerted near and sometimes distant communities to specific settle-
ments and activities. From the same Neolithic enclosure we could see smoke up to
8km away, and smell an advancing sheep flock at approx 70m downwind (Table 7).
Indisputably typical settlement-based tasks such as flint knapping, and hammer-
ing wood would have generated soundscapes beyond many individual sites
boundaries, and zones of vision. The noise of stone striking, for example was clear
from up to 150m from Monte Aquilones centre, some 60m beyond its boundary.
Clearly how far a noise travels across and beyond a site relates to the location of
the activity on site. At Masseria La Quercia and Masseria Bongo, by contrast, it
would certainly be possible to contain noises such as stone working, children play-
ing outdoors but not that of all barking dogs, within the sites boundaries (Tables
6 and 7). Our on-going work aims to accumulate a body of sensual information
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that will prompt new avenues and issues of investigation as to what it was like to
dwell on these sites, and the likely scales of intra- and inter-site awareness and
socialization. In doing so, our aim is not only to characterize aspects of Neolithic
dwelling on the Tavoliere, but to rethink traditional/retro-concepts such as site
catchment and site territory from the perspectives of aged and gendered inhabi-
tants senses of place.
3 Phenomenological site catchment analysis
We developed phenomenological site catchment analysis (hereafter PSCA) as an
experiment in combining traditional economic and land-use approaches to land-
scape with phenomenological approaches, particularly since site catchment analysis
(hereafter SCA) had been used extensively on the Tavoliere (Jarman and Webley
1975). Original SCA involved walking the landscape around archaeological sites
and journeying to sites, both of which have been central to generating phenomeno-
logical observations of the landscape location of archaeological sites (Barrett
1994:137138; Tilley 1994:74). The approach was developed by the British Academy
Research Project in the Early History of Agriculture (Higgs 1972, 1975; Jarman et al.
1982; Vita-Finzi and Higgs 1970). An archetypical processual approach, it was
defined as the study of the relationship between technology and those resources
lying within the economic range of individual sites (Vita-Finzi and Higgs 1970: 5).
It has been subsequently criticized both for its theoretical underpinning (environ-
mental determinism and the assumption that subsistence economy can be sepa-
rated out from other aspects of past lives) and for its methodology (its adoption of
a rigidly geometric approach to the catchment area, and its lack of adequate atten-
tion to the extent of environmental change since prehistory), but the approach did
have value in its emphasis on the individual site in its landscape context.
We carried out our PSCAon our four study sites, three of which had been studied
by Jarman and Webley: Monte Aquilone, La Panetteria, and Masseria La Quercia. We
additionally deliberately chose one which they had not visited Masseria Bongo as
a virgin site. Our aim was to see if we could combine the recording of traditional
SCA information (such as topography and land use) with other observations which
might contribute to our understanding of the social and experiential aspects of life in
the Neolithic settlements, and to examine the interplay between the two. The new
kinds of information that we recorded focused on visibility (of landmarks in the
landscape from the site and vice versa) and more subjectively impressions of the
nature of the journeys within a sites territory we were undertaking (in terms of
openness/restriction of views, difficulty of terrain and so on).
Methodology
The methodology of traditional SCAis described in Higgs (1975:223224: Appendix
A). While we retained much of this in particular the one-hour radius adopted as
standard for agricultural communities, which had been derived from the work of
ethnographers and geographers, especially that of Michael Chisholm (1962),
and the practice of using the cardinal directions (N, S, E and W) for the walked
radii our objectives required us to make some fundamental changes. The first of
these relates to the difference between the outward and return journeys. In the orig-
inal methodology, the outward journey was carried out with a minimum of halts
and detours. Its primary purpose was to establish the one-hour limit, while the
return journey was used to plot in detail the changes in soil type and land use and
to examine any exposed sections, wells, springs and other features. This method
makes sense if the information to be recorded is the same in both directions, as it is
with traditional SCA. However, if one wishes to record views and impressions on
the journey, as we did, it is obvious that the journey out and the journey back are
different and that both journeys will involve many halts. We therefore did both jour-
neys slowly, stopping frequently. We used a stopwatch to establish the one-hour
limit, as well as to register the actual walking time. Characteristically we found that
a combined outward and return journey took between 4 and 5 hours, due to fre-
quent stops for note-taking and the need for detours to avoid modern obstacles and
fields under cultivation. Asecond change was that we used a minimum of two peo-
ple on each journey, partly for safety reasons, but partly to enable us to arrive at a
consensus on the more subjective aspects of the record (or to record differences of
opinion when no consensus could be reached). The guide to field methods pub-
lished by the Higgs project does not mention teamwork, but the general impression
given is that walking the radii is a solitary task undertaken by an individual
researcher. The implications of this are discussed later in our site-based critique of
Jarman and Webleys work.
We developed a proforma with separate formats for outward and return journeys
(Figs 8 and 9). The primary information is recorded in fields at the top of the form
(date, walkers, site name and so on), below which the journey detail is recorded in a
number of columns. The outward journey (Fig. 8) is described, from left to right:
left-hand side: the record of the time elapsed; this is the basic parameter of
the operation and is measured by using a stopwatch to discount pausing and
detour time; hereafter we use the term stopwatch minutes to refer to
assumed real journey time.
column 1: distance from the centre of the site; this is recorded using a GPS,
having stored our starting point (plotted from aerial photographs onto the
IGM 1:25,000 maps). Distance readings are taken at points of significance on
the journey (i.e. with entries in any of the other columns on the form) and
automatically at the 15-, 30-, 45- and 60-minute marks.
column 2: topography; breaks of slope, river valleys and so on as in the
original SCA.
column 3: soils; we use the same categories as in the original SCA for our
area: alluvial soils, crosta soils, thick limestone soils, thin limestone soils,
terra rossa.
column 4: land-use/vegetation; here we also use the same broad categories
as in the original SCA arable, pasture and unproductive land but we
record more detail about specific crops or other vegetation and state of the
field (ploughed, stubble, with growing crop and so on).
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Figure 8. Phenomenological site catchment analysis record for La Panetteria northward transect;
proforma for outward journey.
Figure 9. Phenomenological site catchment analysis record for La Panetteria northward transect;
accompanying notes for outward journey.
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column 5: features; this is a catch-all category; we use it to record specific
topographical features (e.g. rivers and modern features such as roads, tracks,
and aqueducts); we also record scatters of archaeological material, designated
by period.
columns 68: visibility, subdivided into left, centre and right. In these
columns we record when specific landscape features (e.g. distant features
such as the Gargano or Apennine mountains and, middle-distance features
such as scarps, hills, or rivers) come into, or go out of, view. The views
recorded involve looking ahead, or to right and left, turning the head alone,
and this is intended to reflect what one might see when walking normally on
a customary journey.
This proforma is augmented by notes (Fig. 9). These describe the nature of the
journey, and visibility and other impressions, in greater detail, and are made at the
15, 30, 45 and 60 stopwatch minute marks, though in each case they describe not
just the position at that point, but the previous 15 stopwatch minute journey. The
descriptions made at these points are intended to correlate with the observations
made on the site itself (mentioned earlier) and serve to enhance understanding of
the relationship between the site and its territory. At the 60-minute point, which
marks the end of the journey, we discuss and comment on the most significant
aspects, or features, of the journey.
The proforma for the return journey omits the columns for those things that are
common to both journeys such as topography, soils, and land use. The column for
features is retained, since we sometimes noticed things on the return journey
which we had missed going out. Pre-eminently we concentrate on visibility, paying
particular attention to the points at which (a) the site itself becomes visible for the
first time and (b) when it becomes continuously visible.
7
These points, particularly
the one where the site is continuously visible, are likely to have been significant in
social terms. The proforma for the return journey is accompanied by another set of
notes, comparable to that made for the outward journey, with detailed descriptions
made at the 15, 30, 45 and 60-minute mark.
Discussion
Our general conclusion after the fieldwork was that it is possible to combine the
recording of economic and phenomenological information (using our PSCA), but
increasingly we came to feel that this could best be grounded within a framework
of taskscapes as outlined by Ingold (1992). The comments on the experiential work
are divided into three sections: (a) a discussion of Jarman and Webleys work;
(b) some results of our PCSA; and (c) proposed new avenues of work opened up
by this methodology.
Comments on Jarman and Webley 1975 and on site catchment analysis in general
We were not able to reconstruct Jarman and Webleys work precisely. This was due
to their lack of precision, and specifically their failure to provide grid references for
5 km
1 km
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Thin limestone soils
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(A)
(B)
Figure 10. Phenomenological site catchment analysis diagrams for Monte Aquilone: (A) Site
Catchment Analysis diagram, showing one-hour walk radius mapped against land-use (redrawn after
Jarman and Webley 1975, fig. 13; (B) phenomenological site catchment analysis diagram from our 2003
field season, showing one-hour walk radius mapped against topography (contours at 25m intervals).
Solid central circle = centre of the site as calculated for this project; open off-centre circle = estimated
starting point for Jarman and Webleys survey.
their starting points. Most of the sites in their study are ditched villages of consider-
able size and it is necessary to choose some point as the centre for the starting point
of the walked radii. We plotted these points from aerial photographs onto the IGM
(
1
)
1:25,000 maps, but we do not know what Jarman and Webley did. Their work was
carried out before the publication of the aerial photographs by Jones (1987) and the
survey work of Cassano and Manfredini (1983) and Tin (1983), so they probably
had difficulty precisely locating the sites on the ground. However, they started from
somewhere on each occasion and there seems no reason why they should not have
provided the grid references. Our journey starting points were at least slightly differ-
ent from Jarman and Webleys for all three sites that were also studied by them
(Monte Aquilone, La Panetteria, and Masseria La Quercia), since permanent features
such as scarps occurred at different distances from the starting points (Fig. 10).
We also found considerable differences between our study and theirs in the dis-
tances covered in an hours walk (Table 8). In almost all cases our distances were
lower than theirs. In part, this may have been due to our lack of experience: the
biggest differences occurred at Monte Aquilone, which we studied first and the
lowest at La Panetteria, which we studied last, but this is not a complete explana-
tion. Because of Jarman and Webleys lack of detail concerning methods, we cannot
assess exactly what they did. It is possible they made allowances for delays caused
by contemporary differences between, for instance, ploughed and stubble fields,
but we cannot help feeling that there was a greater degree of evening-out and esti-
mation in their records than in ours. More importantly, in terms of social land-
scapes, gender is relevant to this issue. In our walks, although there was always more
than one person taking part, it was the gender of the team leader that was relevant;
on the whole, walks led by women covered shorter distances than those led by
men. As one might expect, the distinction is not absolute, with considerable over-
lap in the middle range, but the general pattern is clear enough (Table 9). The gen-
eralized 5km limit used in SCA studies was a masculine hours walk. Moreover,
SCA was a masculine methodology; most of the people involved in the original
Early History of Agriculture project were male and most of the site catchment
analyses that we know of were carried out by men. Retrospectively, there is a
somewhat macho feel to SCA; one has an image of the lone (if thats the way it was
done), intrepid, and definitely male field walker striding through the countryside.
There are implications for prehistory. Assuming that physiological differences
between men and women would have been the same as today (or equivalent) in
the Neolithic, and if we continue to accept that an hours walk represents the likely
limit of everyday activity, then womens limits were more restricted than mens in
terms of distance; alternatively they would have had to walk for longer (i.e. work
harder) to reach the same areas. These are not surprising conclusions, but they do
add a new social element to what has in the past been presented as undifferenti-
ated (but implicitly male) Neolithic practice.
In terms of soils and land use, our results are comparable to those of Jarman and
Webley, variance being related to our different starting points (as mentioned ear-
lier). In terms of presentation, we feel that it would be better to include both topo-
graphic and soil type information on the SCAmaps, or to present these things side
by side. Although topography is discussed in the site territory descriptions of
Jarman and Webley, the sole presentation of soil types in the catchment maps deval-
ues the role of topography in the interpretation of land use. This issue is critical
since it is topography that most clearly links economic and phenomenological
Table 8. Social distances in kilometres from centres of sites
Site and Site
direction Total distance Site first continuously
of walked Total distance Jarman & visible visible
radius July 2003 Webley 1975 July 2003 July 2003
Monte Aquilone
N 4.1 (5.3) 3.6 0.9
S 3.9 (5.0) 2.5 0.9
W 4.2 (4.9) 1.2 0.85
E 3.5 (5.0) 2.3 2.3
La Quercia
N 3.8 (4.6) 2.3 2.3
S 4.1 (4.9) 3.1 3.1
W 3.5 (4.9) 3.1 0.95
E 4.9 (5.2) 2.3 1.0
Masseria Bongo
N 4.3 N/A 1.0 0.3
S 4.5 N/A 0.7 0.7
W 4.3 N/A 0.8 0.7
E 4.5 N/A 4.4 0.75
La Panetteria 1
N 4.3 (5.0) 2.0 1.1
S 4.7 (4.6) 1.8 1.8
W 4.9 (4.6) 2.0 1.4
E 4.2 (4.8) 4.2 1.0
N.B. The figures given for Jarman and Webley 1975 are placed in brackets because the centres of
the sites are not the same as in our work; they nonetheless provide broadly valid comparisons
Table 9. Distances walked, from lowest to highest, and the gender of the
team leader
Distance (km) Gender
3.5 F
3.5 F
3.8 F
3.9 M
4.1 M
4.1 F
4.2 M
4.2 F
4.3 M
4.3 F
4.3 F
4.4 F
4.5 M
4.7 M
4.9 M
4.9 M
(
1
)
understandings of landscape and, even in exclusively economic terms, it
deserves more attention than that given by Jarman and Webley.
Phenomenological site catchment analysis: preliminary results
Two main aspects of our work relate to understanding social aspects of the terri-
tory, and to considering the walked radii as journeys through the landscape. We
were more successful in addressing the first than the second and the reasons for
this are discussed in the following section.
(a) Site territory in social terms
The only spatial analysis of the south Italian Neolithic that addresses social factors
known to us is Morter and Robbs 1998 article. Their analysis focuses on the use of
space at a macro-level, rather than on individual settlements, although they use the
Tavoliere site of Masseria Candelaro (close to Monte Aquilone) as a theoretical exam-
ple (Fig. 11). They start from the assumption that the enclosed village was the nodal
point in the Neolithic cultural landscape and that the world would have been under-
stood in terms of concentric zones around the settlement. Zone 1 was the innermost
zone, formed by the domestic house and its immediate space, occupied by small
family units. Zone 2 comprised the village and included areas for communal activi-
ties including burial and other ritual. This space was often enclosed, especially
where the villaggi trincerati occur, with one function of the boundary being the sepa-
ration of the resident community from outsiders. Zone 3 was the 13km catchment
zone around the village, exploited for subsistence activities and probably recog-
nized as belonging to the village, in terms of access and usage. Zone 4 was the inter-
village zone. It would be exploited for raw materials such as flint and salt and also
used for hunting and gathering; it perhaps belonged loosely to a number of related
villages. Zone 5 was at the margins of societies, sometimes topographically difficult,
and occupied by strange and possibly hostile peoples; it may have offered exotic
resources (e.g. obsidian and locally rare foodstuffs). The article is particularly con-
cerned with gender. Its overall conclusion is that in terms of gendered behaviour and
gender symbolism there might have been a spatial gradient from a female-associated
domestic centre to a male-associated periphery of a territory.
One of us (Whitehouse 2001a, 2002) has criticized this study from the perspectives
of both feminism (particularly for its stereotypical assumptions) and phenomen-
ology (for neglecting the experience aspect of space). Morter and Robbs concentric
circles represent an overly formal and geometric model, which fails to represent
even schematically the affective relationships between peoples and landscapes that
must have existed in prehistoric times; moreover, the experience of space and place
may have differed markedly on the basis of gender. The article is, however, an
innovative attempt to study space in social and gender terms in the south Italian
Neolithic and must represent the basis for subsequent work of this kind, including
our own.
Our work likewise starts from concentric circles (the legacy of its origin in SCA),
but is concerned with the analysis of specific sites rather than a general model. As
outlined earlier, we felt that the most significant points on our return journeys were
those at which (a) the site becomes visible for the first time and (b) when it becomes
continuously visible (Table 8). Our figures show considerable differences both
between sites and between different radii on the same sites. When the walks take one
onto significantly higher ground, without intervening obstacles, the sites can some-
times be seen from distances as great as 3 to 4km or more. On other occasions, as at
Masseria Bongo, which is surrounded by rolling hills, the site does not come into view
until well within the 1km range. The figures for continuous visibility are more consis-
tent; except for the few cases where the site is continuously visible from afar, the range
is 0.3 to 1.4km, with the majority of examples being less than 1km. We may assume
that our figures are underestimates, given that we sometimes experienced difficulties
with identifying the site locations through having to use proxy indicators and mod-
ern obstacles to visibility. The zone in which the site was always visible is likely
to have been socially significant and considered safe and close to home. It is
Figure 11. Diagram showing the spatial distribution of gender symbols in the South Italian
Neolithic. The spatial zones are illustrated using the site of Masseria Candelaro (after Morter and
Robb 1998, fig. 1).
(
1
)
interesting that this zone coincides reasonably well with the inner 1km zone
recognized in SCA, used for the most intensive agricultural practice. It also suggests
that Morter and Robbs Zone 3 (13km catchment) should probably be subdivided to
distinguish this inner 1km zone.
(b) Radii as journeys
Our attempt to recontextualize the walked SCA radii as journeys through the
landscape was less successful. We sometimes felt that we were undertaking mean-
ingful journeys, but more often we did not. There were two reasons for this. The
first was the arbitrary nature of the SCAradii, based on cardinal directions, which
bore no necessary relationship to local topography or journeys that the prehistoric
populations may have undertaken on a regular basis. The second was the neces-
sity, inherent in the SCAmethodology, on walking in straight lines (using compass
or GPS to keep us on course). This is self-evidently not a natural human way of
moving through landscape, even when that landscape is broadly-speaking flat and
without major obstacles; a more natural journey would include dog-legs and
bends to allow the travellers to include specific features and to avoid others (of
topographic, economic, or affective-symbolic significance).
Interestingly, although these considerations apply equally to outward and
return walks, the return walks felt more journey-like than the outward ones. The
return journeys had a clear sense of destination (which even in the circumstances
of the fieldwork project felt like home), whereas the outward journeys ended at
arbitrary locations, when 60 minutes had elapsed. Presumably in the Neolithic sit-
uation outward journeys would also have had specific destinations (outlying fields
or particular resources) and so the distinction would have been less marked;
nonetheless the journey home would undoubtedly have had a different feel from
the journey out.
On the outward walks, particularly those that seemed to approximate natural
journeys more closely, we found ourselves using landmarks (sometimes in the
middle ground, sometimes on the horizon) to navigate by. Further study of these
landscape features, combined with the more detailed phenomenological analyses
carried out within the sites, should help us to understand the experienced environ-
ment of the Neolithic communities, both in terms of the relatively fixed environ-
ment experienced in the settlement itself and the changing environment
experienced by members of the community journeying through their village terri-
tory in pursuit of their daily tasks.
Future developments of the methodology for socializing site territories
The challenge is to isolate a better way of generating comparative information on
the characterization of site territories, and journeys through those territories, for
the large number of Neolithic sites on the Tavoliere. One change would be to aban-
don the use of the cardinal directions as the basis of the radii and to choose direc-
tions that make sense in terms of the local topography (e.g. the shortest route to the
nearest river or a route along a scarp edge). However, this does not deal with the
straight line issue, inherent in SCA methodology. A more complete solution
would be to add another stage to the process. After the walked radii have been
completed, additional walks could be undertaken, designed as meaningful jour-
neys. While soil and land-use information would still be recorded (with the benefit
of providing greater precision to the land-use map), the route would follow natural
(or humanly constructed) features and the emphasis would be on the phenomenol-
ogy of the journey. Such a method would be labour-intensive, but could be reward-
ing in terms of the detailed understanding of the site.
CONCLUSION
In this article we have tackled the issue of both the methodology and the applica-
tion of phenomenology as one component of the suite of landscape fieldwork
methods available in archaeology. The actuality in the field is that traditional con-
cerns with land-use resources and adaptation to the environment, versus sensory
perceptions of place, are far less separated than conceptually expressed in writ-
ten papers. Our experimental use of phenomenology alongside SCA effected a
transformation of our understanding of the knowledge output of these techniques.
For example, in maintaining the SCAs use of abstract cardinal directions to pro-
vide a sampling strategy in which human agency and experience played no part, a
phenomenology approach exposed these to be journeys, and specifically gendered
journeys, even in SCAterms.
We have noted that most phenomenological work focuses upon the role of
architecture and landscape features in controlling and acting as cues to heightening
the experience of rites and rituals, and in generating symbolic awareness. Secular
and domestic social space has rarely been considered from a phenomenological
perspective. The experiences of being in an everyday place and the daily behav-
ioural and lifestyle parameters and avenues it creates have not been explored.
Rather than this necessarily relating to a communitys conscious design of space,
the phenomena of such spaces may be the experiential by-product of the space
which has been inhabited for a complex of social, economic, and ideological rea-
sons. It is from such perspectives that we are approaching the Tavoliere sites and,
contra traditional phenomenological fieldwork, we have made our methods
explicit. We recognize that the explanation of methodology will not necessarily
produce a different order of knowledge but will allow an understanding of the
conditions under which the knowledge was produced. We hope that our investiga-
tion of diverse phenomena including sight, sound, and smell will provide ground-
work for the exploration of the mundane plurality of experiences that constitute
daily life, and the scales of activity afforded by specific site sizes and layouts. In
doing this, we aim to access a more total physical/sensory experience than is cur-
rently present within archaeological phenomenology.
NOTES
1. It has been suggested to us that most of this paragraph so far would make little sense to
non-English readers. We would therefore like to introduce our international colleagues to an
(
1
)
aspect of current British society. Some groups in society, sometimes described as New Age,
reject many mainstream social values, especially those associated with technical and scien-
tific progress, in favour of ecological priorities and values based on intuition and feeling. The
term touchy-feely is associated with such responses.
2. The project is funded by the British Academy, the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, the
Graduate School, UCLand the National University of Ireland, Galway. The work began in 2003
with a core team of six members, the authors of the present article. Eleanor Betts joined the core
team in 2005 and we are grateful for her contribution to the olfactory and sound surveys.
3. For instance, Jarman and Webley (1975) argued that during the Neolithic the Gargano
might have been used for summer pasture for animals kept by agricultural villagers on the
Tavoliere. Also it has long been recognized that flint from Gargano sources was used on
the Tavoliere during the Neolithic and this understanding has been further developed since
the excavation of the early flint mine of Defensola (Di Lernia et al. 19901991). On a less
material plane, the Gargano may also have served as a ritual (or spiritual) resource, with the
Grotta Scaloria, and possibly other caves, being used for burial and other cult purposes by
farmers living on the plateau.
4. We used a Silva Multi-Navigator
TM
.
5. The site descriptions in Jones 1987 provide six-figure references, but this is not suffi-
ciently precise to allow us to plot the sites accurately on the 1:25,000 map. Our mapping
process is summarized in Table 2. The scale of map and the reliability of the GPS govern
accuracy. On a 1:25000 map a biro width is 10m on the ground while our GPSs were accurate
to 15m. Thus our locations were accurate to approximately 25m. We deemed this to be suffi-
cient for the phenomenological experiences that we were monitoring since the micro-topog-
raphy of the sites worked on a larger scale.
6. We have also explored some facets of visibility (as well as many other factors) through
GIS. This work was carried out in London by Andrew Dufton for his dissertation for the MSc
in Geographical Information Systems at UCL (Dufton 2005). On the basis of a GIS for 746
recorded Neolithic sites of the Tavoliere, Dufton recorded that aspect (the facing direction of
slope) showed a preference for sites to face north east, east, and south east. The whole land-
scape of the Tavoliere has this tendency, in that it is based on a series of terraces sloping
down from the Apennines to the sea, but the frequency distribution of archaeological sites
shows a greater tendency to face in these directions compared to the natural landscape.
When looked at in more detail, it emerges that most sites in the central and northern plain
face east, while a large proportion of those in the south depart from this pattern and face
north, towards the Gargano. This suggests that the Gargano may have been an especially
important landscape feature for the Neolithic occupants of the plain. We intend to look fur-
ther at this issue in future research, investigating possible environmental factors, such as
wind direction, as well as human experiential/cognitive factors.
7. Since the sites lacked surface archaeological features, in several cases we had to use
proxy markers for site visibility such as a prominent field of tomatoes, a modern building, or
our colleagues working within the site area.
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Sue Hamilton is a Reader in Later European Prehistory at the Institute of Archaeology
University College London. Her field projects, both in Britain (notably Bodmin Moor
and Sussex) and Europe (France and Italy), have focused on the social and sensory con-
structs of prehistoric settlement and landscapes, using both traditional fieldwork and
phenomenologically-orientated approaches. Her recent publications include two books:
Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape Archaeology (with B. Bender and
C. Tilley) and Archaeology and Women (with R. Whitehouse and K. Wright). She has
recently commenced a landscape project on Rapa Nui (Easter Island).
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Address: Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 3134 Gordon Square,
London WC1H 0PY, UK [email: s.hamilton@ucl.ac.uk]
Ruth Whitehouse is Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University
College London. She has researched for many years on Italian and west Mediterranean
prehistory, concentrating on social archaeology in general and more specifically on rit-
ual and religion. In the last 15 years she has also pursued research into gender archaeol-
ogy. Her publications include the books Underground Religion: Cult and Culture in
Prehistoric Italy; Gender and Italian Archaeology. Challenging the Stereotypes; and
Archaeology and Women (with S. Hamilton and K. Wright).
Address: Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 3134 Gordon Square,
London WC1H 0PY, UK [email: r.whitehouse@ucl.ac.uk]
Sue Hamilton and Ruth Whitehouse are joint directors of the TavoliereGargano
Prehistory Project (TGPP)
Keri Brown (University of Manchester) is joint deputy director of the TGPP, with spe-
cific expertise in the Neolithic of the Tavoliere and aerial photography.
[email: keri.brown@manchester.ac.uk]
Edward Herring (University of Ireland, Galway) is joint deputy director of the TGPP,
with expertise in the Iron Age of southern Italy and in field survey.
[email: edward.herring@nuigalway.ie]
Michael Seager Thomas (freelance archaeologist) has particular expertise in phenome-
nology, field survey and environmental archaeology.
[email: mst.artefactservices@virgin.net]
Pamela Combes (freelance archaeologist) has particular expertise in field survey and
logistical organization.
[email: pam.combes@btinternet.com]
ABSTRACTS
La phnomnologie en pratique : vers une mthodologie pour une approche subjective
Sue Hamilton et Ruth Whitehouse
avec Keri Brown, Pamela Combes, Edward Herring et Mike Seager Thomas
Cet article tudie la pratique des recherches archologiques phnomnologiques, qui se rapportent
lexprience sensorielle des paysages et lieux. Les approches phnomnologiques en archologie nous
ont successivement permis de mieux connatre certains aspects des expriences humaines du pass,
aspects non abords par les mthodes archologiques traditionnelles. Jusqu prsent, nanmoins,
nont t dvelopp ni des mthodologies explicites ni une discussion des pratiques
mthodologiques, lesquelles par consquent se voient qualifies de subjectives et non scientifiques.
Nous allons dcrire et tudier ici trois expriences en archologie phnomnologique dveloppes
dans le contexte du projet prhistorique de Tavoliere-Gargano et ralises dans des habitats
nolithiques du type nomm villaggi trincerati. Nos buts sont dune part de dvelopper des mthodes
explicites pour ce type de recherche sur le terrain, et dautre part de combiner la phnomnologie
dautres approches plus traditionnelles, comme celles tudiant les aspects technologiques,
conomiques et environnementaux des paysages et des sites. Notre travail se consacre, contrairement
dautres tudes phnomnologiques, galement aux expriences familires de tous les jours et aux
contextes domestiques plutt quaux expriences exceptionnelles et particulires rencontres dans les
contextes rituels. Nous analysons comment notre approche particulire pourra servir mieux
comprendre les vies des temps rvolus.
Mots-cls: reprsentation graphique, paysage, Nolithique, phnomnologie, analyse de captage de
sites, son, Tavoliere, villaggi trincerati, vision
Praktische Phnomenologie: Fr eine Methodik des subjektiven Forschungsansatzes
Sue Hamilton und Ruth Whitehouse (unter Mitarbeit von Keri Brown, Pamela Combes, Edward Herring
und Mike Seager Thomas)
Dieser Aufsatz beschftigt sich mit der Praxis der Phnomenologie in der archologischen
Feldforschung, die in der sensorischen Erfahrung von Landschaften und Pltzen ihre Anwendung
findet. Phnomenologische Anstze in der Archologie haben schrittweise Aspekte vergangener
menschlicher Erfahrungen beleuchtet, die sich mittels traditioneller archologischer Methoden
nicht ermitteln lassen. Allerdings wurde bislang weder eine verbindliche Methodik entwickelt,
noch eine Diskussion methodischer Praxis gefhrt was diese Anstze fr Anschuldigungen
angreifbar machte, sie seien subjektiv und unwissenschaftlich. Dieser Artikel beschreibt und
untersucht drei Experimente phnomenologischer Archologie, die im Rahmen des Tavoliere-
Gargano-Prehistory-Project entwickelt und an neolithischen Siedlungen durchgefhrt wurden, die
als villaggi trincerati bekannt sind. Unsere Ziele bestehen darin, konkrete Methoden fr diesen Typ
von Feldforschung zu entwickeln wie auch Phnomenologie mit anderen traditionelleren
Forschungsanstzen zu verknpfen, die sich z. B. mit Aspekten von Technik, konomie und
Umweltfaktoren von Landschaften und Fundpltzen beschftigen. Unsere Studie unterscheidet
sich auch darin von anderen Untersuchungen zu phnomenologischer Archologie, dass sie sich
mit den gewhnlichen, alltglichen Erfahrungen und huslichen Kontexten auseinandersetzt,
anstatt auf exzeptionelle, spezielle Erfahrungen in rituellen Kontexten zu fokussieren. Wir stellen
berlegungen an, wie unser Forschungsansatz fr ein vertieftes Verstndnis vergangener Leben
genutzt werden kann.
Schlsselbegriffe: grafische Reprsentation; Landschaft; Neolithikum;
Phnomenologie; Site Catchment Analysis; Klang; Tavoliere; villaggi trincerati; Vision

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