Ritual Landscapes

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I probably don't believe in ritualised landscapes, ancestral yes, they build up over time. What I do think though is that we forget that these people had language and needed to narrate the story of their lives, and the expression of ritual/religion is bound up in the landscape. To go back to basics, to survive we must know our environment - forget modern day counterparts we live in a kaleidoscope of fast images our senses are so blunted as to be almost non existent. They had to live and survive, and probably most important of all create a view of their world. The natural world would have created the words to explain hills, rivers rocks, animals etc., from there we take "mother earth" hills that form breasts, our eyes see shapes and we process them logically, this progression is fluid it takes different forms. Religion is always fluid, ritual builds up over time and the reason why it is there is forgotten - stone circles are put up in imitation of others with no understanding of the reason why, and probably also in rockart. But I reckon the landscape would always have been important it centered the world in which you lived, it had to be named when you travelled, and neolithic people definitely travelled, it may not have been ritualised but it was given shape and form in words and therefore is part of the narrative or story...

I'd have to completely disagree with you. It is becoming more apparent that the reason for the location of ritual structures is for many due to the landscape features. Brobly the most significant is water, with many of the lowland henge being build where they are linked to water features such as rivers, lakes and wells. In addition I'd also say that there is good reason to think that some structures were built because of relationships to mountains etc. I have abcolutely no douby about this, the doubts that I do have is that we are able to recognise and understand this without forcing our modern desires into the equation.

Well probably I did'nt put it to well, agree that barrows and circles within the landscape do relate to hills, mountains and water. River Axe under the Mendips, hidden water source with all the swallets there, Silbury again the Kennet, and Swallowhead spring and maybe a moat surrounding it.
But there are certain things that do not necessarily point to a continuation, when I took a photo of Silbury and WKLB in the same frame so to speak, and from the standpoint of East Kennet LB ( http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/40211) it did seem that different aspects of ritual stood out. the longbarrows facing the rising sun, Silbury saying something completely different, Avebury circle not seen but with its avenue winding down to the sanctuary - sun, moon, ceremonial road - and then way back Windmill hill and its associations. So what drew them to this place, dry chalk upland for settlement, or sacred place - which came first?