Re: Change? | Forum — The Modern Antiquarian

Change?

more_vert

thesweetcheat Jan 28, 2017 17:13:29

Replying to GLADMAN

GLADMAN wrote:

moss wrote:

.....So perhaps TMA as a resource is still growing, is still in its adapting stage, finding new sites and caring for them. You cannot stop it in full flow and reorder it into something new.

I'd agree with that. I see the paper tome as the introductory, very idiosyncratic precursor to a much, much larger undertaking, one - to all intents and purposes - without an end: the identification, attempted understanding and, above all, the appreciation and preservation of the tangible remnants left behind by the prehistoric pioneers of the UK and Europe.

That book captured my imagination precisely because it DIDN'T employ the tediously dry - often prohibitively so - point scoring, pseudo-academic discourse of any other archaeological work I'd picked up beforehand (the occasional dry wit of Aubrey notwithstanding). I've always held the opinion it's rather easy to become an expert upon something that will never allow definitive resolution of even such a basic question as 'what was a stone circle for?'. Cope was clearly coming at it from a different, irreverent direction with, crucially for me, an emphasis upon how these places made him FEEL combined with an altruistic, all-inclusive clarion cry to the reader to go and see for themselves.

It was the format of the book which I believe enabled Cope to share his enthusiasm so vividly, so I see no reason why the format of the website should change. I hope he - and those who give up their own time in support - feel the vision was worthwhile.

Great post. And maybe the reason why Moss made the paper TMA and Burl the only two "set texts" in the desert island allowance?

Off the subject of changing the website, but I reckon you can't help learn *something* by spending lots of time at these places, you might get good at finding them for a start :) You might learn to see patterns in landscape placement, or construction similarities, or even about geology of the stones. But what you most definitely do not gain is an all-knowing expertise, any more than you do from reading lots of books really. If anything, there are more questions all the time, rather than answers.

I know it sounds like a trite cliche, but I've learned far more about myself from visiting sites than about the sites themselves. And they still keep pulling me.

moss Jan 28, 2017 18:00:11

Replying to thesweetcheat

"And maybe the reason why Moss made the paper TMA and Burl the only two "set texts" in the desert island allowance?"

Yes;) it seems to me that books are built on other books, no one picked up on the other 6, I made a start this morning, then had to take the dog to the vet..I will defend Cope's book, because it was original with essays and is called The Modern Antiquarian, the play on the word 'Antiquarian', when you realise the vast amount of books written before has always pleased me.

Mike Aston who first introduced me to the archaeology of the place where I lived, can’t remember the title of the book but it was about North Avon/Somerset. He was, as we all know a popular television person in his role on Time Team. Setting out to bring archaeology to the public, not a bad undertaking.

Jodie Lewis – Again local, she wrote a book with the rather grandstanding title, ‘Monuments, Ritual and Regionality: The Neolithic of Northern Somerset’. Stanton Drew, Stoney Littleton and all its satellite long barrows were there, nothing complicated.

The next book/excavation was one on Keiller’s excavation of Windmill Hill and Avebury, the painstaking excavation of all the individual ditches round Windmill Hill making them into family plots grabbed my attention..,

Alisdair Whittle – Sacred Mound, Holy Ring; A book borrowed from the library, pig bones buried in the post holes, a long list of the plants underneath Silbury opened up the world.

Books that opened my mind to specific places.... slightly jumbled but still

GLADMAN Jan 28, 2017 18:39:28

Replying to thesweetcheat

thesweetcheat wrote:

I know it sounds like a trite cliche, but I've learned far more about myself from visiting sites than about the sites themselves. And they still keep pulling me.

I think that might well sum up the appeal of TMA for a number of others, too. Certainly me. It's the human element that's paramount for me, not individual site detail. These constructions were erected by anatomically modern people like us, with hopes and dreams perhaps mirroring ours - at least at a base level? - but who rather annoyingly didn't leave any other clues/indications of what they thought/felt behind for prosperity. Maybe this mystery epitomises the 'so where do I come from/what does life mean/where am going' conundrum some of us just can't help exploring... where better to contemplate such 'stuff' than at localised hot points, so to speak?