The Thornborough Henges forum 71 room
Image by Moth
The Thornborough Henges

Thornborough on the Beeb

close
more_vert
nigelswift N
nigelswift Feb 11, 2006 15:52:34
Replying to nigelswift

Here it is -
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:99JE9wKrxuIJ:www.english-heritage.org.uk/upload/pdf/ehac_minutes_jan04.pdf+%22english+heritage+%22+%22definition+of+setting%22&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=2&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8

EH HAC Minutes

s8.3
"8.3 The Committee emphasised the need to weigh up the legal position regarding setting, and to develop an intellectually viable definition of setting. It was suggested that setting might usefully be contrasted with context, the former having more to do with visual environment, the latter with intellectual surroundings, including deposits and the questions that give them meaning."

N nigelswift
nigelswift Feb 11, 2006 15:58:50
Replying to nigelswift

Wooops....

In other words, the deposits are merely "context" whereas "setting" is a visual thing. On that basis, subterranean deposits aren't the point. The view is!

F FourWinds
FourWinds Feb 11, 2006 16:12:38
Replying to nigelswift

>> the latter with intellectual surroundings, including deposits and the questions
>> that give them meaning."

Well, one of the questions that give them meaning is surely the setting! As you say, the landscape that surrounds them.

Context can not be limited to the soil around a buried artifact. If you find a bowl what is its context? The soil around it? The ring of post holes that form the house it was last used in? The enclosure the house was built inside? The field system around the enclosure? The valley that the fields are in? The mountain range that the valley is part of?

Who says where it ends?