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

ApproachPhenomenology in Practice: Towards a p Methodology for a `Subjective'

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P HENOMENOLOGY IN PRACTICE: TOWARDS AMETHODOLOGY FOR A SUBJECTIVEAPPROACH

Sue Hamilton and Ruth WhitehouseUniversity College London, UK

with Keri Brown, Pamela Combes, Edward Herring andMike Seager Thomas

Abstract: The article deals with the practice of phenomenological archaeological fieldwork, whichis concerned with sensory experience of landscapes and locales. Phenomenological approaches inarchaeology have cast light on aspects of past human experience not addressed by traditionalarchaeological methods. So far, however, they have neither developed explicit methodologies nora discussion of methodological practice and have laid themselves open to accusations of beingsubjective 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 todevelop explicit methods for this type of fieldwork and to combine phenomenology with othermore traditional approaches, such as those concerned with technological, economic and environ-mental aspects of landscapes and sites. Our work also differs from other phenomenologicalarchaeology in its concern with familiar, everyday experience and domestic contexts, rather thanexceptional, special experience in ritual contexts. We consider how our particular approach mightbe 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 cynicallyor 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 bythose with a superficial acquaintance with the subject. One of the terms commonlyused is touchy-feely. This is a pejorative term for the concern of phenomenologywith sensory experience. As such, it serves to devalue these aspects of human

European Journal of Archaeology Vol. 9(1): 3171Copyright 2006 SAGE Publications (www.sagepublications.com) and

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32 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 9(1)

experience, both through its baby-language form and its everyday use where it isoften applied to non scientific things such as alternative medicine, crystals, water-divining, or anything else out of line with mainstream social thought.1 Anotherterm used about phenomenology is subjective, again applied pejoratively to sug-gest an individual intuitive understanding that is not open to assessment by themethods of objective science. The implication is that phenomenology lacksmethodology and is thus disqualified from serious consideration as a distinctarchaeological approach. The main purpose of the current article is to address thisissue 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 experiencedoes not, per se, make it less amenable than any other archaeological approach tothe development of a rigorous methodology, which would allow its results to beassessed in normal academic ways (see Fleming 2005 for an example of such anassessment). We also believe that it can and should be combined with other, moreestablished approaches to the understanding of sites and landscapes. Indeed this isnecessary to achieve a more holistic understanding of the past. This view is notcontroversial and is recurrently expressed (e.g. Brck 2005; Robb and Van Hove2003:241242). A way forward might be to take the practices associated with thedifferent approaches and their widely differing assumptions and reconcile them. Inthis scenario attempts to understand the lived experience of place do not necessar-ily conflict with more traditional concerns with land-use, resources and adaptationto the environment and in combination could provide an alternative frameworkfor investigating these components of past lives.

In this article we describe methodologies for three different phenomenologicalexercises, which we developed during the TavoliereGargano Prehistory Project.2

We offer these methodologies as a focus for on-going discussion. In doing so, wehope 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 limitationsand 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 awide range of methods, including many that would be regarded as traditional ormainstream, as well as phenomenology.

As part of a range of methods of exploring places, phenomenology can enrichthe scope of our thoughts, questions, and understanding of the behavioural param-eters concerning past site contexts (Brck 2005:64). Its application in archaeologicalfieldwork is a contemporary experience in which we have to wrestle with the ideathat its results may be incompatible with the motives and consciousness of peoplein the past. Many aspects of place are mutable through time, including vegetationcover, 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 possibleto focus on more constant aspects of site locales and landscapes. The latter mightinclude large-scale geological and topographic formations and the distancesover 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 presentarticle. The focus of our applied study the Neolithic ditched enclosure sites of theTavoliere 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 hasbeen used elsewhere versus our new approaches in the Tavoliere and we indicatehow 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 combinationwith the evidence of traditional archaeological data.

The traditions of phenomenological studies of prehistoriclandscape localesPhenomenology has become an established archaeological concept (Hodder1999:132; 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 appliedto 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: Tilley1994; the Avebury region: Thomas 1995), and Sweden (Tilley 1995a). The Bronze Agemonuments of Bodmin Moor have also been the subjects of major phenomeno-logically-orientated fieldwork (Bender et al. 1997, in press; Tilley 1995b, 1996). Allof these studies have centred on a single sense vision. Their concern has beenwith what can be seen from specific viewpoints at the monuments, changes in vis-ibility journeying to and between monuments, and, more recently, the parametersof visibility in wooded landscapes (Cummings and Whittle 2003). Whether it isright to privilege this sense, specifically its positive aspect, must be open to ques-tion. The experiential impact of light deprivation, for instance, has been recentlyexplored for the Neolithic ritual cave sites of southern Italy (Betts 2003; White-house 2001b). Sound has received limited mainstream archaeological attention. Alittle work has been undertaken on megalithic monuments in prehistoric Britain;Watson and Keating (1999) and Lawson et al. (1998) have reviewed specific sitecategories and their potential sound characteristics (Palaeolithic caves and variousNeolithic megalithic monuments). Whitehouse (2001b) also briefly discussessound effects in Mediterranean cult caves. The sound phenomena identifiedinclude the distancing of sounds from the outside world, parameters of audibleambience, the impact of architecture and natural phenomena on sound amplifica-tion and sound screening. Clearly, these must have impacted on the ways inwhich monuments and sites were used.




The primary use of phenomenology in the study of archaeological landscapeshas postulated a direct relationship between individuals and the environmentwithout the intervention of the mind or any intermediary concepts (Ingold1992:46; 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 individuallives) and the individual (see also Brck 1998). This work has emphasized a needto explore the mechanisms through which the perceptual framework was cre-ated, if we wish to elucidate how past perceptual frameworks may have beenstructured. In this context construction, movement, ritual, and exploitationare isolated as being key mechanisms of interaction between people and space(Jones 1998). To some extent such an approach framed our questions with respectto the Tavoliere. Here, phenomena were monitored with specific cultural ques-tions in mind, such as how the sites were constructed in their landscapes and thepossible types of movement and communication that would have pertainedwithin and between sites.

Critiques of phenomenologyA key issue is the perception that phenomenology assumes the universality of thehuman body. In this guise phenomenology is at odds with a post-processualagenda of historical specificity and its rejection of the universal laws of processualarchaeology (Brck 1998; Jones 1998:10). Brcks critique (1998:276) emphasizesthat 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 phenomenologycan take us little further than the most basic generalizations about the past. This isan extreme perspective, given that the application of phenomenology in disparatecontexts (including differing seasonal and weather conditions), using a diverserange of individuals as participants, has not been fully explored. Our work on theTavoliere did take account of our human variability, and found that even the mostbasic generalizations offered significantly recontextualized presumptions concern-ing the societal functioning of the Neolithic sites.

Methods of practical applicationTo date, descriptions of phenomenological fieldwork have not made their practicalmethodology (as opposed to their theory and observations) explicit (Cummings2004 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; Hamilton1998; Hamilton and Manley 2001). The lack of exposition on the modes and issuesof phenomenological fieldwork may of course be deliberate. It could be arguedthat de facto phenomenological practice involves allowing physical responses andthe observation of phenomena to be secured as immediate revelations and thatthe 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 thephenomena are being observed. While the I of the phenomenologist is resonant indescriptions of site experiences, the they of past communities is rarely situated inthe active tense. Indisputably it is a delusion to think that we could ever whollyknow how they thought and interfaced with domestic and ritual landscapes, butwe are actively and we would argue unnecessarily distancing ourselves fromthe 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 withinthe existing phenomenological literature may be a reflection that phenomenology,with a few exceptions (Bender et al. 1997; Cummings 2003; Hamilton and Manley2001), 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 begunto explore sound and smell, as well as other visual phenomena, such as colour. Weare considering these with particular respect to social distance mapping. We areconcerned with developing a methodology that is explicit and therefore open toexamination, critique and development by other scholars and will contribute to anunderstanding of the conditions under which phenomenological knowledge isproduced. This work focuses on the visual and auditory phenomena of everydaylife, rather than those of the ritual realm. We recognize that there may be no rigiddivision between the sacred and the secular in prehistoric societies, but suggestthat there is an important distinction between experiences which take place on rel-atively rare occasions and in special locations, and the habitual experiences ofeveryday life, taking place in mainly domestic environments.

THE TAVOLIEREGARGANO PREHISTORY PROJECT

IntroductionThe TavoliereGargano Prehistory Project had its first full season in 2003 (Fig. 1). Itsaim is to investigate the relationships between the flat Tavoliere plain and the adjacentmountainous Gargano Promontory in later prehistory (Neolithic to Iron Age). Thetwo zones are likely to have been exploited in a complementary fashion,3 but littlework has been done to explore such links. The project involves a number of differentsurvey approaches, on different scales, including GIS and phenomenological survey,as well as re-examination of previous excavation and survey results to provide achronological 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 Neolithicditched enclosure sites of the Tavoliere, known in Italian as villaggi trincerati (foran introduction to these sites, see Brown 1997, 2004; Cassano 1981; Cassano andManfredini 1983; Jones 1987; Manfredini 1981; Odetti 1975; Skeates 2000; Tin 1983).




The primary studied sites were four ditched villages Monte Aquilone, LaPanetteria 1, Masseria La Quercia and Masseria Bongo (Table 1; Fig. 1). Of these,the first three have been excavated to some extent (Monte Aquilone: Manfredini1972; La Panetteria 1: Jones 1987:137143; La Quercia: Jones 1987:130135), whileMasseria Bongo has never been either surveyed or excavated. We shall use some ofour results from these sites by way of examples.

Methods developed for the Tavoliere sites: starting issues and problemsFor us, the Tavoliere sites provided immediate problems. The sites are not sign-posted, they lack surface architecture or monuments to locate them, and they arein apparently featureless locales. This meant they were difficult to find in the firstplace, and, once found, did not fit with any pre-existing phenomenological strat-egy, such as considering how site architecture and dramatic localized landscapefeatures channelled experience.

0 10

km

FOGGIA

MANFREDONIA

VIESTE

SAN MARCO IN LAMISSAN SEVERO

LAGO DI LESINALAGO DI VARANO

Grotta Scaloria

Monte Aquilone

Torrione del Casone

La Quercia

Masseria Bongo

Torrente

Cervaro

Torrente Candelaro

Fium

e Fo

rtore

TAVOLIERE

Fiume O

fanto

La Panetteria

LUCERA

GARGANO

ROME

Figure 1. Location map for the Neolithic ditched enclosures of the Tavoliere Plain, Puglia, southernItaly. The shaded area represents land over 200 m; solid circles represent Neolithic sites.




Mapped space: finding the sitesMaps 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 athree-dimensional world being represented on a two-dimensional surface, thusrendering the viewer as outside the experience. These birds-eye views all imply aconsiderable distance between the subject and the object, and present a picture ofthe landscape which its inhabitants would not recognize (Thomas 1995:25). Mapsand 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, strikinglycomplex architectural forms (the largest site, Passo di Corvo, measures 730 460 m),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 havesurvived unchanged since the 1940s, when the most useful aerial photographswere taken (Bradford 1949; Bradford and Williams-Hunt 1946). While artefact scat-ters occur on ploughed sites, there is usually nothing physically to indicate when avisitor has arrived at a site boundary, or passed into its interior. Thus, before wecould embark upon a phenomenological study we had to locate the centre andboundaries of each site. The process by which we got the plans of the sites from theaerial photographs on to a 1:25,000 map, thereby supplying a full grid referencethat would then lead us to the centre of the site on the ground, using a GlobalPositioning System (hereafter GPS)4 is summarized in Table 2.5

Table 1. Size classifications of the study sites

MonteAquilone(called Masseria

Masseria Masseria Maremorto III bySite Bongo La Quercia La Panetteria 1 Jones 1987)

Class III II (but at the II I (inner enclosure), (Jones maximal size) but needs1987) reclassifying in the

light ofManfredinis(1972) plan whichincludes an outerenclosure

Site number 71 72 1 207(Jones1987)Area (ha) 8.56 5.8 4.5 2.5Maximal 450 384 240 180distance(m) acrosslongestaxis of the site




PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHODS USED ON THE TAVOLIEREGARGANOPREHISTORY PROJECT

1 Mapping visual perception of landscape from a singlestanding point at the centre of each siteIntroductionThe impression of circularity is the modus operandi for registering human visionfrom a single viewpoint. Human visual perception defines a circle wherever thestanding body is positioned. This is self-evidently the outcome of the human bodybeing able to turn through 360 degrees at any given fixed point, and the head beingable 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 anddiachronic. A common twentieth-century example is the European tradition oforientation plaques or the French tables dorientation, placed at elevated beautyspots. 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 theother. Particularly since the 1990s archaeological publication has experimentedwith photograph images to portray the reality that we look around as opposed toat. The now commonplace use of a wide-angle camera lens to achieve panoramicimages of archaeological sites effectively packs a curved image onto a flat surfaceto 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 internalC-ditches. The maximum width of the enclosure is c. 240 m. (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 butdirectly in the field. The idea of a circular view is pre-figured in the drawings that theeighteenth-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 wasrepresented as a continuous circle, were an innovation. Within these, key points of theAvebury 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 ofdrawing visual phenomenological experiences of sites and their landscape setting. Acentral issue for us was how to record such observations in the field in a way thatwould allow the accumulation of a database of comparable images. Experiments inachieving this, using the idea of 360-degree horizon, are Cummingss diagrams of thelandscape contexts of monuments in south-west Wales and south-west Scotland

Table 2. Procedures used for locating the centre and boundaries of the ditched enclosureson the ground

Stage Task Task details

1 Establishing the scale Find something measurable on the aerialof the ditched enclosure photograph of the ditched enclosure that is also

present on the 1:25,000 map. This enables one towork out the scale of ditched enclosure on theaerial photograph.

2 Placing the plan of the Locate something on aerial photograph that isditched enclosure proximate to the ditched enclosure and can beon the map readily orientated on the map (generally not

the same as 1) and measure from that in a knowndirection to points on the ditched enclosure.Calibrate the measurement to the scale of the map,and mark off that distance, at the measuredorientation, on to the map (used 1: 25,000).

3 Finding the centre of the Take grid reference of the centre of the ditchedditched enclosure on enclosure. Put this information into the GPS andthe 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 needand points of interest of to be located on the ground. Measure the orientationthe ditched enclosure of these points of interest from the centre and alsoon 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.




(Cummings 2003: figs 3 and 4; Cummings and Whittle 2004; Peterson 2003: fig. 3; seeFig. 3); Hamilton and Manleys (2001: figs 3, 4 and 7) pie charts of hillfort view zonesin 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 ina landscape: (A) a version of Stukeleys 1724 drawing of the view from the end of the BeckhamptonAvenue, Avebury, Wiltshire, UK (after Peterson 2003, fig. 2, modified); (B) circular view from thelocation of the Vix Early Iron Age tumulus wagon burial, Burgundy, France (from recording sheet ofUCLs 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 ofthe 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 inthe field, with respect to assessing the sustainability of the interpretative argumentsthey may support (for a critical reassessment of Cummings and Whittle 2004, seeFleming 2005).

MethodFor the Tavoliere, we developed these ideas by using four concentric horizons in ourimage representation of the visual phenomenology from the centres of the ditchedenclosures (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 obscuredare rendered invisible by intermediary hills.




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 interms 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 sitesmore centrally situated on the Tavoliere plain, see Fig. 4.




distant and far horizons and their dominant features. We should emphasize thatthese drawings are not Cartesian representations; although they are obviously two-dimensional images, they do not represent birds-eye views as normal maps do, butindicate 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 directcorrelation with the absolute distances of landscape places from site centre. The ideawas to establish whether the visual experience of inhabiting a ditched enclosure wassite specific, or had any distinct regional or general patterns. Our remit was to recordthis experience in a way that was comparable over a large number of sites and thatcould accommodate diverse team members and groups of people working together(Fig. 5). For each horizon the features that were perceived to be dominant weresketched around a continuous circle, using the control of compass bearings. This wasquickest using two people a sketcher and a bearing taker. The compass bearingsallowed us to locate the features on the map and name them. For the more distanthorizons this involved the use of large-scale maps and a consideration of relativeheights of intermediary tracts of landscape.

ResultsThis process produced an in situ thinking engagement and familiarization with thelandscape, and was important for our understanding of place in several ways.From our preliminary study, there appeared to be clear differences in the scale oflandscape panorama, and the dominance of key topographic features associatedwith the ditched enclosures. These differences highlighted that the Tavoliere is notthe uniform environment that its designation as a plain suggests. Proximity to theGargano, proximity to the Apennines, and central locations within the plain wouldhave variously generated very different landscape identities to the inhabitants ofthe ditched enclosures. At Monte Aquilone, the smallest site in our survey, theGargano and its foothills dominated the middle and distant view, with MonteCalvo 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 farviews, with the Lucera scarp as the dominant middle view. At the largest sitesMasseria La Quercia and Bongo the Apennines dominated the distant view and theGargano was just a hazy outline in the far distant view.6

Approximately circular site diagrams around the sites had been produced byJarman and Webley (1975) in the context of site catchment analysis (discussed indetail 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 visualsense of place in Jarman and Webleys diagrams is striking. There is for instance notopographic information to allow assessment of the extent to which a sites walk-ing/economic territory was observable from the centres of the sites. While ofcourse 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 asite may have been considered as part of a sites physical, social or conceptual ter-ritory and may have been important to the resident communitys understandingof its site locale. Equally, areas within the daily walking distance territory which




were out of view from the site may have been of lesser importance, for differentuses, or may only have had restricted members of the community working onthem. 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 mostof the site, although it is very close to the site boundary and inter-audible withmore 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 itmight in fact have been regarded as unsafe with respect to leaving children, crops,or animals unattended.

2 Mapping and recording sentient social spaceIntroductionOur aim was to use phenomenology to explore the social parameters that may havecharacterized the Neolithic ditched enclosure sites of the Tavoliere. These sites havealways been assumed to be settlement sites, and as such would have been loci for arange of social and practical tasks involving both face-to-face and longer-distancecommunication. 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 IIsites are held to be the dwellings of single social groups (possibly families) and theircommunities thought of as autonomous, acephalous, and egalitarian (Brown1997:130). It is suggested that the spatial pattern of smaller sites often encircling thelarger 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 wefocus on here, one is Class I (Monte Aquilone: we studied the inner enclosure), twoare Class II (La Panetteria 1 and Masseria La Quercia, the latter being at the maximalend 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 itas a convenient means of categorizing the sites by spatial scale.

Because we were dealing with sites that today lack features on the ground, weused flags to mark the boundary ditches of each enclosure, and also the centrepoint 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 oursense of being on and within invisible sites. At the same time they were workingtools 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 choiceof flag size worked effectively on Monte Aquilone and reasonably well onMasseria La Quercia and La Panetteria, but the flags were barely big enough to beseen across the scale of Masseria Bongo.




Table 3. Size classification of the ditched enclosures of the Tavoliere (information fromBrown 1997:129)

Class Size Description Features

I less than 4ha Very small Single or multipleenclosure ditches

II 47ha Small to medium More complex enclosureditches, sometimes withinternal C-ditches, ofteninterpreted as hut-compounds

III above 716ha Large Large, single or multipleenclosures often filledwith C-ditches

IV more than 628ha with Extremely large Extremely large sitesPasso di Corvo being with concentric ditchesthe largest site of all, and/or outer enclosures,with an inner enclosure some apparently emptyof 28ha and an outer of internal features, othersenclosure 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)




MethodsAs Tables 4, 5 and 6 indicate, our work focused on basic phenomena relating to theexperience of sound and visual signalling communication. We first monitoredthese on the sites using an observer/recorder, usually with two other people at thesite centre to record the sight and sound phenomena generated by people placed atevenly spaced flagged stations on the otherwise invisible perimeters of the sitesand at staged positions beyond (Tables 4, 5 and 6). The upper half of the body is vitalto effective bodily sound and signalling communication (Drewett and Hamilton1999) and its visibility was thus monitored. We also distinguished between simplyseeing and hearing and recognizing specific body movements and details, andspeech patterns, the latter being essential to complex communication and instruc-tion giving. In order to ascertain degrees of communication, we focused on thepossibilities 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 seeingmerely a body outline, as opposed to recognizing sweeping arm instructions andfinally distinguishing finer details of hand movements and facial expressions (Fig.7). Self-evidently, these different scales of communication are elemental to thetypes of social tasks that can be carried out within and across sites from fixedpoints. It was disconcerting to realize that our unthinking inclusion of a metalsound (a traditional sheep bell) in the first seasons work on Neolithic sites waswholly inappropriate to the period (the project also covers Bronze and Iron Agesites), and a simantron (a wooden cymbal improvised as a small woodenupturned bowl and stick beater) was subsequently introduced.

Figure 7. Two examples of the variable visibility of large scale (left) and small scale (right) bodilymovements, 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 interiorsand their immediate surroundings. It would be spurious to take these measurements asabsolute, but they do suggest a broad patterning that is relevant to the interpretation of indi-vidual site function and to use.

DISTANCE GENDERPARAMETERS COMPARISONSMaximum Cumulative totalsdistance in of communicationmetres from scores, for each the site centre gender, withat which each increasingcommunication nearnessphenomenon to the centre pointwas viable COMMUNICATION of a site/the recipient

Sound and visual allocated score* Female Malephenomena

390316 Human body outline 1 1 1distinguishable

250 Simple sweeping body 2 3 3actions 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 8feet actions become clearer

180 Female whistle 2 (female only) 12 8

110 Female spoken words 5 (female only) 17 8stressed in sentences

67118 Male shout 4 (male only) 17 12

7050 Male spoken words 5 (male only) 17 17stressed in sentences

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 possible2 = very basic instructions possible based on a simple sound (whistle) or hand waving3 = more complicated instructions possible based on more complex body movement

(smaller scale hand and feet actions)4 = shouted communication possible5 = more detailed communication possible based on simple stressed sentences6 = normal conversation possible chat




Table 5. Maximum distances from a standing person that specific human sound and visual communi-cation phenomena could generally be distinguished. (Spring measurements)

DISTANCE GENDERPARAMETERS COMPARISONSMaximum Cumulative totalsdistance in of communicationmetres from the scores, for eachsite centre at gender, withwhich each increasingcommunication nearness to thephenomenon centre point of awas viable COMMUNICATION site/the recipient

Sound and visual Allocated score Female Malephenomena (see key for Table 4)

390316 Human body outline 1 1 1distinguishable

350 Male whistle 2 (male only) 1 3340 Female, and male, 4 5 7

shout310 Female whistle 2 (female only) 7 7250 Simple sweeping body 2 9 9

actions recognizable e.g.hand-waving

185 Smaller-scale hand and 3 12 12feet actions become clearer

170 Female spoken words 5 (female only) 17 12stressed in sentences

120 Male spoken words 5 (male only) 17 17stressed in sentences

50 Male and female chat 6 23 23

Our results, discussed in the next section, are not absolute but this is not thepoint. Obviously perception of maximum visibility and the distances over whichsound will travel at any given site will vary depending on the conditions. Stubble forexample generates the worst heat hazes. Audibility is affected by wind direction(which was noted) and communication was sometimes not mutual due to this (andtherefore not registered as such). Our interpretations are based on the most regularpatterns that occurred during the periods (mornings and mid-to-late afternoons),seasons, and years of our study. On-going fieldwork in different seasons continues torefine and add to our observations (e.g. Table 5). Recurrent everyday and seasonaldomestic, subsistence, and social tasks are generally organized on the expectation ofnormal conditions, and on this basis we particularly consider our focus on sum-mer parameters (though resulting from pragmatic considerations) to have inductivevalue 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 buildingsand 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 theirgender 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 ofcommunication from boundary

Site Size class to the centre of the site

Masseria III Communication phenomena restrictedBongo 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 andLa 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 variousparts, or the maximal communication achievable. Thus our results must be takenas benchmarking maximal possibilities and highlighting issues of site functionwhen 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 ofgenerating new questions that can then be explored by multiple means. Theseshould 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.

ResultsThe 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 anduse, there is a clear split at the upper end of Class I. Tables 4 and 5 summarize themaximal ranges of sound and body signalling possible across the ditched enclosuresites that we studied. Monte Aquilone stood out as being the only site where refinedcommunication 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 onlysite where a male shout (which in Tavoliere summer and dry conditions carries lessfar than a female shout) and both male and female conversation could be transmittedfrom centre to perimeter and vice versa (Tables 4 and 6). Given that Monte Aquilone isalso comfortably within the parameters for recognizing refined body signallingmovements over centre-boundary distances, tasks relating to a single homestead




could have been co-ordinated across the site with no female/male imbalance. Of theClass II sites, we found that at La Panetteria I (Fig. 2) this kind of communicationfrom the centre to the boundary would not have been possible, but between onecompound (c-ditch) and its neighbour, raised voices would have been audible,though not normal conversation, or babies crying (Table 7). We also noted that whenwe flagged the positions of the c-ditch enclosures at this site, it became evident thatthese positions would have afforded a series of radial maximal vision zones andsound transects from site centre to site boundary.

The second Class II site in our study, Masseria La Quercia, lies at the very uppermargins of the Class II size category. Here, a female shout from the centre can beheard 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 havebeen located to take account of the type of communication required. A man couldfor 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 hadbeen ploughed prior to our first survey; surface finds were prolific, and it wasinteresting to note a concentration of querns and large storage vessels at the centreof the site. If women were occupied in grinding tasks at the site centre, they wouldhave had priority in communicating across the site. This serves to emphasize that,socially and economically, the larger sites must have functioned very differentlybecause of the impact of their scale on the basic communication phenomena ofdaily life. The difficulties of communicating across the longest axes of MasseriaBongo are in a class of their own. The only form of communication possible fromcentre to perimeter was broad sweeping actions such as hand waving (Table 6).Given that individuals are not recognizable at these distances, the communicationvalue of this was restricted. However, our current experiments suggest that charac-teristic clothing silhouettes (such as distinctive hats) and clothing colours wouldeffectively 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 agreater zonation of tasks. The centres of these sites would have been isolated fromthe wider world of the site boundaries and beyond. This isolation, however, relatesspecifically to human sound and vision and its impact on communication. Thetime taken to walk across or around a site even the size of Masseria Bongo is rela-tively minor. A walk directly across the site via its centre took just under 8 minutesfor a female, and a walk around the complete perimeter took 18 minutes for a maleand 21 minutes for a female. Collectively, these communication parameters raisethe issue of how the site perimeters were laid out in the first place. It would havebeen possible to fix the boundaries of a Class I site by merely commanding from thecentre. The Class II and larger sites afford none of these possibilities of centralized




Table 7. Opportunistic, and controlled experiments of comparative distances over which diverseeveryday sound and smell phenomena can be sensed. All sites mentioned are the locations ofNeolithic villaggi trincerati, unless otherwise stated.

Sites at whichEnvironmental Limit/scale monitoring took

Metres Noise/smell/colour conditions of sense place

940 simantron Warm, still, damp, Audible Jones Site 32after 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 Aquiloneaudibility

300350 Stone strike Warm, still, dry Limit of Monte Aquiloneaudibility

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,


190 Metal sheep bell Warm, dry, still Reliable Masseria Bongo,sound Masseria La Quercia,


130 Outdoors Warm, dry, Faint Jones Site 227conversation: slight wind,3 male tomato downwindpickers

122 Small hunting dogs Warm, damp, wind Audible Jones Site 227blowing acrossline of sound

122 Hand clapping Warm, damp, wind Audible Jones Site 227blowing acrossline 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 218direction odourtowards us




instruction and co-ordination. The shapes of these larger sites interestingly demon-strate a greater adherence to precise landscape topography. The outermost ofMasseria Bongos three ditches on the north side follows exactly the highest pointof the site, suggesting that the three ditches were constructed as a single project.

Table 7. (Continued)

Sites at whichEnvironmental Limit/scale monitoring took

Metres Noise/smell/colour conditions of sense place

46 Children playing Cliff enclosed Point at Project campsiteoutdoors 2 boys, space, near sea, which sound (Fontana delle Rose,3 girls, 410 years hot, dry, fairly audible when Mattinata)old still walking

towardschildren

44 Barking dog Cliff enclosed Maximum Project campsite outdoors with space, near sea, distance at (Fontana dellenear background hot, dry, fairly still. which barking Rose, Mattinata)noise 10 talking heard people includingchildren

27 High volume Hot, still, Audible Project campsitecrying baby, immediately (Fontana delle Rose,outdoors following storm Mattinata)

27 Raised voices Enclosed space, Walking Project campsitefrom 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 campsitecrying baby, outdoors near sea, hot, distance to (Fontana delle

dry, still which sound Rose, Mattinata)fully audible

17 Meat cooking Enclosed Indisputable Project campsiteoutdoors space, near sea, odour (Fontana delle

hot, dry, fairly Rose, Mattinata)still, hot upwind

5 Intimate Hot, dry, fairly still Walking Project campsiteconversation of towards (Fontana delle5 men from lightly settement, Rose, Mattinata)enclosed structures point atof settlement which

noise heard




Likewise, the correlation of Class II sites with scarp edges has been noted (Brown2004; 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 theyfulfilled different functions, rather than representing some form of linear socialchange/development, which is the conventional view.

On-going work: sentient landscapesWith further field seasons, we are accumulating more information of the travel-ling distances and potencies of other everyday sounds and smells (Table 7). Theexamples discussed later are the outcome of a combination of necessarily opp-ortunistic observations and controlled on-site observations measuring sensualperception at mapped intervals along measured transects from the point ofdissemination.

Interestingly, when we, by self-evident necessity, removed the sheep bell (theresults remain summarized in Table 7) from our consideration of Neolithic sites, itprompted consideration of the nature and scale of Neolithic animal herding.Would it, for instance, have been viable for Neolithic communities tosupervise/track large free-roaming sheep and cattle herds and locate strays (onereason for belling sheep and cattle)? The lack of metal bells perhaps suggestssmaller herds and a greater reliance on voice communication on the part of theherders, and perhaps (given these suppositions) the females would have been themore 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 LaGomera (Hamilton and Whitehouse 2006:168169). This provides an example ofthe 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 940 m away at the location ofone Neolithic enclosure, Jones Site 218 (Table 7). This suggested the viability ofsimple signalling over very long distances, and in many cases between sites, in theNeolithic. Equally the noises, smells, and visual by-products of domestic activitiesboth on and off site infer presence, and help to create a socialized landcape; theywould have alerted near and sometimes distant communities to specific settle-ments and activities. From the same Neolithic enclosure we could see smoke up to8 km away, and smell an advancing sheep flock at approx 70 m downwind (Table 7).Indisputably typical settlement-based tasks such as flint knapping, and hammer-ing wood would have generated soundscapes beyond many individual sitesboundaries, and zones of vision. The noise of stone striking, for example was clearfrom up to 150 m from Monte Aquilones centre, some 60 m beyond its boundary.Clearly how far a noise travels across and beyond a site relates to the location ofthe activity on site. At Masseria La Quercia and Masseria Bongo, by contrast, itwould 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 (Tables6 and 7). Our on-going work aims to accumulate a body of sensual information




that will prompt new avenues and issues of investigation as to what it was like todwell on these sites, and the likely scales of intra- and inter-site awareness andsocialization. In doing so, our aim is not only to characterize aspects of Neolithicdwelling on the Tavoliere, but to rethink traditional/retro-concepts such as sitecatchment and site territory from the perspectives of aged and gendered inhabi-tants senses of place.

3 Phenomenological site catchment analysisWe developed phenomenological site catchment analysis (hereafter PSCA) as anexperiment 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 Webley1975). Original SCA involved walking the landscape around archaeological sitesand journeying to sites, both of which have been central to generating phenomeno-logical observations of the landscape location of archaeological sites (Barrett1994:137138; Tilley 1994:74). The approach was developed by the British AcademyResearch Project in the Early History of Agriculture (Higgs 1972, 1975; Jarman et al.1982; Vita-Finzi and Higgs 1970). An archetypical processual approach, it wasdefined as the study of the relationship between technology and those resourceslying 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 ofa 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 didhave value in its emphasis on the individual site in its landscape context.

We carried out our PSCA on our four study sites, three of which had been studiedby Jarman and Webley: Monte Aquilone, La Panetteria, and Masseria La Quercia. Weadditionally deliberately chose one which they had not visited Masseria Bongo asa virgin site. Our aim was to see if we could combine the recording of traditionalSCA information (such as topography and land use) with other observations whichmight contribute to our understanding of the social and experiential aspects of life inthe Neolithic settlements, and to examine the interplay between the two. The newkinds of information that we recorded focused on visibility (of landmarks in thelandscape from the site and vice versa) and more subjectively impressions of thenature of the journeys within a sites territory we were undertaking (in terms ofopenness/restriction of views, difficulty of terrain and so on).

MethodologyThe methodology of traditional SCA is described in Higgs (1975:223224: AppendixA). While we retained much of this in particular the one-hour radius adopted asstandard for agricultural communities, which had been derived from the work ofethnographers 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 ofthese 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 haltsand detours. Its primary purpose was to establish the one-hour limit, while thereturn journey was used to plot in detail the changes in soil type and land use andto examine any exposed sections, wells, springs and other features. This methodmakes sense if the information to be recorded is the same in both directions, as it iswith traditional SCA. However, if one wishes to record views and impressions onthe journey, as we did, it is obvious that the journey out and the journey back aredifferent 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-hourlimit, as well as to register the actual walking time. Characteristically we found thata 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 andfields under cultivation. A second 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 aconsensus on the more subjective aspects of the record (or to record differences ofopinion when no consensus could be reached). The guide to field methods pub-lished by the Higgs project does not mention teamwork, but the general impressiongiven is that walking the radii is a solitary task undertaken by an individualresearcher. The implications of this are discussed later in our site-based critique ofJarman 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 anumber 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 ofthe operation and is measured by using a stopwatch to discount pausing anddetour time; hereafter we use the term stopwatch minutes to refer toassumed 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 theIGM 1:25,000 maps). Distance readings are taken at points of significance onthe journey (i.e. with entries in any of the other columns on the form) andautomatically at the 15-, 30-, 45- and 60-minute marks.

column 2: topography; breaks of slope, river valleys and so on as in theoriginal SCA.

column 3: soils; we use the same categories as in the original SCA for ourarea: alluvial soils, crosta soils, thick limestone soils, thin limestone soils,terra rossa.

column 4: land-use/vegetation; here we also use the same broad categoriesas in the original SCA arable, pasture and unproductive land but werecord more detail about specific crops or other vegetation and state of thefield (ploughed, stubble, with growing crop and so on).




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.




column 5: features; this is a catch-all category; we use it to record specifictopographical features (e.g. rivers and modern features such as roads, tracks,and aqueducts); we also record scatters of archaeological material, designatedby period.

columns 68: visibility, subdivided into left, centre and right. In thesecolumns we record when specific landscape features (e.g. distant featuressuch as the Gargano or Apennine mountains and, middle-distance featuressuch as scarps, hills, or rivers) come into, or go out of, view. The viewsrecorded 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 ona customary journey.

This proforma is augmented by notes (Fig. 9). These describe the nature of thejourney, and visibility and other impressions, in greater detail, and are made at the15, 30, 45 and 60 stopwatch minute marks, though in each case they describe notjust the position at that point, but the previous 15 stopwatch minute journey. Thedescriptions made at these points are intended to correlate with the observationsmade on the site itself (mentioned earlier) and serve to enhance understanding ofthe relationship between the site and its territory. At the 60-minute point, whichmarks the end of the journey, we discuss and comment on the most significantaspects, or features, of the journey.

The proforma for the return journey omits the columns for those things that arecommon to both journeys such as topography, soils, and land use. The column forfeatures is retained, since we sometimes noticed things on the return journeywhich we had missed going out. Pre-eminently we concentrate on visibility, payingparticular attention to the points at which (a) the site itself becomes visible for thefirst time and (b) when it becomes continuously visible.7 These points, particularlythe one where the site is continuously visible, are likely to have been significant insocial terms. The proforma for the return journey is accompanied by another set ofnotes, comparable to that made for the outward journey, with detailed descriptionsmade at the 15, 30, 45 and 60-minute mark.

DiscussionOur general conclusion after the fieldwork was that it is possible to combine therecording of economic and phenomenological information (using our PSCA), butincreasingly we came to feel that this could best be grounded within a frameworkof taskscapes as outlined by Ingold (1992). The comments on the experiential workare 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 upby this methodology.

Comments on Jarman and Webley 1975 and on site catchment analysis in generalWe were not able to reconstruct Jarman and Webleys work precisely. This was dueto their lack of precision, and specifically their failure to provide grid references for




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(A)

(B)

Figure 10. Phenomenological site catchment analysis diagrams for Monte Aquilone: (A) SiteCatchment Analysis diagram, showing one-hour walk radius mapped against land-use (redrawn afterJarman and Webley 1975, fig. 13; (B) phenomenological site catchment analysis diagram from our 2003field season, showing one-hour walk radius mapped against topography (contours at 25 m intervals).Solid central circle = centre of the site as calculated for this project; open off-centre circle = estimatedstarting 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 pointof the walked radii. We plotted these points from aerial photographs onto the IGM




1:25,000 maps, but we do not know what Jarman and Webley did. Their work wascarried out before the publication of the aerial photographs by Jones (1987) and thesurvey work of Cassano and Manfredini (1983) and Tin (1983), so they probablyhad difficulty precisely locating the sites on the ground. However, they started fromsomewhere on each occasion and there seems no reason why they should not haveprovided 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 featuressuch 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 werelower than theirs. In part, this may have been due to our lack of experience: thebiggest differences occurred at Monte Aquilone, which we studied first and thelowest 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 cannotassess exactly what they did. It is possible they made allowances for delays causedby 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 morethan 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 bymen. 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 originalEarly History of Agriculture project were male and most of the site catchmentanalyses that we know of were carried out by men. Retrospectively, there is asomewhat macho feel to SCA; one has an image of the lone (if thats the way it wasdone), intrepid, and definitely male field walker striding through the countryside.

There are implications for prehistory. Assuming that physiological differencesbetween men and women would have been the same as today (or equivalent) inthe Neolithic, and if we continue to accept that an hours walk represents the likelylimit of everyday activity, then womens limits were more restricted than mens interms of distance; alternatively they would have had to walk for longer (i.e. workharder) to reach the same areas. These are not surprising conclusions, but they doadd 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 andWebley, 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 SCA maps, or to present these things sideby side. Although topography is discussed in the site territory descriptions ofJarman 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 Sitedirection Total distance Site first continuouslyof walked Total distance Jarman & visible visibleradius July 2003 Webley 1975 July 2003 July 2003

Monte AquiloneN 4.1 (5.3) 3.6 0.9S 3.9 (5.0) 2.5 0.9W 4.2 (4.9) 1.2 0.85E 3.5 (5.0) 2.3 2.3

La QuerciaN 3.8 (4.6) 2.3 2.3S 4.1 (4.9) 3.1 3.1W 3.5 (4.9) 3.1 0.95E 4.9 (5.2) 2.3 1.0

Masseria BongoN 4.3 N/A 1.0 0.3S 4.5 N/A 0.7 0.7W 4.3 N/A 0.8 0.7E 4.5 N/A 4.4 0.75

La Panetteria 1N 4.3 (5.0) 2.0 1.1S 4.7 (4.6) 1.8 1.8W 4.9 (4.6) 2.0 1.4E 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 ofthe 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 theteam leader

Distance (km) Gender

3.5 F3.5 F3.8 F3.9 M4.1 M4.1 F4.2 M4.2 F4.3 M4.3 F4.3 F4.4 F4.5 M4.7 M4.9 M4.9 M




understandings of landscape and, even in exclusively economic terms, itdeserves more attention than that given by Jarman and Webley.

Phenomenological site catchment analysis: preliminary resultsTwo 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. Wewere more successful in addressing the first than the second and the reasons forthis are discussed in the following section.

(a) Site territory in social termsThe only spatial analysis of the south Italian Neolithic that addresses social factorsknown to us is Morter and Robbs 1998 article. Their analysis focuses on the use ofspace at a macro-level, rather than on individual settlements, although they use theTavoliere 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 nodalpoint 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 innermostzone, formed by the domestic house and its immediate space, occupied by smallfamily units. Zone 2 comprised the village and included

hamilton et al 2006 phenomenology in practice. towards a methodology for a -subjective- approach

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