Gabriel Cooney – författare

Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland is the first volume to be devoted solely to the Irish Neolithic, using an innovative landscape and anthropological perspective to provide significant new insights on the period.Gabriel Cooney argues that the archaeological evidence demonstrates a much more complex picture than the current orthodoxy on Neolithic Europe, with its assumption of mobile lifestyles, suggests. He integrates the study of landscape, settlement, agriculture, material culture and burial practice to offer a rounded, realistic picture of the complexities and the realities of Neolithic lives and societies in Ireland.

Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland is the first volume to be devoted solely to the Irish Neolithic, using an innovative landscape and anthropological perspective to provide significant new insights on the period.Gabriel Cooney argues that the archaeological evidence demonstrates a much more complex picture than the current orthodoxy on Neolithic Europe, with its assumption of mobile lifestyles, suggests. He integrates the study of landscape, settlement, agriculture, material culture and burial practice to offer a rounded, realistic picture of the complexities and the realities of Neolithic lives and societies in Ireland.

Ash, bone, and memories are all that remains after cremation. Yet for societies and communities, the act of cremation after death is highly symbolic, rich with complex meaning, touching on what it means to be human. In the process of transforming the dead, the family, the community, and society as a whole create and partake in cultural symbolism. Cremation is a key area of archaeological research, but its complexity has been underappreciated and undertheorized. Transformation by Fire offers a fresh assessment of archaeological research on this widespread social practice. Editors Ian Kuijt, Colin P. Quinn, and Gabriel Cooney’s volume examines cremation by documenting the material signatures of cremation events and processes, as well as its transformative impact on social relations and concepts of the body. Indeed, examining why and how people chose to cremate their dead serves as an important means of understanding how people in the past dealt with death, the body, and the social world. The contributors develop new perspectives on cremation as important mortuary practices and social transformations. Varying attitudes and beliefs on cremation and other forms of burial within the same cultural paradigm help us understand what constitutes the body and what occurs during its fiery transformation. In addition, they explore issues and interpretive perspectives in the archaeological study of cremation within and between different cultural contexts. The global and comparative perspectives on cremation render the book a unique contribution to the literature of anthropological and mortuary archaeology.

Stone monuments and objects are highly accessible today and formed a focus for engagement, transformation and re-use in the past. Stone is inextricably linked to ideas of monumentality and remembrance. It formed an active medium in the creation of identities and memory in a range of social contexts and practices, including the embodied, performative and incorporated practices of daily activities and traditions. It can be argued that the material presence and physical character of stone objects and monuments were not only actively harnessed in these encounters, but were also the very stuff from which social relations were derived, perceived and thought through. This volume explores the power and effect of stone through the meanings that emerged out of peoples engagement and encounters with its physical properties. Focused primarily on the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Atlantic Europe it brings together authors working on the materiality (materialitas) of stone via stone objects, rock art, monuments and quarrying activity. This highlights the connections that cross-cut what are traditionally seen as disparate research areas within the archaeological discipline.

This volume establishes a rich cross-disciplinary dialogue about the significance of stone in society across time and space. The material properties of stone have ensured its continuing importance; however, it is its materiality which has mediated the relations between the individual, society and stone. Bound up with the physical properties of stone are ideas on identity, value, and understanding. Stone can act as a medium through which these concepts are expressed and is tied to ideas such as monumentality and remembrance; its enduring character creating a link through generations to both people and place. This volume brings together a collection of seventeen papers which draw on a range of diverse disciplines and approaches; including archaeology, anthropology, classics, design and engineering, fine arts, geography, history, linguistics, philosophy, psychology and sciences.