Caves in Context provides the thriving inter-disciplinary field of cave studies with a European-scale survey of current research in cave archaeology. It is unified by a contemporary theoretical emphasis on the cultural significance and diversity of caves over space and time. Caves and rockshelters are found all over Europe, and have frequently been occupied by human groups, from prehistory right up to the present day. Some appear to have only traces of short occupations, while others contain deep cultural deposits, indicating longer and multiple occupations. Above all, there is great variability in their human use, both secular and sacred. The aim of this book is to explore the multiple significances of these natural places in a range of chronological, spatial, and cultural contexts across Europe.



The volume demonstrates, through a diversity of archaeological approaches and examples, that cave studies, whist necessarily focussed, can also be of significance to wider, contemporary, archaeological research agendas, particularly when a contextual approach is adopted. The book is also of relevance to other scholars working in the related fields of speleology, earth sciences, landscape studies, and anthropology, which together comprise the inter-disciplinary field of cave studies.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Caves in context: an introduction
• Chapter 2: From Assynt to Oban: some observations on prehistoric cave use in western Scotland
• Chapter 3: Mesolithic caves and rockshelters in Western Norway
• Chapter 4: Rockshelters in central Norway: long-term changes in use, social organization and production
• Chapter 5: On the outer fringe of the human world: phenomenological perspectives on anthropomorphic cave paintings in Norway
• Chapter 6: On the (l)edge: the case of Vale Boi rockshelter (Algarve, Southern Portugal)
• Chapter 7: The use of caves and rockshelters by the last Neandertal and fi rst Modern Human societies in Cantabrian Iberia: similarities, diff erences, and territorial implications
• Chapter 8: La Garma (Spain): long-term human activity in a karst system
• Chapter 9: Shedding light on dark places: Deposition of the dead in caves and cave-like features in Neolithic and Copper Age Iberia
• Chapter 10: The Bronze Age use of caves in France: reinterpreting their functions and the spatial logic of their deposits through the chaîne opératoire concept
• Chapter 11: Caves in Context: the late medieval Maltese scenario
• Chapter 12: Caves in need of context: prehistoric Sardinia
• Chapter 13: Discovery and exploratory research of prehistoric sites in caves and rockshelters in the Barbagia di Seulo, South-Central Sardinia
• Chapter 14: Notes from the underground: caves and people in the Mesolithic and Neolithic Karst
• Chapter 15: Cave Burials in Prehistoric Central Europe
• Chapter 16: Late Caucasian Neanderthals of Barakaevskaya cave: chronology, palaeoecology and palaeoeconomy
• Chapter 17: Interstratifi cation in layers of unit III at Skalisty rockshelter and the origin of the Crimean final Palaeolithic