This volume is derived, in concept, from a conference held in honour of John Evans by the School of History and Archaeology and The Prehistoric Society at Cardiff University in March 2006. It brings together papers that address themes and landscapes on a variety of levels. They cover geographical, methodological and thematic areas that were of interest to, and had been studied by, John Evans. The volume is divided into five sections, which echo themes of importance in British prehistory. They include papers on aspects of environmental archaeology, experiments and philosophy; new research on the nature of woodland on the chalklands of southern England; coasts and islands; people, process and social order, and snails and shells - a strong part of John Evans' career.


This volume presents a range of papers examining people's interaction with the landscape in all its forms. The papers provide a diverse but cohesive picture of how archaeological landscapes are viewed within current research frameworks and approaches, while also paying tribute to the innovative and inspirational work of one of the leading protagonists of environmental archaeology and the holistic approach to landscape interpretation.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Contributors
• Abstract
• French Language Abstract
• German Language Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• Editors’ Foreword
• Tabula Commemorativa
• Part 1: John, Environmental Archaeology, Experiment and Philosophy
  • Chapter 1: Professor John Gwynne Evans, 1941–2005 aka ‘Snails’ Evans – an appreciation
  • Chapter 2: Culture and Environment; mind the gap
  • Chapter 3: ‘We opened up a really nice porcelain door handle’
  • Chapter 4: Experimental Archaeology: changing science agendas and perceptual perspectives
• Part 2: Trees and Chalklands
  • Chapter 5: If you go Down the Woods Today; a re-evaluation of chalkland postglacial woodland; implications for prehistoric communities
  • Chapter 6: Land Snails and Woodland Clearances: modern ecological studies and their archaeological implications
  • Chapter 7: Peopling the landscape; prehistory of the Wylye Valley, Wiltshire
  • Chapter 8: A Landscape Tale of Two Soil Histories in Lowland Zones of England: the fen-edge of Cambridgeshire and the downland of Cranborne Chase
  • Chapter 9: Cows in the Wood
• Part 3: Coasts and Islands
  • Chapter 10: Living in the Sands – Bronze Age Gwithian, Cornwall, revisited
  • Chapter 11: The Construction of Barrows in Bronze Age Orkney – an ‘assuagement of guilt’?
  • Chapter 12: On the Islandness of St Kilda
  • Chapter 13: Beaker Settlement in the Western Isles
• Part 4: Archaeology, Snails and Shells
  • Chapter 14: Environmental Change in an Orkney Wetland: plant and molluscan evidence from Quoyloo Meadow
  • Chapter 15: Mysteries of the Middens: change and continuity across the Mesolithic~Neolithic transition
  • Chapter 16: Environmental Archaeology of the Roman villa at Rock, Brighstone, Isle of Wight
  • Chapter 17: Ena montana (Drap.) and Neolithic Woodland Regeneration in Southern England
• Part 5: People, Process and Social Order
  • Chapter 18: As We Were Saying: connecting people and places
  • Chapter 19: Manure and the Medieval social order
  • Chapter 20: The Social Face of Threshing Floors
• Index