Project description
Unravelling the mysteries of ancient civilisations
The enigmatic origins of ancient megalithic monuments have long puzzled researchers. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SHoW project aims to illuminate the cultural connections between people along Europe’s western coasts. By investigating natural elements, the project will search for symbolic landscapes surrounding monuments of Scotland and Galicia. In recognising the significance of astronomical visions, the project aligns with UNESCO’s Astronomy and World Heritage Thematic Initiative. This innovative endeavour includes 3D-visual technology and geospatial techniques to reconstruct the visual scapes of the land and night skies encountered by prehistoric people. In this way, SHoW will uncover the role natural elements played in the origins, development and reaffirmation of monumentality and how this was shared.
Objective
The proposed project (SHoW) investigates the roles that landscapes, skylines and astronomy played in past peoples' lives in order to determine the cultural relatedness between people along Europe´s Atlantic Façade. Specifically, it investigates the types of visual-scapes people chose for the erection of their megalithic monuments within and across regions, that clearly seem to have some kind of related megalithic tradition, but which is not yet understood. Focusing on the periods of intensive monument building in prehistoric Iberia (c. 4500-2500 B.C.) and Britain (3100-900 B.C.) innovative 3D technology, along with interdisciplinary approaches already brought to bear on past projects by the candidate, will assist in the reconstruction of past visual worlds of the megalith builders of western Galicia and Scotland. These, plus the development and use of new approaches in geospatial techniques, 3D technology, statistical approaches and database management are key for the determination of the roles that landscapes, skylines and astronomy played in past peoples' lives. By investigating the role of the natural world, this project upholds and extends UNESCO’s Astronomy and World Heritage Thematic Initiative, for the project recognises that the way people observed the land and the sky in the past is a repository for people’s perception of their world. Understanding these things opens the way for a new consideration of shared tangible and intangible values in the past. In this way, this MSCA candidate will produce insights into some of the most iconic representations of cultural remembrance in Europe, revealing whether the reasons behind erecting megaliths were the same for people in different regions of Europe´s Atlantic Façade, and if not, what the differences might have been, and why. Ultimately, SHoW will reveal the degree to which the people in these regions possessed shared worlds.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-CAR - CAR – Career Restart panelCoordinator
28006 Madrid
Spain