Cultures of Stone

Professor Gabriel Cooney is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin. Gabriel's area of specialisation is the Neolithic period and he has a particular interest in the use of stone by Neolithic people, from the artefact to the monumental scale. He is the director of the long running Irish Stone Axe Project which was the context for the discovery of a Neolithic axe quarry on Lambay, an island off the east coast of Ireland. His current focus of quarry studies is the North Roe Felsite Project in Shetland, investigating the character and the wider role of a major quarry complex during the Neolithic period in the Shetland archipelago.Bernard completed his BA, MA, and PhD in University College Dublin (UCD). His PhD focused on the manufacture and range of uses of Irish Mesolithic and Neolithic shale and porcellanite axes and adzes. This utilised a series of methodologies including quantitative and qualitative analysis, and the manufacture and use of experimental replicas. Bernard is an assistant keeper of antiquities in the National Museum of Ireland.Niamh Kelly is a PhD researcher with the School of Archaeology in University College Dublin. Her current research focuses on coarse stone tool technology from Ireland and the Irish Sea region, and the roles they play in defining task, self, culture and ritual. She has worked as a researcher and specialist on numerous projects across Ireland, Britain and wider Europe including the North Roe Felsite Project on the Shetland Islands, the Mesolithic in Mar Lodge in the Scottish uplands and Priniatikos Pyrgos in Crete. Niamh also has over ten years teaching experience at third level and is currently the Coordinator of a pre-university programme in Cultural and Heritage Studies based in the National Print Museum, Dublin.Sol Mallía-Guest is a current PhD candidate at UCD School of Archaeology, exploring the role of flint artefacts in the Irish Neolithic from a comprehensive biographical approach, merging technological and use-wear analyses. Her current research builds on her MA work (UCD, 2011) that revealed the intricate life-paths of 'everyday' flint tools from Irish Early Neolithic rectangular timber houses.

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.ContentsContents:Part 1. Quarrying and Moving StoneLabour and Limestone: the relationship between stone and life in the 19th- and 20th-century quarry town of Texas, Maryland.Adam FracchiaYapese Stone Money: local marble as a potential inspiration for producing limestone exchange valuables in Palau, Micronesia.Bosiljka Glumac and Scott M. FitzpatrickRoman Colours of Power: Egyptian stones for the imperial metropolis, and beyond.Hazel DodgeTravelling Stone or Travelling Men? Models of Sculpture Production in the Early Middle Ages (8th-9th centuries).Michelle BeghelliPart 2. Making, Building and Re-imagining in StoneMAN MADE: contemporary prehistoric stone-tool design.Dov GanchrowStone Fisheries and Their Role in Shaping the Cultural Landscape of the Minho River Valley, Portugal.Rui Madail and Miguel MalheiroStormont's Stones: the oratory of power through form and materiality.Suzanne O´NeillCity of Stone: dialectics of impermanence in Josef Sudek's Prague.Adele Tutter'The Living Stones': encountering the prehistoric past in West Cornwall.Elizabeth PrattSacred Granite: preserving the Downpatrick High Cross.Michael KingPart 3. Stone in Ritual Space and Practice'Living Stones Built Up': symbolism in Irish round towers.Sarah KerrFlaming Torches: the materiality of fire and flames on Roman cinerary urns.Liana BrentStone-Grave Building at the Cemetery of Les Tombes at Estagel (Pyrénées-Orientales, France): some economic, visual and symbolic aspects.Joan Pinar GilWorship and Stones on the Cycladic Islands: a case study of the cult of Apollo and Zeus.Erica AnglikerAll of a Heap: Hermes and the stone cairn in Greek Antiquity.Jessica DoyleLooking through the Crystal Ball: ethnographic analogies for the ritual use of rock crystal.Thomas HessIs It from The Dreaming, or Is It Rubbish? The Significance and Meaning of Stone Artefacts and Their Sources to Aboriginal People in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.Edward McDonald and Bryn ColdrickAfterword: The Flexibility of StoneGabriel Cooney