directory of ETDs currently in progress

Name and Affiliation

Name: Cornelius J Holtorf
University: University of Wales, Lampeter
Department: Department of Archaeology

Contact Information

Address:
Dept. of Archaeology
University of Wales, Lampeter
Lampeter, Ceredigion
SA48 7ED, U.K.

Phone:
Email: cornelius@lamp.ac.uk

Project Description

Title: Monumental Past. Interpreting the meanings of ancient Monuments in later prehistoric Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany)
Supervisor(s): Dr Michael Shanks
Date Begun: October 1994

Degree: Ph.D.
Format: HTML CD-ROM

Description:

The topic of my thesis are the receptions of Neolithic monuments in the later prehistoric landscape of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, NE Germany. I argue that ancient monuments form part of the »Cultural Memory« (after Assmann), and »History Culture« (after Rüsen) of a society. As such they are given a wide range of different meanings; the legitimation of certain parts of the present is only one among many. In the thesis I approach these meanings by making connections between the evidence for later prehistoric references to the past and various bodies of interpretive theory, and by linking later prehistoric Mecklenburg–Vorpommern not only to its own later history and present, but also to various other prehistoric, historic, ethnographic and present-day case-studies. I am working with the academic literature of various disciplines as well as with the expertise of local archaeologists, the offical sites and monuments records, and with intensive personal experiences of important sites and landsc