A phenomenology of landscape

Abstract

Recent criticism of the accuracy of the claimed observations on monument location by workers employing a ‘phenomenological’ approach to landscape archaeology in Britain has exposed failures in the way their particular approach has been employed to explain the choices made in the siting of certain Neolithic monuments. This article explains why such errors of record may have occurred and re-examines the ways in which the phenomenology of Martin Heidegger can offer a more positive contribution to our understanding of the historical context of the creation of these monuments.