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>> Sweden - lakes

Chris Tilley and I spent a few weeks of the summer of 1988 visiting as many as possible of the great prehistoric megalithic monuments of Sweden - in Bohuslän, Västergotland and Skåne.

We had researched the mortuary deposits, the bones and artifacts in and around megaliths in Sweden and the UK as part of our collaboration that led to the books Social Theory and Archaeology and Reconstructing Archaeology in 1987.
> > see my notes on neolithic bones

In 1988 we wanted to get into the field and explore the monuments in their landscapes. Our discussions along our trip in Sweden fed into Chris's work on phenomenology in archaeology - getting into the experience of prehistoric landscapes. I have followed a different line - beginning with the book Experiencing the Past.

These are a few of the many hundreds of photographs I took. They were meant to be part of a guide that Chris only got to write many years later. He then used other images, though I do still think mine captured something of the feel of these sites, and the photography certainly was a catalyst in our discussions of how to understand the prehistoric built environment, as I now call it. The photographs do look clichéed to me now, but nonetheless effective.