ABSTRACT
It seems particularly ironic that prehistoric archaeology systematically erases those qualities of the past which attract us to it in the first place. When we come across a megalithic tomb, its presence is one which can be at once intriguing and disturbing. It is an object which is foreign to our own culture, yet it exists in the same space as we do. Although it may have been incorporated into folklore, or depicted on a road map, or included in a heritage trail, its material existence is one which can seem at odds with its surroundings. Such a monument is an indication that the world that we inhabit was once quite different. As such, it offers us the opportunity to encounter the ‘otherness’ of the past. It is doubtless this experience of something mysterious and alien which first inspires many of us to take up archaeology as a study. Being engaged by the past, we want to know more about it. Yet it is precisely through attempting to find out more about the past that we erode its unfamiliarity. We introduce techniques of classification and rationalisation which homogenise and tame the past.
