Aspect, architecture, and art: The passage grave tradition of Northwest Britain

By the mid-seventh millennium bp Neolithic communities along the Atlantic Seaboard of Europe began to witness the emergence of a pictographic language based on a common repertoire of abstract and figurative motifs. Although largely confined to passage grave communities occupying the coastal fringes of Atlantic Europe, the megalithic art tradition unified much of the Neolithic world from the coastal regions of the Mediterranean to northern Scotland over a period of some 3,000 years. The art itself appears to have acted as a personal signature, unique to each monument and its builders, but drawing on a limited set of symbols. This article explores the geographic extent of this mainly abstract motif repertoire and proposes that, over time and space key symbols may have been expressed in different ways; forming a distinct relationship between aspect (the landscape) and architecture.