Hostname: page-component-669899f699-8p65j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T17:07:31.858Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The philosopher and the field archaeologist: Collingwood, Bersu and the excavation of King Arthur's Round Table

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Richard Bradley
Richard Bradley*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, PO Box 218, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is not generally known that a famous philosopher, Robin Collingwood, and an influential field archaeologist, Gerhard Bersu, excavated the same prehistoric monument in successive seasons. Their preoccupations differed, and their observations were completely inconsistent with one another. This paper relates the progress of that project and reflects on its implications for archaeological theory and practice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , 1994 , pp. 27 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barrett, J. 1987. The Glastonbury Lake Village: models and source criticism. Archaeological Journal 144, 409–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bersu, G. 1940. King Arthur's Round Table. Final report, including the excavations of 1939. Transactions of the Cumbria and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 40, 169–206.Google Scholar
Bittel, K. 1986. Gerhard Bersu (1889–1964). Archäologie in Deutschland 1, 8 and 13.Google Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. 1936. Lecture summary. Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 37, 190–191.Google Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. 1938. King Arthur's Round Table. Interim report on the excavations of 1937. Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society 38, 1–31.Google Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. 1939. An Autobiography. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Collingwood, R. G. 1946. The Idea of History. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Crawford, O. G. S. 1955. Said and Done. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.Google Scholar
Daniel, G. & Renfrew, C. 1988. The Idea of Prehistory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Donagen, A. 1962. The Later Philosophy of R. G. Collingwood. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dussen, van der W. J. 1993. Editorial introduction to R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Evans, C. 1989. Archaeology and modern times: Bersu's Woodbury, 1938 and 1939. Antiquity 63, 436–450.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gosden, C. 1994. Social Being and Time. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hawkes, C. 1947. Britons, Romans and Saxons round Salisbury and in Cranborne Chase. Archaeological Journal 104, 27–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodder, I. 1991. Reading the Past. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kossack, G. 1992. Prehistoric archaeology in Germany: its history and current situation. Norwegian Archaeological Review 5.2, 73–109.Google Scholar
Kramer, W. 1964. Gerhard Bersu Gedächtnis. Bericht der Römisch—Germanischen Kommission 5, 1–12.Google Scholar
Mercer, R. 1981. The excavation of a late Neolithic henge-type enclosure at Balfarg, Markinch, Fife, Scotland. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland III, 63–171.Google Scholar
Piggott, S. 1963. Archaeology and prehistory. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 29, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piggott, S. 1981. Summary and conclusions. In Daniel, G. (ed.), Towards a History of Archaeology, 186–189. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Topping, P. 1992. The Penrith henges: a survey by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 58, 249–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M. 1954. Archaeology from the Earth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar