The Neolithic of the Peak District: a lefebvrian social geography approach to spatial analysis

In this thesis I construct, implement and evaluate a Lefebvrian model of space and society suitable for archaeology, using the Neolithic Peak District as my case study. Archaeologists have largely overlooked the work of French Marxist philosopher and social theorist Henri Lefebvre or come to it second-hand, meaning that his dialectical model of the production of space has never been used to understand prehistoric society. My thesis demonstrates the value to archaeology of such an approach by applying Lefebvre’s three-part dialectical model of the production of space to the monuments and landscape of the Neolithic Peak. In doing so, it challenges simplistic binary readings of social space, replacing them with a Lefebvrian social geography approach to space. Not only does this reveal previously hidden facets of Neolithic society and architecture in the Peak, but my research also provides the first detailed study of this subject in some years. It highlights inter-regional connections between the Peak and other parts of the UK, and illustrates the sheer wealth and diversity of Neolithic monuments in the region, which until now have been sorely neglected. One of its central achievements is to introduce the ‘cross-fertilisation’ monument as a novel class of structure.