eTheses Repository - University of Birmingham

the archaeological record with an awareness of our own and the discipline’s circumstances
may be enough and should be seen as a way of unrestricting our imaginations and ourselves.
This enables the exploration of a multitude of possibilities without restriction to particular
ways of looking because it is the way we have been conditioned. This is what has been
achieved through the case studies in Chapters 4, 5 and 6. Still, there is the sneaking suspicion
that thinking in the way outlined above is the result of being in a ‘post-modern’ world, where
‘multi-vocality’ seems to have become a maxim, and ‘anything-goes’ is a code for living.
Nonetheless, the results of our endeavours will be a matter for debate, a debate that is or
should be vital to the discipline.
In conclusion, this study is an important contribution to the realm of Greek Archaeology.
There are many works to date that have tackled the past from the ‘participants’ point of view
and with a particular focus on landscape. This study is not a breakthrough, pioneering work
in the field of archaeology in general (e.g. Thomas, 1993a, 1993b, 1996; Tilley, 1993b, 1994;
Barrett, 1994, 2000; Exon et al 2000; Gillings, 1996, 1999, 2005), but it applies an already
legitimised approach to the Greek sphere and in particular to the evidence from Arkadia. It
introduces an approach and applies ideas that are seen as almost standard in other areas and if
this study focussed on Neolithic and Bronze Age Wessex, it would be travelling down a well-
trodden path (Thomas, 1997; Parker Pearson, 1998; Exon et al. 2000; Pitts 2001). However,
an approach using phenomenological insights alongside traditional analysis, works
particularly well in Arkadia during the period in question as limited material culture exists
compared to other regions and periods. Where sites have produced an ample body of
material, such as that from the Temple of Athena Alea at Tegea, scholars such as Voyatzis
(2005) have concentrated on undertaking detailed analysis. In these cases, the present study
compliments this work. In those cases where what does exist has been poorly published, the
phenomenological approach particularly suited as the focus is on the location of sites in space.
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