Appealing to the Past in Uncertain Times: an interdisciplinary study of the reuse and evocation of prehistoric standing stones in the monumental epig

Early historic Scotland was defined by change, experiencing: the collapse of large political structures, the ethnogenesis of polities, mass migration, competing religious identities, repeated pandemics, and a climate crisis. Amongst this turmoil, the emerging traditions of monumental epigraphy (Pictish symbol stones, Group I stones, and Ogham pillars) varyingly reused prehistoric material or its imagery, indicating a shared retrospective focus regardless of their social, cultural, political, geographical, or religious contexts. Thus, this thesis will explore the shared reuse (or evocation) of
prehistoric material across these traditions, investigating both 'the past in the past' as well as our own engagement with heritage.