Chris Scarre (University of Durham; chris.scarre@durham.ac.uk)

Recent years have seen an upsurge of fieldwork on the islands that dot the coasts of Britain, Ireland and Brittany, accompanied by new approaches to the symbolism and significance of island worlds. This session brings together a series of recent projects with a focus on several key issues: sea level rise, island formation and human experience; islands, death and the otherworld; connection, separation and settlement. Do these islands offer evidence of parallel developments and meanings, or must each group be considered separate and unique? The issues will be explored through British, Breton and Irish Sea case studies, from the early Holocene to the end of prehistory.