Download or read book The Neolithic of Britain and Ireland written by Vicki Cummings and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-05-18 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Neolithic of Britain and Ireland provides a synthesis of this dynamic period of prehistory from the end of the Mesolithic through to the early Beaker period. Drawing on new excavations and the application of new scientific approaches to data from this period, this book considers both life and death in the Neolithic. It offers a clear and concise introduction to this period but with an emphasis on the wider and on-going research questions. It is an important text for students new to the study of this period of prehistory as well as acting as a reference for students and scholars already researching this area. The book begins by considering the Mesolithic prelude, specifically the millennium prior to the start of the Neolithic in Britain and Ireland. It then goes on to consider what life was like for people at the time, alongside the monumental record and how people treated the dead. This is presented chronologically, with separate chapters on the early Neolithic, middle Neolithic, late Neolithic and early Beaker periods. Finally it considers future research priorities for the study of the Neolithic.
Download or read book Neolithic Britain written by Rodney Castleden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-10-24 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The climax of the Stone Age in Britain, the Neolithic period (4700-2000BC), was a period of startling achievement. The British Isles are rich in Neolithic sites, which give us evidence of a complex and surprisingly developed archaic society. The author surveys 1100 secular and ceremonial sites in Britain, selecting some for detailed explanation; from these a sense of the diversity and dynamism of the living Neolithic communities emerges. He presents a comprehensive, profusely illustrated and up-to-date view of the Neolithic, organised by county. Archaeologists and prehistorians will find this book of interest and it should prove indispensable to students of archaeology as a source of information about the British Neolithic.
Download or read book Neolithic Britain written by Keith W. Ray and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neolithic Britain is an up to date, concise introduction to the period of British prehistory from c. 4000-2200 BCE, covering key material and social developments, and reflecting on the nature of cultural practices, tradition, genealogy, and society across nearly two millennia.
Download or read book Neolithic Britain written by Joshua Pollard and published by Shire Publications. This book was released on 1997 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around six thousand years ago major changes occurred in the human occupation of the British Isles, marking the beginning of one of the most fascinating periods in prehistory. Previous lifestyles dependent upon hunting, fishing and gathering were replaced by ones reliant to some degree on horticulture and the keeping of domestic livestock. The sudden appearance of agriculture is only one part of the neolithic story. It was also a time when novel ways of living in and understanding the world developed. The period also marks the advent of new technologies (such as the production of pottery) and new ideologies, seen in the construction of major ceremonial monuments to the living and the ancestral dead. Drawing upon recent discoveries and research, this book provides an introductory outline of the British neolithic (covering the period c.40002500 BC). Aspects of social life and belief are described, along with discussion of the material culture of neolithic communities, and the spectacular evidence of the ceremonial monuments they constructed.Joshua Pollard is a lecturer in Archaeology and Prehistory at the University of Wales College, Newport. He is currently co-director of a major fieldwork project investigating the late neolithic monument complex at Avebury, Wiltshire.
Download or read book Neolithic Stone Extraction in Britain and Europe written by Peter Topping and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2021-12-31 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new title in the acclaimed Prehistoric Society Research Papers series focuses on the introduction of Neolithic extraction practices across Europe through to the Atlantic periphery of Britain and Ireland. The key research questions are when and why these practices were adopted, and what role extraction sites played in Neolithic society. Neolithic mines and quarries have frequently been seen as fulfilling economic roles linked to the expansion of the Neolithic economy. However, this ignores the fact that many communities chose to selectively dig for certain types of stone in preference to others, and why the products from these sites were generally deposited in special places such as wetlands. To address this question, 168 near-global ethnographic studies were analysed to identify common trends in traditional extraction practises to produce robust statistics about their motivations and material signatures. Repeated associations emerged between storied locations, the organisation of extraction practises, long-distance distribution of products, and the material evidence such activities left behind. This suggests that we can now probably identify mythologised/storied sites, seasonality, ritualised extraction, and the uselife of extraction site products. The ethnographic model was tested against data from 223 near-global archaeological extraction sites which confirmed a similar patterning in both material records, suggesting it can be used to interpret broad trends in many cross-cultural contexts and time periods. Finally, the new ethnoarchaeological model has been used to analyse the social context of 79 Neolithic flint mine and 51 axe quarry excavations in Britain and Ireland, and to review their European origins. The evidence which emerges confirms the pivotal role played by Neolithic extraction practices in European Neolithisation, and that the interaction of indigenous foragers with migrant miner/farmers in Britain, Ireland and elsewhere was fundamental to the adoption of the new agro-pastoral lifestyle.
Download or read book Assembling Past Worlds written by Oliver J.T. Harris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assembling Past Worlds draws on new materialism and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to explore the potential for a posthumanist archaeology. Through specific empirical study, this book provides a detailed analysis of Neolithic Britain, a critical moment in the emergence of new ways of living, as well as new relationships between materials, people and new forms of architecture. It achieves two things. First, it identifies the major challenges that archaeology faces in the light of current theoretical shifts. New ideas place new demands on how we write and think about the past, sometimes in ways that can seem contradictory. This volume identifies seven major challenges that have emerged and sets out why they matter, why archaeology needs to engage with them and how they can be dealt with through an innovative theoretical approach. Second, it explores how this approach meets these challenges through an in-depth study of Neolithic Britain. It provides an insightful diagnosis of the issues posed by current archaeological thought and is the first volume to apply the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to the extended analysis of a single period. Assembling Past Worlds shows how new approaches are transforming our understandings of past worlds and, in so doing, how we can meet the challenges facing archaeology today. It will be of interest to both students and researchers in archaeological theory and the Neolithic of Europe.
Download or read book The Birth of Neolithic Britain written by Julian Thomas and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2013-11-28 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The beginning of the Neolithic in Britain is a topic of perennial interest in archaeology, marking the end of a hunter-gatherer way of life with the introduction of domesticated plants and animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and a range of new kinds of monuments, including earthen long barrows and megalithic tombs. Every year, numerous new articles are published on different aspects of the topic, ranging from diet and subsistence economy to population movement, architecture, and seafaring. Thomas offers a treatment that synthesizes all of this material, presenting a coherent argument to explain the process of transition between the Mesolithic-Neolithic periods. Necessarily, the developments in Britain are put into the context of broader debates about the origins of agriculture in Europe, and the diversity of processes of change in different parts of the continent are explored. These are followed by a historiographic treatment of debates on the transition in Britain. Chapters cover the Mesolithic background, processes of contact and interaction, monumental architecture and timber halls, portable artefacts, and plants and animals. The concluding argument is that developments in the economy and material culture must be understood as being related to fundamental social transformations.
Download or read book The Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles written by Stuart Piggott and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After an outline of the continental background of the British neolithic cultures the book contains two subdivisions. Professor Piggott first describes those cultures that he classes as primary: that is those bought to Britain by colonists who bought a knowledge of agriculture. He then shows how there arose derivative secondary neolithic cultures showing a resurgence of earlier characteristics. Finally all the British neolithic cultures are considered in relation to one another and to their continental setting, and an outline of relative and absolute chronology is made.
Download or read book Animals in the Neolithic of Britain and Europe written by Dale Serjeantson and published by Neolithic Studies Group Semina. This book was released on 2006 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting 12 papers from the Neolithic Studies Group seminar on the subject of animals in the Neolithic, this book aims to cover a range of approaches to animals in the Neolithic, discussing both wild and domestic animals and focuses on their social as well as economic roles.
Download or read book The Tale of the Axe written by David Miles and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2016-09-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the New Stone Age shaped our world Approximately 12,000 years ago, early humans in western Asia and Europe who had been itinerant foragers, subsisting on what food they could find, slowly began settling in one place. They farmed and domesticated animals, created new tools, built monuments, and began preserving and storing food. What brought about this shift? What difference did it make to the overall population? And what effects did this Neolithic Revolution have on generations to come? The Tale of the Axe explores the New Stone Age—named for the new types of stone tools that appeared at that time, specifically the ground stone axe—taking Britain as its focus. David Miles takes the reader on a journey through Neolithic Britain by way of its ancestors, geographical neighbors, and the species from which humans emerged before turning an eye to the future and those aspects of the Neolithic Revolution that live on today: farming, built communities, modern man, and much more.
Download or read book Understanding the Neolithic written by Julian Thomas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-02-07 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book employs contemporary theoretical perspectives to investigate the Neolithic period in southern britain. It is a fully reworked edition of the author's Rethinking the Neolithic (1991).
Download or read book The Stonehenge People written by Rodney Castleden and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-31 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1990. Of all the monuments left by the past, Stonehenge is the most evocative, the most memorable and the most mysterious. Whilst the monuments of other cultures have gradually surrendered their mysteries, Stonehenge alone seems to stimulate endless conjecture. Rodney Castleden's vivid presentation of the world of the megaliths answers many of the most baffling questions about Stonehenge. There are, he stresses, few absolute certainties, but from the vast body of evidence assembled during the last hundred years it is now possible to get much closer to the truth than ever before. Who built the monuments and for what purpose? How were the bluestones moved from the sacred mountains of the west to Salisbury Plain? Who were the people responsible for this amazing undertaking, and what did they think and believe?
Download or read book The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland written by Richard Bradley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-16 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sited at the furthest limits of the Neolithic revolution and standing at the confluence of the two great sea routes of prehistory, Britain and Ireland are distinct from continental Europe for much of the prehistoric sequence. In this landmark study, Richard Bradley offers an interpretation of the unique archaeological record of these islands. Highlighting the achievements of its inhabitants, Bradley surveys the entire archaeological sequence over a 5,000 year period, from the last hunter-gatherers and the adoption of agriculture in the Neolithic period, to the discovery of Britain and Ireland by travellers from the Mediterranean during the later pre-Roman Iron Age. His study places special emphasis on landscapes, settlements, monuments, and ritual practices. This edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. The text takes account of recent developments in archaeological science, such as isotopic analyses of human and animal bone, recovery of ancient DNA, and more subtle and precise methods of radiocarbon dating.
Download or read book Making a Mark written by Andrew Meirion Jones and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2019-03-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The visual imagery of Neolithic Britain and Ireland is spectacular. While the imagery of passage tombs, such as Knowth and Newgrange, are well known the rich imagery on decorated portable artefacts is less well understood. How does the visual imagery found on decorated portable artefacts compare with other Neolithic imagery, such as passage tomb art and rock art? How do decorated portable artefacts relate chronologically to other examples of Neolithic imagery? Using cutting edge digital imaging techniques, the Making a Mark project examined Neolithic decorated portable artefacts of chalk, stone, bone, antler, and wood from three key regions: southern England and East Anglia; the Irish Sea region (Wales, the Isle of Man and eastern Ireland); and Northeast Scotland and Orkney. Digital analysis revealed, for the first time, the prevalence of practices of erasure and reworking amongst a host of decorated portable artefacts, changing our understanding of these enigmatic artefacts. Rather than mark making being a peripheral activity, we can now appreciate the central importance of mark making to the formation of Neolithic communities across Britain and Ireland. The volume visually documents and discusses the contexts of the decorated portable artefacts from each region, discusses the significance and chronology of practices of erasure and reworking, and compares these practices with those found in other Neolithic contexts, such as passage tomb art, rock art and pottery decoration. A contribution from Antonia Thomas also discusses the settlement art and mortuary art of Orkney, while Ian Dawson and Louisa Minkin contribute with a discussion of the collaborative fine art practices established during the project.
Download or read book Making a Mark written by Andrew Meirion Jones and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2019-03-31 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The visual imagery of Neolithic Britain and Ireland is spectacular. While the imagery of passage tombs, such as Knowth and Newgrange, are well known the rich imagery on decorated portable artefacts is less well understood. How does the visual imagery found on decorated portable artefacts compare with other Neolithic imagery, such as passage tomb art and rock art? How do decorated portable artefacts relate chronologically to other examples of Neolithic imagery? Using cutting edge digital imaging techniques, the Making a Mark project examined Neolithic decorated portable artefacts of chalk, stone, bone, antler, and wood from three key regions: southern England and East Anglia; the Irish Sea region (Wales, the Isle of Man and eastern Ireland); and Northeast Scotland and Orkney. Digital analysis revealed, for the first time, the prevalence of practices of erasure and reworking amongst a host of decorated portable artefacts, changing our understanding of these enigmatic artefacts. Rather than mark making being a peripheral activity, we can now appreciate the central importance of mark making to the formation of Neolithic communities across Britain and Ireland. The volume visually documents and discusses the contexts of the decorated portable artefacts from each region, discusses the significance and chronology of practices of erasure and reworking, and compares these practices with those found in other Neolithic contexts, such as passage tomb art, rock art and pottery decoration. A contribution from Antonia Thomas also discusses the settlement art and mortuary art of Orkney, while Ian Dawson and Louisa Minkin contribute with a discussion of the collaborative fine art practices established during the project.
Download or read book Defining a Regional Neolithic written by Kenneth Brophy and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2009-05-29 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the ninth published collection of papers from a Neolithic Studies Group day conference, and it continues the Group's aim of presenting research on the Neolithic of all parts of the British Isles. The topic - regional diversity - is an important theme in Neolithic studies today, and embraces traditions of monumentality, settlement patterns and material culture. The contributors to this volume address issues of regionality through a series of case-studies that focus not on the traditional 'cores' of Wessex and Orkney, but rather on other areas - the 'Irish Sea Zone', Ireland, Scotland, Yorkshire and the Midlands. The volume commences with an introduction (Gordon Barclay) that expands on the initial impetus and research questions behind the 2001 conference this volume is based on. This is followed by a more abstract contribution analysing that most familiar of tools for the display of 'regional' archaeological data, the distribution map (Kenneth Brophy). Two papers follow that address the role material culture plays in both defining and characterising regional trends, one addressing the distinctive regionality of querns in the Neolithic (Fiona Roe), the other a wide-ranging analysis of high status material culture and monumentality in Yorkshire (Roy Loveday). A series of regional studies follows, with three papers focusing explicitly on a range of evidence from the 'Irish Sea zone (Vicki Cummings, Tom Clare and Aaron Watson and Richard Bradley). A large and detailed body of evidence from the East Midlands is also considered (Patrick Clay) and the volume is completed by two papers considering very different regional scales in Ireland. At a more localised level, a series of islands off the east coast of Ireland are discussed in a local and wider context (Gabriel Cooney) and a still wider scale approach is taken to landscape and routeways across Ireland as a whole (Carleton Jones). These papers do not simply set up 'rival' distinctive regions, but rather suggest that local, regional and national traditions cross-cut and combine in different ways in different places. The interaction between regions is as significant as intra-regional distinctiveness. This volume addresses how we might begin to develop a more nuanced vision of the Neolithic of the British Isles.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe written by Chris Fowler and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2015-03-26 with total page 1303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Neolithic --a period in which the first sedentary agrarian communities were established across much of Europe--has been a key topic of archaeological research for over a century. However, the variety of evidence across Europe, the range of languages in which research is carried out, and the way research traditions in different countries have developed makes it very difficult for both students and specialists to gain an overview of continent-wide trends. The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe provides the first comprehensive, geographically extensive, thematic overview of the European Neolithic --from Iberia to Russia and from Norway to Malta --offering both a general introduction and a clear exploration of key issues and current debates surrounding evidence and interpretation. Chapters written by leading experts in the field examine topics such as the movement of plants, animals, ideas, and people (including recent trends in the application of genetics and isotope analyses); cultural change (from the first appearance of farming to the first metal artefacts); domestic architecture; subsistence; material culture; monuments; and burial and other treatments of the dead. In doing so, the volume also considers the history of research and sets out agendas and themes for future work in the field.
