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This book brings together the results of recent research on the
Neolithic long cairns lying in the shadow of the Black Mountains in
south-east Wales, focusing upon Penywyrlod and Gwernvale, the two
best known tombs within the group, previously excavated in the
1970s. Important results lie in both new site detail and
reassessment of the wider context. Small-scale excavation,
geophysical survey and geological assessment at Penywyrlod
size=2>- the largest of the Welsh long cairns - gave further
information about the distinctive external and internal
architecture of the monument. In turn, this opened the opportunity
to reassess the pre-monument sequence at Gwernvale, with
re-examination of both Mesolithic and Neolithic occupations,
including timber structures and middens, lithic and pottery
assemblages, and cereal remains. The frame for wider reassessment
is given by fresh chronological modelling both of the monuments
themselves, suggesting a sequence from Penywyrlod and Pipton to Ty
Isaf and Gwernvale, probably spanning the 38th to 36th centuries
cal BC, and of early Neolithic activity in south Wales and the
Marches across the same sort of period. A detailed study of the
major assemblages of human remains from the Black Mountains tombs
includes evidence for diet, trauma and lifestyles of the
populations represented. Recent isotope analysis of human remains
from the tombs is also reviewed, implying social mobility and
migration within local populations during the early Neolithic. This
book makes a significant contribution to the study of tomb
building, treatment of the dead, place making, and Neolithisation
in western Britain. Viewed in the context of tombs within the
Cotswold-Severn tradition as a whole, it leads to an appreciation
of the local and regional distinctiveness of architecture and
mortuary practice exhibited by the tombs in this area of south-east
Wales, emerging as part of the intake of a significant inland area
in the early centuries of the Neolithic.
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Prehistoric Europe (Hardcover)
Timothy Champion, Clive Gamble, Stephen Shennan, Alasdair Whittle
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R5,510
Discovery Miles 55 100
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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The study of European prehistory has been revolutionized in recent
years by the rapid growth rate of archeological discovery, advances
in dating methods and the application of scientific techniques to
archaeological material and new archaeological aims and frameworks
of interpretation. Whereas previous work concentrated on the
recovery and description of material remains, the main focus is now
on the reconstruction of prehistoric societies and the explanation
of their development. This volume provides that elementary and
comprehensive synthesis of the new discoveries and the new
interpretations of European prehistory. After and introductory
chapter on the geographical setting and the development of
prehistoric studies in Europe, the text is divided chronologically
into nine chapters. Each one describes, with numerous maps, plans
and drawings, the relevant archaeological data, and proceeds to a
discussion of the societies they represent. Particular attention is
paid to the major themes of recent prehistoric research, especially
subsistence economy, trade, settlement, technology and social
organization.
Problems in Neolithic Archaeology is a notable contribution to the
debate about how we can write prehistory. Drawing on both
processual and post-processual approaches, it reaffirms the central
role of theory and interpretation while accepting as permanent the
uncertainty which makes the testing of archaeological hypotheses
difficult or even impossible. Dr Whittle asserts in particular the
need for greater self-confidence and for the formulation of new
theory and questions more appropriate to the archaeological record.
The book's specific strength lies, however, in a close contextual
study of the Neolithic period in western and central Europe. In
this respect it provides an admirable complement to his textbook
Neolithic Europe.
The current paradigm-changing ancient DNA revolution is offering
unparalleled insights into central problems within archaeology
relating to the movement of populations and individuals, patterns
of descent, relationships and aspects of identity – at many
scales and of many different kinds. The impact of recent ancient
DNA results can be seen particularly clearly in studies of the
European Neolithic, the subject of contributions presented in this
volume. We now have new evidence for the movement and mixture of
people at the start of the Neolithic, as farming spread from the
east, and at its end, when the first metals as well as novel styles
of pottery and burial practices arrived in the Chalcolithic. In
addition, there has been a wealth of new data to inform complex
questions of identities and relationships. The terms of
archaeological debate for this period have been permanently
altered, leaving us with many issues. This volume stems from the
online day conference of the Neolithic Studies Group held in
November 2021, which aimed to bring geneticists and archaeologists
together in the same forum, and to enable critical but constructive
inter-disciplinary debate about key themes arising from the
application of advanced ancient DNA analysis to the study of the
European Neolithic. The resulting papers gathered here are by both
geneticists and archaeologists. Individually, they form a series of
significant, up-to-date, period and regional syntheses of various
manifestations of the Neolithic across the Near East and Europe,
including particularly Britain and Ireland. Together, they offer
wide-ranging reflections on the progress of ancient DNA studies,
and on their future reach and character.
It is just over forty years since the start of the excavations of
the Ascott-under-Wychwood long barrow (1965-69) under the direction
of Don Benson. The excavations belonged to the latter part of a
great period of barrow digging in southern Britain, which was
ending just as, by striking contrast, intensified investigation and
fieldwork at causewayed enclosures were beginning. Although a long
gap has passed since the excavations took place, they have
nonetheless produced a rich and important set of results, and the
analysis has been enhanced by more recent techniques. The site now
joins Burn Ground and Hazleton North as one of only three Cotswold
long barrows or cairns to have been more or less fully excavated.
The barrow had been built in two main stages, in a series of bays
defined by lines of stakes and stone, and filled mainly with earth
and turf, with some stone; it was enclosed or faced by stone
walling, the outermost being of very fine quality. The barrow
contained two opposed pairs of stone cists, each with a short
passage from the long sides of the monument. The cists and passages
contained the remains of some 21 people (of all ages and both
sexes), probably deposited in a variety of forms from fleshed
inhumations to incomplete secondary remains and cremations. The
barrow was built in the 38th century cal BC and was probably one of
the earliest such constructions in the region. It was probably in
use for only three to five generations, lasting into the 37th
century cal BC. Occupation features from the early fourth
millennium cal BC included small pits, hearths and two small timber
post structures, and there were finds of pottery, flint, axe
fragments, stone querns and animal bone. People used cattle, sheep
and pigs, and there is a range of wild species, especially in the
midden. The authors of this report not only document the finds and
research, but also address wider questions of how the early
Neolithic inhabitants viewed their society through the barrow, and
how the development of the site reflected memory and interaction
with a changing world.
The hunt is on for the most detailed histories of people in the
remote past that we can achieve. We can now routinely, through
Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates, construct much more
precise chronologies than previously, down to the scales of
lifetimes and generations, and even on occasion of decades. Better
timing opens estimates of duration and the evaluation of the tempo
of change. Rather than the conventional default perspective of
generally slow change and much continuity, in blocks of time a
couple of centuries long or more, we can now examine sequences that
are often much more dynamic, quicker-changing, and from time to
time more interrupted and punctuated than we had previously
imagined. We can now write much more precise and ambitious
narratives about the actions, decisions and choices of past people;
the pre- can and should come out of prehistory. Despite the absence
of written records, such narratives can be aligned much more
closely with those of history and its concerns with the specific
and the particular, and can serve to rid archaeology of its
addictions to generalisation and fuzzy chronology. Coming out of a
recent major project funded by the European Research Council, and
with the experience of Gathering Time (Oxbow Books 2011) also
behind it, The Times of their Lives sets out this case. It
considers the varying timescales of archaeology, history and
anthropology, and the construction of precise chronologies. It
examines the reach of precision in a series of case studies across
Neolithic Europe to do with big themes of settlement, monumentality
and materiality through the sixth to third millennia cal BC. It
goes on to consider the implications of much more precise
chronologies for narratives of social differentiation and change
through the Neolithic sequence, and reflects on how to combine the
varying timescales presented by turning points in the long term, by
the slow time of daily life, subsistence practices and population
growth, and by lifetime and generational developments. It ends by
looking ahead to a future archaeology, exploiting the best of
archaeological science, which can write precise and detailed
narratives for the people of early history. Though focused on the
European Neolithic, The Times of their Lives sets a challenge for
archaeology as a whole.
From about 5500 cal BC to soon after 5000 cal BC, the lifeways of
the first farmers of central Europe, the LBK culture
(Linearbandkeramik), are seen in distinctive practices of longhouse
use, settlement forms, landscape choice, subsistence, material
culture and mortuary rites. Within the five or more centuries of
LBK existence a dynamic sequence of changes can be seen in, for
instance, the expansion and increasing density of settlement,
progressive regionalisation in pottery decoration, and at the end
some signs of stress or even localised crisis. Although showing
many features in common across its very broad distribution,
however, the LBK phenomenon was not everywhere the same, and there
is a complicated mixture of uniformity and diversity. This major
study takes a strikingly large regional sample, from northern
Hungary westwards along the Danube to Alsace in the upper Rhine
valley, and addresses the question of the extent of diversity in
the lifeways of developed and late LBK communities, through a
wide-ranging study of diet, lifetime mobility, health and physical
condition, the presentation of the bodies of the deceased in
mortuary ritual. It uses an innovative combination of isotopic
(principally carbon, nitrogen and strontium, with some oxygen),
osteological and archaeological analysis to address difference and
change across the LBK, and to reflect on cultural change in
general.
This volume explores the landscape settings of megalithic chambered
monuments in Wales. Set against a broader theoretical discussion on
the significance of the landscape, the authors consider the role of
visual landscapes in prehistory, meanings attached to the
landscape, and the values and beliefs invested in it. Wales is rich
in Neolithic monuments, but the general absence of certain classic
monumental forms found in the rest of Britain and Ireland, such as
causewayed enclosures, henges, and cursus monuments, seems to have
marginalised the Welsh record from many wider discussions on the
Neolithic. Instead of seeing Wales as an area which lacks many of
these 'classic' components, Cummings and Whittle argue that Wales
has its own unique and individual Neolithic which is simply
different from the Neolithic found further to the east. It is
suggested that this difference may relate to an essentially mobile
existence, with strong links back to the Mesolithic period. The
authors present three detailed case studies, examining the settings
of sites in south-west, north-west and south-east Wales. They
outline the history of research for each region, including the
previous classification of the monuments and any excavations, and
describe the specific landscape settings of the monuments. They
assess the significance of a variety of landscape features which
would have been visible from the monuments, in particular
emphasising the mythological and symbolic significance of the sea,
rivers and mountains. An illustrated inventory of sites completes
the volume.
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