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 and the way research traditions in different countries (and languages) 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 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.

These fourteen papers are taken from a conference held in Newcastle in 1998, focusing on the state of research in the prehistory of Northern England and Southern Scotland. Contents: Patterns in later Prehistory (Jan Harding); Towards a new prehistory for central Britain (Paul Frodsham); The Neolithic that never happened? (Clive Waddington); Wety Drybridge (Kenneth Brophy); Prehistoric cairnfields in Northumberland (Robert Johnston); Later prehistoric settlement in the northern uplands (Robert Young); Iron Age landscape in lowland East Yorkshire (Peter Halkon & Martin Millett); Recent research in the central Tweed Valley (Alicia Wise); Later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age in North-east England (Blaise Vyner); Neolithic and Bronze Age in the lowlands of North West England (Ron Cowell); Prehistoric settlement in northern Cumbria (Mike McCarthy); Iron Age in the southern Pennines (Bill Bevan); Later prehistoric settlement in west central Scotland (Derek Alexander); Site morphology and regional variation in south-west Scotland