Reflects the diverse and anthropologically current debate flourishing in prehistoric hunter and gatherer research. Highlighting research in Africa, Australia, Europe, N. America, and the Subarctic, theoretical approaches range from the ecological to the sociological.
The story of the origins of the British and the Irish peoples, from the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000BC to the eve of the Norman Conquest - who they were, where they came from, and how they related to one another.
Contents include: Bifaces, booze and the blues. Anecdotes from the life and times of a Palaeolithic archaeologist ( A. J. Lawson & A. Rogerson ); J. J. W. A tribute from the Upper Thames n( R. J. MacRae ); On the Move. Theory, time averaging and resource transport at Olduvai gorge ( J. McNabb ); Elandsfontein and Klasies river revisited ( H. J. Deacon ); The Pleistocene history and early human occupation of the river Thames valley ( D. R Bridgland ); As represented by the Thames valley ( D. A. Roe ); Quaternary stratigraphy and lower Palaeolithic archaeology of the Lark valley, Suffolk ( S. G. Lewis ); Hoxne, Suffolk: Time matters ( B. Gladfelter ); Unity and diversity in the early Stone Age ( J. A. J. Gowlett ); Observations on the artefacts from the Breccia at Kent's cavern ( J. Cook & R. Jacobi ); Clactonian and Acheulian industries in Britain ( F.F. Wenban-Smith ); Twisted ovate bifaces in the British lower Palaeolithic ( M. J. White ); Handaxes and Palaeolithic individuals ( C. Gamble ); Southern Rivers ( K. Scott ); Pleistocene deposits and archaeological horizons in the Ariendorf gravel quarry ( E. Turner ); Discoidal core technology on the Paleolithic at Oldbury, Kent ( J. Cook & R. Jacobi ); The archaeology of distance: perspectives from the Welsh Palaeolithic ( S. Aldhouse-Green ); Pushing out the boat for an Irish Palaeolithic ( P. C. Woodman ); Long blade technology and the question of British late Pleistocene/ early Holocene lithic assemblages ( R. N. E. Barton ); A preboreal lithic assemblage from the lower Rhineland site of Bedburg-Konigshoven, Germany ( M. Street 0; Early Mesolithic settlement in England and Wales ( M. J. Reynier ); Early Mesolithic mastic: radiocarbon dating and analysis of organic residues from Thatcham III, Star Carr and Lackford Heath ( A. J. Roberts, R. N. E. Barton & J. Evans ); The methods used to produce a complete harpoon ( J. Lord ); Two assemblages of a later Mesolithic microliths from Seamer Carr, North Yorkshire: fact and fancy ( A. David ); Mesolithic sites at Two Mile Bottom, near Thetford, Norfolk ( P. Robbins ); Studying the Mesolithic period in Scotland ( A. Saville ); The surface of the Breckland ( F. Healy ); John Wymer, a bibliography.
The Mesolithic in Britain proposes a new division of the Mesolithic period into four parts, each with its distinct character. The Mesolithic has previously been seen as timeless, where little changed over thousands of years. This new synthesis draws on advances in scientific dating to understand the Mesolithic inhabitation of Britain as a historical process. The period was, in fact, a time of profound change: houses, monuments, middens, long-term use of sites and regions, manipulation of the environment and the symbolic deposition of human and animal remains all emerged as significant practices in Britain for the first time. The book describes the lives of the first pioneers in the Early Mesolithic; the emergence of new modes of inhabitation in the Middle Mesolithic; the regionally diverse settlement of the Late Mesolithic; and the radical changes of the final millennium of the period. The first synthesis of Mesolithic Britain since 1932, it takes both a chronological and a regional approach. This book will serve as an essential text for anyone studying the period: undergraduate and graduate students, specialists in the field and community archaeology groups.
Latest in the Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers series arising from the NSG conference of November 2019. This collection showcases and explores the wide range of current work on causewayed enclosures and related sites, and assesses what we still want to know about these sites in light of the monumental achievement of the seminal publication Gathering Time (2011). Papers comprise reports on recent development-led fieldwork, academic research and community projects, and the volume concludes with a reflection by the authors of Gathering Time. Much archaeological work is concerned with identifying gaps in our knowledge and developing strategies for addressing them; we perhaps spend less time thinking about how research should proceed when we already know, relatively speaking, quite a lot. The programme of dating causewayed enclosures in southern Britain that was published in 2011 as Gathering Time (Oxbow Books) gave us a new, more precise chronology for many individual sites as well as for enclosures as a whole, and as a consequence a far better sense of their significance and place in the story of the British Early Neolithic. Arguably causewayed enclosures are now the best understood type of Neolithic monument. Yet work continues, and in the last few years new discoveries have been made, older excavations published and further work undertaken on well-known sites. Viewing this research within the new framework for these monuments allows us to assess where our understanding of enclosures has got to and where the focus of future research should lie.