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Review Article

Neolithic Britain and Ireland: are we nearly there?

Alison Sheridan
Department of Archaeology
National Museums Scotland
Chambers Street
Edinburgh EH1 1JF
Scotland, UK
(Email: a.sheridan@nms.ac.uk)

Two thousand and nine seems to have been a bumper year for publications about Neolithic Britain and Ireland, and the volumes reviewed here offer a variety of information and perspectives, covering a wide geographical area. Four (Murray et al., Ritchie, Fenton-Thomas, and Ladle & Woodward) are excavation reports; one (Brophy & Barclay) is the proceedings of a Neolithic Studies Group meeting on defining regionality in the Neolithic; and two (Cummings and Smith & Brickley) are clearly pitched as student textbooks, the former tackling the Neolithic of the Irish Sea, and the latter providing a round-up of information on the human beings whose remains have been found in long mounds. The experience of reading these books has generated mixed feelings in this reviewer: admiration at the sheer amount of work that has gone into the creation of some of these volumes; frustration, mixed with hope, at the challenges posed by the remains of this period; and sheer exasperation at the ill-informed and simplistic nature of the reasoning offered in one or two of the publications. Do these volumes get us closer to an understanding of this fascinating period? Perhaps not surprisingly, the answer is 'yes and no; some, more than others'.

Getting closer...

Presenting new information on the Neolithic is a step in the right direction, and three of the excavation reports significantly advance our understanding of specific site types and periods. The fourth (on excavations at Bestwall) also provides invaluable information, although the main thrust of that volume is concerned with a well-preserved Bronze Age landscape.

Murray et al.'s account of an Early Neolithic rectangular timber 'hall' at Warren Field, Crathes, Aberdeenshire — and of a nearby Mesolithic pit alignment dating to the eighth millennium BC, revisited during the Neolithic — offers an exemplary exposition of the results of their excavations. This structure is one of a growing number of large (> 20m long), rectangular structures dating to the early centuries of the fourth millennium BC and relating to the Carinated Bowl Neolithic (for whose definition see Sheridan 2007 and 2010; see also Brophy 2007 for a recent review of these structures). They are mostly, but not exclusively, found in Scotland, and the Crathes example lies very close to the 'hall' at Balbridie, just across the river Dee (but seemingly not intervisible with it, as the viewshed analysis indicates: fig. 20). The Murrays' excavation was undertaken as a part-rescue, part-research exercise for the National Trust for Scotland, with additional support from elsewhere.

The excavators have asked all the right questions of the site, and this has paid rich dividends: in addition to obtaining a suite of high-quality radiocarbon dates (whose Bayesian modelling by Peter Marshall indicates that it was probably built between 3820 and 3720 cal BC and burnt down between 3780 and 3690 BC), they have been able to construct a detailed biography of the structure and a clear picture of activities in the surrounding area. A pair of massive posts seems to have been erected as a 'foundation' activity, establishing the axis of the building — although without a clear structural role — and evoking the end-posts of contemporary timber mortuary structures. Having built the 'hall' around these, lived in it and carried out repairs to it, the inhabitants then appear to have removed these 'totem' posts, cleared out most of the contents of the structure, and deliberately set fire to it. Whether they subsequently moved across the river to construct the Balbridie 'hall' is a matter that has elicited differing views from the various contributors to the volume, with this reviewer proposing that they did. Other insights gained from the excavators' and specialists' meticulous interrogation of the evidence include the observation that the post bases had been deliberately charred to prolong their use-life; that a sizeable area around the structure had been cultivated; and that the inhabitants' animal husbandry regime included the processing of dairy products, from either cattle or sheep/goat, as indicated by the lipid analysis of the pottery. Two alternative reconstructions of the structure are offered (figs. 26 and 27), and the excavators' experience with, and interest in, experimental archaeology has led to the inclusion of a useful discussion about how it may have burnt down.

The Murrays' discussion of comparanda — which include the recently-excavated 'hall' at Lockerbie in south-west Scotland and the earlier of two structures at Doon Hill, East Lothian, its date recently confirmed by pottery examination and radiocarbon dating — is helpful, although they stop short of embracing this reviewer's view (p. 93) that such structures represent the communal houses of the first few generations of immigrant farmers from the Continent. Discussion of the broader significance of Crathes within the debate over Mesolithic-Neolithic transitions is left to Shannon Fraser (pp. 63-9), who claims 'in my opinion, it does not much resemble the very first settlement of incoming farmers. Rather, it looks like the result of a certain passage of time in which perhaps quite complicated and varied interactions among native populations and more recent arrivals have taken place...' (p. 66). Debate over interpreting the evidence is indeed welcome, but it is only productive if it is accurate and well-informed — something that cannot be claimed of the text here which, for example, inaccurately casts the 'immigrant farmers' hypothesis as a catastrophist scenario as regards the impact on local indigenous groups and which incorrectly implies that this reviewer had suggested that forerunners of the 'halls' are to be found in Atlantic Europe. Furthermore, while it may be true to say that the precise point of origin for the Carinated Bowl ceramic tradition has not yet been pinpointed, we are closer to locating it than Fraser implies (Sheridan 2010).

Anna Ritchie's report on her research excavations of the chamber tomb at the Holm of Papa Westray North, in Orkney, offers another exemplary exposition of a carefully-executed excavation, and an attempt to maximise the information yield from the material retrieved. Beautifully produced — like other Society of Antiquaries of Scotland publications — this report falls into two parts. Part 1 describes the results of her 1982-3 excavations of this stalled cairn, integrating them with the results of George Petrie's 1854 exploration, while Part 2 presents the results of specialist work undertaken on the finds both during the 1980s and much more recently. Some of the latter has resulted from external research projects, including Keith Dobney's regarding the origin of the Orkney vole (an immigrant to the archipelago, arriving from Continental Europe around 3000 BC); Rick Schulting's and Mike Richards' on the diet of Neolithic coastal and island dwellers; and Anne Tresset's and Marie Balasse's on Neolithic animal husbandry in island contexts. The results have produced a detailed picture of the construction and use of one of Orkney's earliest megalithic monuments, and of the life of the human and animal inhabitants on what had been a promontory during the fourth millennium.

The monument started as a free-standing circular cairn with a mostly drystone-built, corbelled polygonal chamber opening to the North-West. Its contents were probably cleared out when a rectangular stalled chamber and its enveloping rectangular cairn were added around 3500 BC, i.e. roughly at the same time as the nearby settlement at Knap of Howar on Papa Westray and the chambered horned cairn at Point of Cott on Westray. The main part of the interior remained accessible during and after subsequent structural alterations, until the monument was deliberately infilled and sealed, around 2600 BC. Unburnt remains of seven men, women and children date to between c. 3500 and c. 2900 BC; and during the second quarter of the third millennium it appears that the front part of the chamber was used by sheep as a shelter and for lambing. Isotopic analysis of the latter's teeth has shown that sheep must have fed on seaweed over the winter (in contrast to the Knap of Howar sheep). If this had also been the case when the monument was in use for human interments, this could account for the slight marine signature noted in the diet of at least two of the three individuals analysed by Schulting and Richards. Alternatively, fish could have formed part of these people's diet, as suggested by the presence of deep-water species that must have been caught by humans; Harland and Parks' thorough report on the fish remains draws a useful contrast between these bones and others that most probably entered the tomb as otter spraint. Not only does Ritchie's book thus provide a detailed life history of a chamber tomb; like John Barber's report on the Point of Cott excavation (Barber 1997), it also reminds us to focus on the natural history and taphonomy of such monuments, and like Bayliss et al.'s work on southern English long barrows (Bayliss & Whittle 2007), it highlights the importance of obtaining a good set of radiocarbon dates.

Moving south into Yorkshire, Fenton-Thomas' account of the large-scale, developer-funded excavations at Sewerby Cottage Farm, Bridlington, is also set to become a much-cited publication. While around a third of the volume deals with post-Neolithic activity, the rest deals with a rare phenomenon: the relatively well-preserved traces of Middle Neolithic settlement, dating to the second half of the fourth millennium BC. These include a trapezoidal post-built structure, around 5 x 5m; a possible rectangular post-built structure, around 6.2 x 2.1m; and, overlying this, an oval, possibly turf-walled structure with a rammed gravel floor, around 5m long. That structure seems to have been re-built, then formally sealed (with a deposit including Grooved Ware) at the end of its life. Elsewhere within the excavated area, a distinction was drawn between groups of pits containing material that had been deposited not long after use, and spreads of material that seemed to have been lying around for a considerable period, with abraded sherds of different ages and flint from different episodes of knapping intermixed. This evidence prompted a discussion of the nature and temporality of the Neolithic settlement, with the authors arguing for several episodes of occupation, of differing duration in different parts of the site, over the course of several centuries (pp. 78-95).

As in the previous two volumes, the excellent specialist reports are reproduced in their entirety, and they provide many useful insights into the nature and dating of the activities, the use of raw materials and the wider cultural context. The pottery, dealt with by Terry Manby, comprises a small amount of undecorated Towthorpe Ware; a large amount of Peterborough Ware, in both its widespread sub-styles (Ebbsfleet, Mortlake and Fengate) and some of its north British variants (Rudston style and 'Carnaby Top' jars); and a small amount of Grooved Ware (in its 'northern manifestation of the Woodlands style'). The radiocarbon dates, some obtained from organic encrustations on the interior of sherds (and discussed by Bayliss et al. on pp. 294-301), make this a key assemblage for understanding the chronology of Middle to Late ceramic traditions in Yorkshire and beyond; and lipid analysis of some Peterborough Ware sherds by Rob Berstan and Richard Evershed revealed the presence of ruminant dairy fat, and showed that some pots had been heated (during or after use) to over 300° C. There were two other findings of particular note. The first is the discovery, through radiocarbon dating, that some charred plant remains (including those of pea and wheat) from apparently secure Neolithic contexts must have been introduced as a result of ploughing during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD: once again, this underlines the importance of employing a rigorous programme of radiocarbon dating. The second is the discovery of a fragment of quern made from Niedermendig lava from the Rhineland, used as a post-packing stone in a pit (3878), one of a cluster of similar-looking pits containing Neolithic material (pp. 38, 40, 185-6). The authors have argued that the quern (or its stone) is a Neolithic import from the Rhineland, and they suggest that other quern fragments of the same material found in Wessex may also represent Neolithic imports. This is a remarkable claim, whose potential importance (if correct) has not been appreciated: while we now have good evidence for the cross-Channel Neolithic importation of a quern from Normandy to Maiden Castle (Peacock et al. 2009), as part of a suite of evidence for fourth-millennium cross-Channel links between southern England and north-western France (Sheridan et al. 2008 and 2010), there is no evidence for Neolithic contact with Germany, so this discovery, if genuinely Neolithic, would be very significant. However, a question mark must remain over the Sewerby quern's date. Querns of Niedermendig lava (although not of the specific form of the Sewerby Cottage Farm example) are well known from Roman contexts in Britain, and given that Romano-British sherds were found in two of the pits in this cluster, and that an Early Roman ditch is only about 15m away, it seems more likely to this reviewer that the quern fragment actually belongs to that later period of activity, and that the Neolithic material from the pit is residual.

The fourth excavation report, by Ladle and Woodward, on the large-scale, long-term excavations at Bestwall Quarry at Wareham, near the south coast of England, has already been hailed as a classic in terms of advancing our understanding of Bronze Age settlement and land use. It also represents a huge achievement by the principal authors, in synthesising such a large and complex body of data, and is a shining example of what can be achieved through collaboration between developers, voluntary archaeologists, and the state-funded archaeology service.

The Neolithic evidence is relatively sparse (pp. 42-50, 133, 175-7, 202-4, 353-6), and its interpretation is hindered by uncertainties over phasing and function and by the non-survival of bone. It is nevertheless important for yielding a good-quality date for Early Neolithic pottery (p.133), and the discussion (pp. 353-6) draws out much useful information about the Early Neolithic of the Bournemouth region. The evidence for Neolithic activity is restricted to scattered lithics of Early to Late Neolithic date and, within a 15 x 15m area, the following: four early Neolithic pits (one pre-dated by a timber post); a rectangular post-built timber structure, 5 x 4m in size; a squashed ring of 15 timber uprights surrounding it; and an irregularly-shaped ditched enclosure, roughly echoing the shape of the timber ring. A small amount of pottery of Early Neolithic, Middle Neolithic (Peterborough Ware) and Late Neolithic (possible Grooved Ware) type was found in the ditch fills. While some stratigraphic sequencing was possible, with the pits and timber ring pre-dating the ditched enclosure, the position of the rectangular structure in this sequence could not be ascertained, although only Early Neolithic pottery was associated with it (p. 354); the authors choose to interpret it, together with the timber ring and enclosure, as part of a monument that could represent the first stages of creating a long barrow that was never completed. The pit contents are described as the result of earlier ceremonial activity in this location, perhaps feasting (p. 353), and the associated pottery is identified as being typical of that found in Early Neolithic pit clusters within the Bournemouth area (p. 204; table 18; fig. 214). As such it is pertinent to the debate about the origins and dating of the 'Hembury', or 'South-Western' style of Early Neolithic pottery (as discussed elsewhere by Cleal 2004 and Sheridan et al. 2008). The date (GrA-28428, 4955±40 BP, 3900-3650 cal BC at 2s using OxCal v.3.10), from carbonised residue inside a pot from pit L577, provides a much-needed chronological indicator; Bayliss considers its most likely date to lie between 3800 and 3640 cal BC (p. 133). Ceramic specialists will no doubt continue to discuss the identity and significance of this pottery, just as others may revisit the interpretation of the structural features. In the meantime, the authors and excavators are to be congratulated for producing these useful new nuggets of information.

The final volume to be considered in this section results from Smith and Brickley's research, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, into the information yielded by human remains from Neolithic long mounds. People of the long barrows is an accessible and well-illustrated volume focusing mostly on southern English long barrows but also including information from several chambered long cairns in Wales and Scotland (table 9). It offers a useful summary of the history of research into these remains (Chapter 2); of funerary and mortuary practices (Chapters 3 and 4); of information gained about age (both biological and chronological), sex, relatedness, mobility, violence, diet, disease and disability (Chapters 5 and 6); and of the later re-use of monuments (Chapter 7), finishing with suggestions for future research (Chapter 8). It should prove popular with students and interested non-specialists. Criticisms are relatively minor. Some relate to spelling and grammar (especially regarding apostrophes and the mis-spelling of 'practised'). The historical review could arguably have mentioned the contribution of Sir William Turner and other Scottish-based anatomists, and on p. 83, the omission of a reference to Saville's and Hallén's dating of bones from Macarthur Cave to the Iron Age (Saville & Hallén 1994) is regrettable. At times, the use of Continental evidence, especially regarding Ötzi the Ice Man, smacks of padding to fill gaps in the British evidence; and sometimes, contentious assertions made by others are accepted uncritically, especially as regards Mesolithic-Neolithic continuity (pp. 83-4) and the nature of Early Neolithic settlement and land use (p.119). On balance, however, the volume is to be welcomed.

...but still a way to go

The last two books in this review are among the most expensive and, in this reviewer's opinion, are the least satisfactory — although individual contributions to Brophy's and Barclay's slim volume (Defining a regional Neolithic) are praiseworthy, including Fiona Roe's brief essay on Neolithic querns (see also above). This book results from a Neolithic Studies Group meeting in 2001, but it took eight years to appear, and the editors' preface was two years old by the time of publication. The diverse contributions offer differing perspectives on regionality, and Clay's summary of the Neolithic of the East Midlands reminds us of the magnitude of the challenge to fill gaps in our knowledge for large parts of Britain. Loveday's contribution includes the remarkable (and unconvincing) suggestion that polished rectangular flint knives, 'Seamer' flint axeheads and 'Duggleby' flint adzeheads are copies of early Continental copper axeheads, despite the absence of such 'prototypes' from Britain (except one find of questionable provenance). And in Cummings' paper on megaliths in south-west Wales and south-west Scotland, it is stated (p. 58) that 'late Neolithic pottery was found at the White Cairn, Bargrennan', despite the fact that the pottery report which appeared in Cummings' and Fowler's 2007 publication (included in the bibliography) made it clear that the sherds were from Early Bronze Age urns. Such lack of attention to detail is also to be found in large parts of Cummings' book, which expands her study to include eastern Ireland and claims to cover The Neolithic of the Irish Sea zone. In fact it focuses mostly on early Neolithic megalithic monuments, and Chapters 6 and 7 reprise Cummings' oft-published observations about the relationship between these and mountains and the sea. In the author's words, 'All I can relate is what I myself have seen from the various chambered [sic] tombs of the Irish Sea zone. I have no way of knowing how people in the Neolithic may have perceived these landscape features...' (p. 126). No attempt is made to relate monument location to existing evidence relating to settlement and land use, and previous locational studies (e.g. by Cooney on the megaliths of County Louth, summarised in Cooney 2000) are not discussed.

This book reads as though it is a lecture course for first-year undergraduates, and unfortunately the use of the first person not only foregrounds the narrator, but magnifies the pratfalls when they occur. Bold claims to 'provide a comprehensive overview of Neolithic monumentality in the Irish Sea zone' (p. 60) simply offer hostages to fortune (e.g. in the failure to discuss non-megalithic monuments (see Sheridan (2006) or Kytmannov's work on portal tombs (2009)); and simplistic statements such as 'We know that Neolithic things appear everywhere around about 4000 BC in Britain and Ireland' make one wonder whether the author has actually read the articles that have appeared in books that she has co-edited (e.g. Cummings & Fowler 2004; Whittle & Cummings 2007). It is one thing to disagree with the hypothesis of there being an Atlantic, Breton strand of Neolithisation reaching Wales, Scotland and the north of Ireland between 4400/4300 and 4000 BC (as expressed, for example, in Sheridan 2004 and 2010); it is quite another to appear to be wholly unaware of this hypothesis, and to lump closed chambers and simple passage tombs together with portal tombs. Similarly, if Cummings had paid attention to the reviewer's discussion of ceramic developments in west and south-west Scotland that appeared in the volume she co-edited with Fowler in 2004, she could have avoided the muddled and misleading account of Irish Sea pottery that she presents in Chapter 3. (Furthermore, the provenancing work on Neolithic pottery that Cummings advocates (e.g. on p. 200) has, for Irish Neolithic pottery, already been done and published more than once by this reviewer.) Other shortcomings, which reveal a shallowness in the author's knowledge of the archaeology of the Irish Sea region, include the surprising claim that the fragmentary jet spacer plate necklace, Food Vessel and associated lithics found in the Brackley Clyde cairn date to 'the end of the early Bronze Age (1500 BC)' (p.79; and note that 'Scott 1955' should be 'Scott 1956'). There is much to commend in Cummings' recording of the landscape settings of megalithic tombs, but unfortunately those reading this book are likely to end up further away from an understanding of the Irish Sea Neolithic than when they started.

In sum, the reports and overviews discussed here leave this reviewer both inspired and frustrated. Inspired by the quality and reporting of the fieldwork carried out in a multitude of environments and circumstances, and by the exciting new information obtained through the application of science. And frustrated at the lack of critical judgement and the inadequate knowledge base shown by some authors. The journey towards understanding the Neolithic of Britain and Ireland was never going to be easy. Yet it is only by 'keeping buggering on' (to use Churchill's famous expression), by continuing to document precisely its manifold manifestations, by keeping up-to-date with the information available both here and on the Continent, and most importantly by asking the right questions of the evidence and knowing how to go about answering them, that we are to advance.

References

• BARBER, J. 1997. The excavation of a stalled cairn at the Point of Cott, Westray, Orkney (STAR (Monograph 1). Edinburgh: Scottish Trust for Archaeological Research.
• BAYLISS, A. & A.W.R. WHITTLE (ed.). 2007. Histories of the dead: building chronologies for five southern British long barrows. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17.1 (supplement).
• BROPHY, K. 2007. From big houses to cult houses: Early Neolithic timber halls in Scotland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 73: 75-96.
• CLEAL, R. 2004. The dating and diversity of the earliest ceramics of Wessex and south-west England, in R. Cleal & J. Pollard (ed.) Monuments and material culture: 164-92. Salisbury: Hobnob Press.
• COONEY, G. 2000. Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland. London: Routledge.
• CUMMINGS, V. & C. FOWLER (ed.). 2004. The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: materiality and traditions of practice. Oxford: Oxbow.
  - 2007. From cairn to cemetery: an archaeological investigation of the chambered cairns and Early Bronze Age mortuary deposits at Cairnderry and Bargrennan White Cairn, south-west Scotland (British Archaeological Reports British Series 434). Oxford: Archaeopress.
• KYTMANNOW, T. 2008. Portal tombs in the landscape: the chronology, morphology and landscape setting of the portal tombs of Ireland, Wales and Cornwall (British Archaeological Reports British Series 455). Oxford: Archaeopress.
• PEACOCK, D., L. CUTLER & P. WOODWARD. 2009. A Neolithic voyage. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 39(1): 116-24.
• SAVILLE, A. & Y. HALLéN. 1994. The 'Obanian Iron Age': human remains from the Oban cave sites, Argyll, Scotland. Antiquity 68: 715-23.
• SHERIDAN, J.A. 2004. Neolithic connections along and across the Irish Sea, in V. Cummings & C. Fowler (ed.) The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: materiality and traditions of practice: 9-21. Oxford: Oxbow.
  - 2006. A non-megalithic funerary tradition in early Neolithic Ireland, in M. Meek (ed.) The modern traveller to our past: Festschrift in honour of Ann Hamlin: 24-31. Rathfriland: DPK.
  - 2007. From Picardie to Pickering and Pencraig Hill? New information on the 'Carinated Bowl Neolithic' in northern Britain, in A.W.R. Whittle & V. Cummings (ed.) Going over: the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in North-West Europe: 441-92. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  - 2010. The Neolithization of Britain and Ireland: the 'Big Picture', in B. Finlayson & G. Warren (ed.) Landscapes in transition: 89-105. Oxford: Oxbow.
• SHERIDAN, J.A., R.J. SCHULTING, H. QUINNELL & R. TAYLOR. 2008. Revisiting a small passaage tomb at Broadsands, Devon. Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Society 66: 1-26.
• SHERIDAN, J.A., D. FIELD, Y. PAILLER, P. PéTREQUIN, M. ERRERA, & S. CASSEN. 2010. The Breamore jadeitite axehead and other Neolithic axeheads of Alpine rock from central southern England. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine 103: 16-34.
• WHITTLE, A.W.R. & V. CUMMINGS (ed.). 2007. Going over: the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in North-West Europe (Proceedings of the British Academy 144). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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