Flint and Stone in the Neolithic Period

Lithic artefacts were an intrinsic part of Neolithic life both in terms of everyday practical use and in ritual/symbolic mode. Archaeologists and prehistorians studying the Neolithic period recognise this, and accordingly, strive to maximise relevant data recovery and subsequently exploit the available data to the full. Fulfilling these ambitions requires specialist input, which not only comes from lithic analysts themselves, but also draws on a wide range of expertise from across archaeology and other disciplines and practices. The papers in this volume demonstrate some of the diverse approaches and applications, both direct and theoretical, which are contributing towards our ultimate goal of allowing increased understanding of stone tools to reveal more about Neolithic life.

Table of Contents

1. Neolithic lithic studies: what do we know, what do we want to know? (Alan Saville)
2. The Levallois-like approach of Late Neolithic Britain: a discussion based on finds from the Stoneyhill Project, Aberdeenshire (Torben Bjarke Ballin)
3. The felsite industrial complex of Northmaven: observations from a fact-finding mission to Shetland (Torben Bjarke Ballin)
4. The Sweet Track, Somerset, and lithic scatters: walking the land, collecting artefacts, and discovering the earliest Neolithic community (Clive Jonathon Bond)
5. New discoveries at the Mynydd Rhiw axehead production site (Steve Burrow, Heather Jackson and Nigel Blackamore)
6. Stonehenge – looking from the inside out: a comparative analysis of landscape surveys in southern Britain (Benjamin Tun-Yee Chan)
7. Shining water, shifting sand: exotic lithic material from Luce Sands, south-west Scotland (Diana Coles)
8. Seamer axeheads in southern England (David Field)
9. Neolithic territories and lithic production: some examples from the Paris basin and neighbouring regions (François Giligny)
10. Why do people use exotic raw materials? The case of obsidian in the Near East during the Halaf period (Elizabeth Healey)
11. Polished rectangular flint knives – elaboration or replication? (Roy Loveday)
12. Burning issues: fire and the manufacture of stone tools in Neolithic Britain (Amelia Pannett)
13. A shot in the dark? Interpreting evidence for prehistoric conflict (Martin Smith, Megan Brickley and Stephany Leach)
14. Prehistoric extraction: further suggestions from ethnography (Peter Topping )
15. ‘Shiny and colourful’: raw material selection and the production of edge tools in Late Neolithic Makriyalos, Greece (Christina Tsoraki)
16. Ideology and context within the European flint-mining tradition (Paul Wheeler)