Archaeologists show us how the Neolithic human lived in mainland Scotland
What was life like in Scotland between 4000 and 2000BC? Where were people living? How did they treat their dead? Why did they spend so much time building extravagant ritual monuments? What was special about the relationship people had with trees and holes in the ground? What can we say about how people lived in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age of mainland Scotland where much of the evidence we have lies beneath the ploughsoil, or survives as slumped banks and ditches, or ruinous megaliths?
Each contribution to this volume presents fresh research and radical new interpretations of the pits, postholes, ditches, rubbish dumps, human remains and broken potsherds left behind by our Neolithic forebears.
From the APF
What was life like in Scotland between 4000 and 2000BC? Where were people living? How did they treat their dead? Why did they spend so much time building extravagant ritual monuments? What was special about the relationship people had with trees? Why was so much time and effort spent digging holes and filling them back up again?
What can we say about how people lived in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age of mainland Scotland where much of the evidence we have lies beneath the plough soil, or survives as slumped banks and filled ditches, or ruinous megaliths?
This book will draw together leading experts and young researchers to present fresh research and outline radical new interpretations of the pits, postholes, ditches, rubbish dumps, human remains and broken potsherds left behind by our Neolithic forebears. Much of this evidence has come to light in the past few decades, putting the emphasis very much lowland, mainland Scotland as opposed to more famous Orcadian Neolithic sites. Inspired by the work of Gordon Barclay, the leading scholars of Scotland’s Neolithic in the last 40 years, the chapters in this book offer a wide-ranging analysis of the evidence we have for the first farmers in Scotland.
Kenneth Brophy is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Glasgow. His specialisms are the British Neolithic and early Bronze Age, and over the past two decades he has excavated a range of prehistoric monuments and cropmark sites across Scotland including ceremonial enclosures, timber halls and stone rows. He is the author of Reading between the lines: the Neolithic cursus monuments of Scotland (2015).
Gavin MacGregor is Honorary Research Fellow at the Univeristy of Glasgow. He has worked in Scottish archaeology in both research and consultancy contexts and is currently a Director at Northlight Heritage where he is responsible for a range of applied heritage projects and programmes.
Ian Ralston is Abercromby Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, is presently President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. He has excavated hillforts in France at Mont Beuvray in Burgundy and Levroux and Bourges in Berry. The writer of some 150 published papers, he is the author or editor of more than 20 books. Ian has also extensively researched Scottish archaeological topics including both pre- and post-Roman hillforts.
