Revisiting Grooved Ware: Understanding Ceramic Trajectories in Britain and Ireland, 3200-2400 Cal BC (Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers)

Following its appearance, arguably in Orkney in the 32nd century cal BC, Grooved Ware soon became widespread across Britain and Ireland, seemingly replacing earlier pottery styles and being deposited in contexts as varied as simple pits, passage tombs, ceremonial timber circles and henge monuments. As a result, Grooved Ware lies at the heart of many ongoing debates concerning social and economic developments at the end of the 4th and during the first half of the 3rd millennia cal BC.

Stemming from the 2022 Neolithic Studies Group autumn conference, and following on from Cleal and MacSween’s 1999 NSG volume on Grooved Ware, this book presents a series of papers from researchers specializing in Grooved Ware pottery and the British and Irish Neolithic, offering both regional and thematic perspectives on this important ceramic tradition. Chapters cover the development of Grooved Ware in Orkney as well as the timing and nature of its appearance, development, and subsequent demise in different regions of Britain and Ireland. In addition, thematic papers consider what Grooved Ware can contribute to understandings of inter-regional interactions during the earlier 3rd millennium cal BC, the possible meaning of Grooved Ware’s decorative motifs, and the thorny issue of the validity and significance of the various Grooved Ware sub-styles.

The book will be of great value not only to archaeologists and students with a specific interest in Grooved Ware pottery but also to those with a more general interest in the development of the Neolithic of Britain and Ireland.

Table of Contents

Foreword
List of contributors
1. Introduction: connected Grooved Ware worlds
Mike Copper and Alasdair Whittle
2. Grooved Ware in Orkney
Alison Sheridan
3. Skara Brae: the significance of the Grooved Ware assemblages
Ann MacSween and David V. Clarke
4. Scottish Grooved Ware beyond Orkney
Mike Copper
5. Grooved Ware in northern England since 2000
Sarah Botfield and Gill Hey
6. Grooved Ware from Wales
Francis Lynch
7. Land of milk and honey? Grooved Ware use in Neolithic Wales
Lilly Olet, Richard Evershed and Jessica Smyth
8. Grooved Ware in Ireland
Eoin Grogan and Helen Roche
9. Niche bunching and the Inland Sea: Grooved Ware settlement at Over, Cambridgeshire, and River Great Ouse distributions
Chris Evan, Joshua Pollard and Jonathan Tabor
10. The only way isn’t Essex, but it may be one of them…: Grooved Ware, Beakers and long-distance connections in southern Britain
Joshua Pollard and Rosamund Cleal
11. Between Essex and Wessex
Alistair Barclay
12. Recent Grooved Ware discoveries from Bulford and other sites in southern Wiltshire
Elina Brook
13. Grooved Ware in south-east England: social geographies, chronology and interpretation
Paul Garwood
14. Grooved Ware in the south-west peninsula
Andy M. Jones and Henrietta Quinnell
15. Comments on Grooved Ware from a bemused sceptic: questions of classification and terminology, dating and interpretation
David V. Clarke
16. Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland, 2023: retrospect and prospect
Alison Sheridan

Mike Copper is a post-doctoral researcher based at the University of Bradford, where he completed his PhD on Hebridean Neolithic pottery in 2015. Mike’s main research interests focus on the Scottish Neolithic and on Neolithic pottery more generally.



Alison Sheridan is emerita Principal Curator of Early Prehistory with National Museums Scotland and specialises in British and Irish Neolithic pottery and in the Neolithic period in this archipelago more generally.