Neolithic Britain

The Transformation of Social Worlds

Keith Ray and Julian Thomas

A unique, up-to-date overview of this key period of human history and its civilizational milestones
Incorporates the very latest developments in archaeological discoveries and understanding
An accessible yet authoritative and archaeologically-rigorous account, written by two highly experienced experts in the field
Richly illustrated to provide a vivid sense of the Neolithic world along with key artefacts and structures
Includes a chronological outline and a glossary of terms to aid understanding
A detailed bibliographical commentary provides readers with an annotated guide to further reading on the subject
Foreword written by Peter Florence, Director of the Hay Festival

Neolithic Britain

The Transformation of Social Worlds

Keith Ray and Julian Thomas

Description

The Neolithic in Britain was a period of fundamental change: human communities were transformed, collectively owning domesticated plants and animals, and inhabiting a richer world of material things: timber houses and halls, pottery vessels, polished flint and stone axes, and massive monuments of earth and stone. Equally important was the development of a suite of new social practices, and an emphasis on descent, continuity and inheritance. These innovations set in train social processes that culminated with the construction of Stonehenge, the most remarkable surviving structure from prehistoric Europe.

Neolithic Britain provides an up to date, concise introduction to the period of British prehistory from c. 4000-2200 BCE. Written on the basis of a new appreciation of the chronology of the period, the result reflects both on the way that archaeologists write narratives of the Neolithic, and how Neolithic people constructed histories of their own. Incorporating new insights from the extraordinary pace of archaeological discoveries in recent years, a world emerges which is unfamiliar, complex and challenging, and yet played a decisive role in forging the landscape of contemporary Britain.

Important recent developments have resulted in a dual realisation: firstly, highly focused research into individual site chronologies can indicate precise and particular time narratives; and secondly, this new awareness of time implies original insights about the fabric of Neolithic society, embracing matters of inheritance, kinship and social ties, and the 'descent' of cultural practices.

Moreover, our understanding of Neolithic society has been radically affected by individual discoveries and investigative projects, whether in the Stonehenge area, on mainland Orkney, or in less well-known localities across the British Isles. The new perspective provided in this volume stems from a greater awareness of the ways in which unfolding events and transformations in societies depend upon the changing relations between individuals and groups, mediated by objects and architecture.

This concise panorama into Neolithic Britain offers new conclusions and an academically-stimulating but accessible overview. It covers key material and social developments, and reflects on the nature of cultural practices, tradition, genealogy, and society across nearly two millennia.

Neolithic Britain

The Transformation of Social Worlds

Keith Ray and Julian Thomas

Introduction: Neolithic Encounters and Reflections
1. Writing Neolithic Britain: An Interpretive Journey
2. 4000 BCE: A Cultural Threshold
3. Narratives for the Fourth Millennium
4. Social Being and Cultural Practices
5. Narratives for the Third Millennium
6. Kinship, History, and Descent
Conclusion: A Lived Neolithic

Neolithic Britain

The Transformation of Social Worlds

Keith Ray and Julian Thomas

Author Information

Keith Ray, Archaeological consultant and writer, ,Julian Thomas, Professor of Archaeology, University of Manchester

Keith Ray, MA PhD MBE FSA MIFA, is an Archaeological consultant and writer. He has been actively involved in field archaeology since 1970, when he worked with Dr. Geoffrey Wainwright at the major later Neolithic henge site
at Mount Pleasant, Dorchester, Dorset. He has been involved in fieldwork and research elsewhere in southern and western England and in Scotland, Wales, France, and Norway, as well as in West Africa. In 2007 he was awarded an MBE for services to archaeology in Herefordshire. He was a collaborator on the 'Gathering Time' Neolithic chronologies project, having co-organised the excavation of the early Neolithic enclosure at Hill Croft Field, Bodenham, in Herefordshire in 2006. In 2015 he published The Archaeology of Herefordshire: An Exploration
(Logaston Press), and in 2016 (as lead author) Offa's Dyke: Landscape and Hegemony in Eighth-Century Britain (Keith Ray and Ian Bapty; Oxbow/Windgather).

Julian Thomas, BTech MA PhD FSA is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Manchester. Early in his career, Julian worked on a number of key Neolithic sites, including the early Neolithic Hazleton North long barrow in the Cotswolds with Alan Saville, and the Hambledon Hill causewayed enclosure with Roger Mercer. He was appointed Professor of Archaeology at Manchester University in 2000. He was a co-director of the Stonehenge Riverside Project (2005-9), and is a Vice-President of the Royal Anthropological Institute. His latest book on the Neolithic more broadly, a full-length study of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition entitled The Birth of Neolithic Britain, was published by Oxford University Press in 2013.

Neolithic Britain

The Transformation of Social Worlds

Keith Ray and Julian Thomas

Reviews and Awards

"an excellent, highly informative and readable text for anyone new to the subject of the Neolithic or seeking a reference on recent developments of how complicated Neolithic chronologies fit together within Britain. It is a beautifully produced, highly readable, detailed, engaging and thought-provoking, informative book, and is highly recommended." -- Ingrid O'Donnell, Journal of Skyscape Archaeology

"[A] marvellously readable and intelligent book. . . . The entire book is dense with evidence (I learned about many sites for the first time) and is richly illustrated with photographs, many taken by the authors and most in color. It is a luxuriant presentation both visually and intellectually. . . . It offers valuable insights and analogies as well as a concise understanding of the current state of knowledge. The fact that it is pleasant to read is an added bonus, and the authors and Oxford University Press are to be commended for producing a model presentation of archaeological narrative and interpretation." -- Peter Bogucki, Journal of Anthropological Research

"This is a really attractive, wellpaced, current book (an increasingly difficult task this last half decade) ... it is a jolly good, novel read, full of welldated, timeless data." -- Rob Ixer, Fortean Times

"This is a book rich in detail and ideas [that] connects up places and offers an engaging and immersive prehistoric journey." -- Jonathan Last, Archaeological Journal

"[T]his is a book rich in detail and ideas ... Ray and Thomas have produced a narrative that, rather like the cursus monuments they describe, connects up places and offers an engaging and immersive prehistoric journey." -- Jonathan Last, Archaeological Journal

"This is a very readable and persuasive book, full of interesting observations and ideas that draw together and make sense of apparently disparate and puzzling archaeological phenomena." -- Chris Catling, Current Archaeology

"The authors...provide the reader with a comprehensive discussion of individual sites that have recently received intense investigation [...] The contents of the book, organised into six themed chapters, provide the reader with an up-to-date overview of the Neolithic, and, in particular, its communities and the way in which they would have embraced death, burial, and the afterlife. The authors keenly promote the esoteric mechanisms that shape and manipulate the material culture." -- George Nash, Current Archaeology

"[R]ichly informative and well structured. It weaves elegantly the local detail into grand narratives and is well argued [...] Original and innovative in style, the book sets out to be both academically stimulating and accessible. It achieves both of these successfully and does so with archaeological rigour [...] a timely and important contribution to understanding the Neolithic [...] It provides more than a regular book in that it delivers an experience" -- The Prehistoric Society

"[an] immensely valuable and stimulating book [...] This is...a book of ideas. Specialist will be familiar with many of them, but Ray & Thomas have done more than round up their greatest hits (good and bad), instead creating a substantial new narrative that will be appreciated by colleagues, students, and interested public alike." -- British Archaeology

"Neolithic Britain is extensively and excellently illustrated by photos, drawings, paintings, and engravings ... Recommended." --CHOICE