Julian Thomas

The Birth of Neolithic Britain (eBook, PDF)

An Interpretive Account

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

The beginning of the Neolithic in Britain is a topic of perennial interest in archaeology, marking the end of a hunter-gatherer way of life with the introduction of domesticated plants and animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and a range of new kinds of monuments, including earthen long barrows and megalithic tombs. Every year, numerous new articles are published on different aspects of the topic, ranging from diet and subsistence economy to population movement, architecture, and seafaring. Thomas offers a treatment that synthesizes all of this material, presenting a coherent argument to explain the process of transition between the Mesolithic-Neolithic periods. Necessarily, the developments in Britain are put into the context of broader debates about the origins of agriculture in Europe, and the diversity of processes of change in different parts of the continent are explored. These are followed by a historiographic treatment of debates on the transition in Britain. Chapters cover the Mesolithic background, processes of contact and interaction, monumental architecture and timber halls, portable artefacts, and plants and animals. The concluding argument is that developments in the economy and material culture must be understood as being related to fundamental social transformations.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Erscheinungstermin: 28. November 2013
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780191504648
• Artikelnr.: 40006743

Autorenporträt

Julian Thomas is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Manchester.

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledgements
1: Introduction: The Problem
2: The Neolithization of Southern Europe
3: The Neolithization of Northern Europe
4: The Neolithization of Europe: Themes
5: The Neolithic Transition in Britain: A Critical Historiography
6: Mesolithic Prelude?
7: Times and Places
8: Contact, Interaction and Seafaring
9: Architecture: Halls and Houses
10: Architecture: Timber Structures, Long Mounds and Megaliths
11: Portable Artefacts: Tradition and Transmission
12: Plants and Animals Diet and Social Capital
13: Conclusion: A Model for the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in Britain
Bibliography
Index