Gathering time - Alasdair Whittle

Gathering Time
presents the results of a major dating programme that re-writes the early Neolithic of Britain by more accurately
dating enclosures, a phenomenon that first appeared in the early
Neolithic: places of construction, labour, assembly, ritual and
deposition. The project has combined hundreds of new radiocarbon
dates with hundreds of existing dates, using a Bayesian
statistical framework. Such formal chronological modelling is
essential if significantly more precise and robust date estimates
are to be achieved than those currently available from informal
inspection of calibrated radiocarbon dates. The resulting dating
project included over 35 enclosures - the largest study so far
attempted in a Bayesian framework. This establishes a new
chronology for causewayed and related enclosures in southern
Britain, which appeared in the final decades of the 38th century
cal BC, increased in number dramatically in the 37th century cal
BC, and began no longer to be built by the end of the 36th
century cal BC. Several enclosures were of short duration - in
some cases probably in use for less than a generation - though
some examples do conform to the conventional assumption of a long
primary use-life. In Ireland, enclosures of this kind are much
scarcer. The project helped to date two of these: Donegore, Co.
Antrim and Magheraboy, Co. Sligo. As well as establishing a new chronology for enclosures,
Gathering Time
also places these results into their wider context, by considering the chronology of the early Neolithic as
a whole. Well over a thousand other radiocarbon dates have been
critically assessed and modelled in a Bayesian framework - for
settlement, monument building and other activity, region by
region across southern Britain and across Ireland as a whole (a
brief comparative study of Scotland as far north as the Great
Glen is also included). Generally in southern Britain other
Neolithic activity can be dated before the beginnings of monument
building and, among the monuments, long barrows, long cairns, and
related forms clearly preceded the earliest causewayed
enclosures. The first Neolithic things and practices probably
appeared in south-east England in the 41st century cal BC,
arguably by some kind of small-scale colonisation from the
adjacent continent, and spread at a variable pace across the rest
of Britain and Ireland over the next two and a half centuries or
more, a process involving acculturation of local people as well
as immigrants. Enclosures may have been adapted as a social
strategy of harnessing the power of the distant and the exotic,
and perhaps old ancestral ties to the European continent, in a
dynamic and rapidly changing social milieu. Close attention is
given to themes of deposition, material culture and different
kinds of social interaction, from networks of exchange to
episodes of violence. A high tempo of change continued, as very
different constructions came to be built from the 36th century
cal BC onwards: the linear and more arcane cursus monuments. The
study of Irish Neolithic chronology reveals significant
patterning, including a short currency for rectangular timber
houses in the 37th century cal BC, but also highlights the
challenge of establishing more reliable chronologies, for
monuments in particular. Alternative scenarios for the date and
nature of the beginning of the Neolithic in Ireland are modelled. Gathering Time
ends with reflections on the nature and pace of change in prehistory. If generational timescales are now within
our grasp routinely, more subtle and individualised kinds of
(pre)history can and must be written, and the conventional frame
of the long-term must shift from being familiar and comfortable
to problematic.