P A Rowley‐conwy
Biographic Data
| ID | 91255 |
|---|---|
| NAME | P A Rowley‐conwy |
| GIVEN NAMES | P A |
| FAMILY NAME | Rowley‐conwy |
| SIGNATURE | CONWY P A R |
| AFFILIATIONS | Durham University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9494-3151 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 87 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 832 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 87 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Mesolithic Landscapes and Niche Construction
Niche construction (NC) is the manipulation of resources to increase their availability to humans. It has been insufficiently emphasized in Mesolithic Europe. Traditionally, hunter-gatherers were assumed to be incapable of environmental modification. Ethnographic work on NC has recently seen massive strides, particularly in Australia. Early British settlers did not, however, grasp that they were seeing a heavily modified landscape, because they w…
Neolithisation through bone
Despite an increasing number of studies, the application of stable sulfur (δ34S) isotope analysis to prehistoric bone collagen remains in its infancy. Conventionally, stable sulfur isotope compositions reflect coastal proximity and the interaction between humans and animals. Here, we undertook stable carbon (δ13C), nitrogen (δ15N) and sulfur (δ34S) isotope analysis of human and faunal bone collagen. To understand the local environmental condition…
Testing the presence of cereal-type pollen grains in coastal pre-Elm Decline peat deposits
By the time of the Mid-Holocene Ulmus pollen decline (UD) ca. 5100 14 C bp (ca. 5900 cal. BP), the Neolithic was becoming well established in Britain and Ireland. The importance of cereal cultivation as part of the initial neolithization process in the British Isles is uncertain, as archaeological sites of the first Neolithic remain elusive. Palaeoecologists have recorded cereal-type pollen grains in peat deposits that pre-date the UD significant…
Scotland's first farmers
Thirty years after the discovery of an Early Neolithic timber hall at Balbridie in Scotland was reported in Antiquity , new analysis of the site's archaeobotanical assemblage, featuring 20 000 cereal grains preserved when the building burnt down in the early fourth millennium BC, provides new insights into early farming practices. The results of stable isotope analyses of cereals from Balbridie, alongside archaeobotanical and stable isotope resul…
Transhumance in the Early Neolithic? Carbon and oxygen isotope insights into sheep husbandry at Arene Candide, Northern Italy
Zvelebil, Marek
Separating caprine (Capra/Ovis) distal tibiae
Distinguishing the skeletal remains of sheep (Ovis aries) from goats (Capra hircus) is a fundamental and habitual problem in zooarchaeology. Such a distinction is desirable because the taxa can be raised to serve variable purposes, are behaviourally different and are biologically dissimilar; all factors influencing their role in past human economies. Although considerable effort has been spent exploring various methods for their distinction in th…
Isotopic analysis of the Blick Mead dog
A Meeting in the Forest
The Coneybury ‘Anomaly’ is an Early Neolithic pit located just south-east of Stonehenge, Wiltshire. Excavations recovered a faunal assemblage unique in its composition, consisting of both wild and domestic species, as well as large quantities of ceramics and stone tools, including a substantial proportion of blades/bladelets. We present a suite of new isotope analyses of the faunal material, together with ancient DNA sex determination, and recons…
Fire in the Moor
This paper presents the results of a palaeoenvironmental investigation of riverine deposits containing charred heathland plant material, recovered during an archaeological survey of Gleann Mor Barabhais, Lewis, Western Isles of Scotland. This survey was conducted to identify Mesolithic occupation in the interior of the island and was undertaken as part of a wider project investigating the Mesolithic of the Western Isles. The recovery of carbonise…
Zooarchaeology and the elusive feast
Ethnographic descriptions of feasts reveal that consumption of meat is usually prominent. Zooarchaeological evidence may thus provide the best way of seeing feasts in the archaeological record. The accumulation of trophy arrays and ongoing high-status activities are confusing behaviours that may be misconstrued as archaeological evidence of feasts. A four-fold classification of zooarchaeological evidence for feasts is put forward: 'over the top' …
Modelling the earliest north-western dispersal of Mediterranean Impressed Wares
The authors attempt to specify the diffusion pattern of the Impressed-Ware Neolithic (Impresso-cardial complex, ICC), from south-eastern Italy onto the French Mediterranean coasts. Using ChronoModel® software, a Bayesian model was built with sets of dates obtained on well-contextualised, short-lived samples. The results highlight a clear tightening of the chronology in the so-called nuclear area (Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria) and a pioneer dispe…
Hunter-Gatherer Variability
Hunter-fisher-gatherer (HFG) variability has received a lot of attention. We review the key developments in the theories of variability, which have usually resulted in binary classifications. We argue that a range of variation based on the degree of territorial ownership is preferable to these classifications. Hunter-fisher-gatherers of the world’s northern coasts have only been partially explored in this way with regard to variability. A major r…
Nitrogen isotope evidence for manuring of early Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture cereals from Stensborg, Sweden
Strontium isotope evidence of early Funnel Beaker Culture movement of cattle
The movement of livestock across and within landscapes is increasingly being recognized as common in northern European prehistoric contexts, and was performed for various purposes. However, almost nothing is known about the movement of livestock in the earliest phase of the southern Scandinavian Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture (ENI, TRB, 4000–3500 cal BC), or even if such movement is indicated. In this study, domestic cattle (Bos taurus) teeth fr…
The advance of cultivation at its northern European limit
Dates for early cultivation in Finland obtained from pollen analysis and remains from archaeological sites are compared with the changes in population size derived from the summed calendar-year probability distributions. The results from these two independent proxies correlate strongly with one another indicating that population size and the advance of farming were closely linked to each other. Moreover, the results show that the adaptation and d…
Herbivore diets and the anthropogenic environment of early farming in southern Scandinavia
Farming practice in the first period of the southern Scandinavian Neolithic (Early Neolithic I, Funnel Beaker Culture, 3950–3500 cal. BC) is not well understood. Despite the presence of the first farmers and their domesticated plants and animals, little evidence of profound changes to the landscape such as widespread deforestation has emerged from this crucial early period. Bone collagen dietary stable isotope ratios of wild herbivores from south…
Subsistence Practices in Western and Northern Europe
Early agriculture in north-west Europe was highly diverse. Sometimes it spread rapidly, at other times it scarcely advanced at all, and in southern Scandinavia it retreated after its initial advance. Linearbandkeramik (LBK) farmers occupied small clearings on loess soils, concentrating on cattle and cereals and hardly exploiting the surrounding forest at all. After more than a millennium agriculture spread into southern Scandinavia; after an init…
Firewood, food and human niche construction
Over the past few decades the potential role of Mesolithic hunter–gatherers in actively constructing their own niches, through the management of wild plants, has frequently been discussed. It is probable that Mesolithic hunter–gatherers systematically exploited specific woodland resources for food and fuel and influenced the ‘natural’ abundance or distribution of particular species within Mesolithic environments. Though there has been considerabl…
Foragers and Farmers in Mesolithic/Neolithic Europe, 5500–3900 cal. BC
Seeds, fruits and nuts in the Scottish Mesolithic
Over the past few decades, the potential importance of plants within European Mesolithic economies has frequently been discussed, but there has been little systematic consideration of the archaeobotanical evidence for Mesolithic plant consumption in Scotland. This paper assesses the use of plants in the Scottish Mesolithic economy using the archaeobotanical evidence from 48 sites. It is argued that plants were systematically, and, in some cases, …
Wild Boar or Domestic Pigs? Response to Evin et al
We continue to contest the claim by Evin et al. (2014) that Rosenhof E24 and other Mesolithic pigs were domestic. E24’s mixture of ‘wild’ and ‘domestic’ traits is best explained as indicating a behaviourally wild boar with some domestic ancestry. The fascinating complexities of this situation should not be downplayed in favour of a simplified, more newsworthy (but probably incorrect) conclusion
Mesolithic domestic pigs at Rosenhof - or wild boar? A critical re-appraisal of ancient DNA and geometric morphometrics
We challenge the claim by Krause-Kyora et al. (2013) that there were domestic pigs at Mesolithic sites in northern Germany. A small number of animals from Rosenhof and Poel have ancient DNA and geometric morphometric signatures elsewhere associated with domestic animals. At this time Neolithic farming settlements were present 150km to the south, but the Mesolithic specimens are, however, metrically wild boar, much larger than domestic pigs, and c…
The four horses of an Iron Age apocalypse
The Illerup Aadal weapon sacrifice mirrors the material world of a Germanic army from c. AD 210. Apart from the personal equipment and the weaponry of more than 400 warriors, it comprises four horses. The present paper gives the first conclusive analysis of the skeletal remains of these animals, involving osteological investigation and strontium isotope analysis. The results shed new light on the character of the sacrificial ceremonies which unfo…
Obituary
The Significance of Food Storage Among Hunter-Gatherers
Some hunter-gatherer societies (the Indians of California and of the Northwest Coast, for instance) depart significantly from the commonly accepted definition. This paper demonstrates that in such societies the economic structure is based on seasonal and intensive storage of major food resources. The societies presenting this type of economic structure are (1) sedentary, (2) high-density, and (3) prone to socioeconomic inequality. These three cha…
How the West Was Lost
Postprocessual views of the transition to agriculture in Northwestern Europe have sought to decouple ideology and subsistence economy as a means of protecting the status of ideology as the sole cause of change. Ideology (as reflected in material culture and monument building) changed abruptly. To achieve the required decoupling, subsistence is therefore portrayed as having changed slowly. This implies three things: (1) Mesolithic foragers were gr…
Westward Ho
Recent work on the four major areas of the spread of agriculture in Neolithic western Europe has revealed that they are both chronologically and economically much more abrupt than has hitherto been envisaged. Most claims of a little agriculture in Late Mesolithic communities are shown to be incorrect. In most places, full sedentary agriculture was introduced very rapidly at the start of the Neolithic. "Transitional" economies are virtually absent…
Meat and Marrow Utility Indices for Horse ( )
Cereals, fruits and nuts in the Scottish Neolithic
The importance of wild and domestic plants in the British Neolithic economies has been much disputed, but the contribution of Scottish archaeobotanical evidence has previously been understated. This paper assesses the use of plants in the Scottish Neolithic economy using the archaeobotanical evidence from 75 sites. It is argued that plant exploitation was geographically and socially diverse in Neolithic Scotland; while domesticated plants became …
Transition to farming in Northern Europe
The transition to settled farming communities in northern Europe was a far more gradual process than elsewhere in Europe: this makes it possible to study the transition to farming archaeologically at a finer level of resolution. In this paper we trace the shift to cultivation in two areas: Denmark and Finland. Despite the difference in the time scale of agricultural evolution, and despite other chronological and environmental differences, we can,…
Early Farming in Finland
We review the evidence for the earliest agriculture in Finland. The claims are all based on pollen analysis. Some claims go back to the Neolithic period. We contest these claims critically and argue that the ‘early cereal-type’ pollen grains may in fact come from large-grained wild grasses, and cannot be taken as clear evidence for cultivation in the absence of other lines of evidence. Cultivation of cereals in Finland may have started as late as…
On the Charred Seeds from Epipalaeolithic Abu Hureyra
Improved Separation of Neolithic Metapodials of Sheep ( ) and Goats ( ) from Arene Candide Cave, Liguria, Italy
Making First Farmers Younger
Herbivore diets and the anthropogenic environment of early farming in southern Scandinavia
Farming practice in the first period of the southern Scandinavian Neolithic (Early Neolithic I, Funnel Beaker Culture, 3950–3500 cal. BC) is not well understood. Despite the presence of the first farmers and their domesticated plants and animals, little evidence of profound changes to the landscape such as widespread deforestation has emerged from this crucial early period. Bone collagen dietary stable isotope ratios of wild herbivores from south…
Size and shape of the Eurasian wild boar ( Sus scrofa ), with a view to the reconstruction of its Holocene history
A large assortment of skulls and skeletons of recent wild boar (Sus scrofa) from across the world has been used to collect tooth and bone measurements that can be compared to those from archaeological specimens. The data provide useful information for a reconstruction of the Holocene history of the species. The evidence collected so far highlights the great variability of the species and provides a baseline to be used for the interpretation of an…
The Establishment of Agrarian Communities on the North European Plain [and Comments and Reply]
Zooarchaeology and the elusive feast
Ethnographic descriptions of feasts reveal that consumption of meat is usually prominent. Zooarchaeological evidence may thus provide the best way of seeing feasts in the archaeological record. The accumulation of trophy arrays and ongoing high-status activities are confusing behaviours that may be misconstrued as archaeological evidence of feasts. A four-fold classification of zooarchaeological evidence for feasts is put forward: 'over the top' …
Why didn't Westropp's 'Mesolithic' catch on in 1872
A defined 'Mesolithic' era is a fixture in the cultural sequences of European prehistory - though not of other regions of the world. Why and how did the entity come to be invented, and to take just that form
Strontium isotope evidence of early Funnel Beaker Culture movement of cattle
The movement of livestock across and within landscapes is increasingly being recognized as common in northern European prehistoric contexts, and was performed for various purposes. However, almost nothing is known about the movement of livestock in the earliest phase of the southern Scandinavian Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture (ENI, TRB, 4000–3500 cal BC), or even if such movement is indicated. In this study, domestic cattle (Bos taurus) teeth fr…
Mesolithic domestic pigs at Rosenhof - or wild boar? A critical re-appraisal of ancient DNA and geometric morphometrics
We challenge the claim by Krause-Kyora et al. (2013) that there were domestic pigs at Mesolithic sites in northern Germany. A small number of animals from Rosenhof and Poel have ancient DNA and geometric morphometric signatures elsewhere associated with domestic animals. At this time Neolithic farming settlements were present 150km to the south, but the Mesolithic specimens are, however, metrically wild boar, much larger than domestic pigs, and c…
The concept of prehistory and the invention of the terms ‘prehistoric’ and ‘prehistorian
It is usually assumed by historians of archaeology that the ‘concept of prehistory’ and the terms ‘prehistoric’ and ‘prehistorian’ first appeared in Britain and/or France in the mid-nineteenth century. This contribution demonstrates that the Scandinavian equivalent terms forhistorisk and förhistorisk were in use substantially earlier, appearing in print first in 1834. Initial usage by Molbech differed slightly from that of the present day, but wi…
Short- and long-term foraging and foddering strategies of domesticated animals from Qasr Ibrim, Egypt
The interpretation of ard marks
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Nitrogen isotope evidence for manuring of early Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture cereals from Stensborg, Sweden
Introduction
Occupation de l'Arctique par divers peuples. L'A s'interesse particulierement au climat rude et varie de cette region auquel ces populations ont du s'adapter
Seasonal Variation in Maglemosian Group Size and Structure
A Meeting in the Forest
The Coneybury ‘Anomaly’ is an Early Neolithic pit located just south-east of Stonehenge, Wiltshire. Excavations recovered a faunal assemblage unique in its composition, consisting of both wild and domestic species, as well as large quantities of ceramics and stone tools, including a substantial proportion of blades/bladelets. We present a suite of new isotope analyses of the faunal material, together with ancient DNA sex determination, and recons…
Postglacial foraging and early farming economies in Japan and Korea
The article discusses the western‐language sources available for the economies of the Jomon and Yayoi cultures. Little detailed evidence is available, but the Jomon hunter‐gatherers were apparently sedentary and exploited various combinations of marine and terrestrial resources. Good evidence for agriculture is available only in the Final Jomon Period (1000–300 B.C.). The uneven dispersal of rice cultivation after this suggests that areas densely…
The Significance of Food Storage Among Hunter-Gatherers
Some hunter-gatherer societies (the Indians of California and of the Northwest Coast, for instance) depart significantly from the commonly accepted definition. This paper demonstrates that in such societies the economic structure is based on seasonal and intensive storage of major food resources. The societies presenting this type of economic structure are (1) sedentary, (2) high-density, and (3) prone to socioeconomic inequality. These three cha…
The Egehøj Cereals
The laziness of the short-distance hunter
Postglacial foraging and early farming economies in Japan and Korea
The article discusses the western‐language sources available for the economies of the Jomon and Yayoi cultures. Little detailed evidence is available, but the Jomon hunter‐gatherers were apparently sedentary and exploited various combinations of marine and terrestrial resources. Good evidence for agriculture is available only in the Final Jomon Period (1000–300 B.C.). The uneven dispersal of rice cultivation after this suggests that areas densely…
Transition to farming in Northern Europe
The transition to settled farming communities in northern Europe was a far more gradual process than elsewhere in Europe: this makes it possible to study the transition to farming archaeologically at a finer level of resolution. In this paper we trace the shift to cultivation in two areas: Denmark and Finland. Despite the difference in the time scale of agricultural evolution, and despite other chronological and environmental differences, we can,…
The Origin of Agriculture in Denmark
The Single Grave (Corded Ware) Economy at Kalvø
Reply to comments on transition to farming in Northern Europe
Report on the excavation of a Neolithic mound at Boghead, Speymouth Forest, Fochabers, Moray, 1972 and 1974
Iron Age skeletons at top of mound; cist with cremation. Long before that, Beaker sherds were placed in pit by old mound. Beneath mound, many sherds, cremated bones, and flints in thick black layer. Pollen, soil, and 14C dates indicate early Neo agriculture by people with Grimston/Lyles Hill wares
The Bog Find from Sigersdal
(1986). The Bog Find from Sigersdal. Journal of Danish Archaeology: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 85-115
The beaver (castor fiber L.) in the Tigris-Euphrates basin
Gazelle Killing in Stone Age Syria
Cledemutha
In A.D. 921 Edward the Elder is recorded as having built the borough or burh at Cledemutha. On the basis of excavations in 1979–82 it is argued that a three-sided earthwork enclosing a large area to the south of modern Rhuddlan, Clwyd (Flintshire), forms the defences of this late Saxon burh. Evidence is presented for the dating, method of construction, original appearance and subsequent slighting of the defences. Comparisons are made with other l…
Seasonal Variation in Maglemosian Group Size and Structure
The Establishment of Agrarian Communities on the North European Plain [and Comments and Reply]
The interpretation of ard marks
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The Camel in the Nile Valley
The Camel in the Nile Valley
Radiocarbon Accelerator (AMS) dates from Qa,r Ibrim demonstrate that camels were present in Nubia in the early first millennium BC. Other early evidence for the camel in the Nile Valley is reviewed, and the significance of the Qa,r Ibrirn finds for the cultural history of Nubia is discussed
Rye in Viking Age Denmark
(1988). Rye in Viking Age Denmark: New Information from Oster Aalum, North Jutland. Journal of Danish Archaeology: Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 182-190
Das mesolithikum in süddeutschland. Teil 2. Naturwissenschaftliche untersuchungen
The Greenland caribou—zoogeography, taxonomy and population dynamics
Le camp néolithique de Réjolles à Biron (Charente-Maritime)
Bouchet J.-M., Burnez Claude, Fouéré P., Gruet Michel, Marambat Laurence, Rowley-Conwy Peter. Le camp néolithique de Réjolles à Biron (Charente-Maritime). In: Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, tome 87, n°10-12, 1990. Spécial bilan de l'année de l'archéologie. pp. 368-395
On the Osteological Evidence for Palaeolithic Domestication
Art made strong with bones”
MtDNA, the Archaeological Record, and the Emergence of Modern Humans
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Archaeology (71 works) · Geography (66 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (58 works) · Biology (40 works) · History (34 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (32 works) · Ecology (26 works) · Agriculture (20 works) · History (18 works) · Mesolithic (17 works)