A Whittle
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 28485 |
|---|---|
| NOME | A Whittle |
| PRENOMES | A |
| SOBRENOME | Whittle |
| ASSINATURA | WHITTLE A |
| AFILIAÇÕES | Cardiff University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6811-8724 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 98 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 748 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 98 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1977 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 15 |
The politics of early Neolithic connectivity
While recent aDNA and other scientific analysis has served to underline the recurrent role of migration in the process of Neolithisation right across Europe, there remains plenty of scope for better integration of archaeogenetic and archaeological interpretations and for detailed narratives of local and regional trajectories. This paper focuses on relations between Britain and Ireland in the early Neolithic, in the first part of the 4th millenniu…
Kinship questions
Kinship, diverse webs of relationship generated by people in their social practice, has long been analysed and debated by anthropologists, from an earlier dominance of lineage theory to the current, much more fluid emphasis on relatedness. Since the days of processualism, archaeologists have given more attention to kinship than in the early years of the discipline, but in rather limited and general ways until very recently. With the advent of suc…
The uncertain frontier
Long archaeological debate on the process of Neolithisation across Europe has been resolved at a broad level, thanks to aDNA and other scientific investigations, in favour of significant migrations virtually everywhere. This development has coincided with the establishment of more robust and generally more precise chronologies, and in the long run the historical process of change brought by Neolithic migrants was irreversible. However, the emerge…
Ancient DNA and modelling the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Britain and Ireland
Some Balaton-Lasinja Graves from Veszprém-Jutasi Út and an Outline Chronology for the Earlier Copper Age in Western Hungary
A handful of new radiocarbon dates from three Balaton-Lasinja culture graves at the site of Veszprém-Jutasi út in western Hungary form the starting point for formal models for late Lengyel and post-Lengyel chronology in that region. The graves date to the later fifth millennium cal BC. They provide the opportunity to put the earlier Copper Age Balaton-Lasinja culture of Transdanubia into its regional and wider context, and to highlight both gradu…
A history of the LBK in the central Polish lowlands
A new chronological study of the LBK in the central Polish lowlands shows that it emerged later, lasted for a shorter period, and ended sooner than has been supposed up till now. LBK communities emerged, probably in the middle of the 53 rd century cal BC, to form an enclave in the central Polish lowlands, probably as a result of colonisation from loess areas in the south of Poland. Settlement steadily intensified throughout the 52 nd century cal …
Landscapes for Neolithic People in Mainland, Orkney
Neolithic occupation of the Orkney Islands, in the north of Scotland, probably began in the mid fourth millennium cal BC, culminating in a range of settlements, including stone-built houses, varied stone-built tombs and two noteworthy stone circles. The environmental and landscape context of the spectacular archaeology, however, remains poorly understood. We applied the Multiple Scenario Approach (MSA) to Neolithic pollen records from Mainland, O…
It's still the same old story’
Seeking the Holy Grail
The strengths of formal Bayesian chronological modelling are restated, combining as it does knowledge of the archaeology with the radiocarbon dating of carefully chosen samples of known taphonomy in association with diagnostic material culture. The risks of dating bone samples are reviewed, along with a brief history of the development of approaches to the radiocarbon dating of bone. In reply to Strien (2017), selected topics concerned with the e…
Opening the Woods
Environmental reconstructions from pollen records collected within archaeological landscapes have traditionally taken a broadly narrative approach, with few attempts made at hypothesis testing or formal assessment of uncertainty. This disjuncture between the traditional interpretive approach to palynological data and the requirement for detailed, locally specific reconstructions of the landscapes in which people lived has arguably hindered closer…
Island questions
What kind of history in prehistory
If we agree with the Annaliste historian Lucien Febvre (1973: 35) that “the concept of prehistory is one of the most ridiculous that can be imagined”, it still remains to be shown how alternative conceptions of the nature of archaeology can be figured, and to establish alternative approaches routinely in the discipline. This chapter argues that, armed with time of the middling sort, at timescales of human lifetimes and generations (Bayliss 2009; …
Seeking the Holy Grail
The strengths of formal Bayesian chronological modelling are restated, combining as it does knowledge of the archaeology with the radiocarbon dating of carefully chosen samples of known taphonomy in association with diagnostic material culture. The risks of dating bone samples are reviewed, along with a brief history of the development of approaches to the radiocarbon dating of bone. In reply to Strien (2017), selected topics concerned with the e…
Assembling the Dead, Gathering the Living
The great site of Valencina de la Concepción, near Seville in the lower Guadalquivir valley of southwest Spain, is presented in the context of debate about the nature of Copper Age society in southern Iberia as a whole. Many aspects of the layout, use, character and development of Valencina remain unclear, just as there are major unresolved questions about the kind of society represented there and in southern Iberia, from the late fourth to the l…
Rows with the neighbours
No time out
The Cultural Project
Starting from questions about the nature of cultural diversity, this paper examines the pace and tempo of change and the relative importance of continuity and discontinuity. To unravel the cultural project of the past, we apply chronological modelling of radiocarbon dates within a Bayesian statistical framework, to interrogate the Neolithic cultural sequence in Lower Alsace, in the upper Rhine valley, in broad terms from the later sixth to the en…
The Lives of Houses
There is a considerable mix of models for house durations in the literature on Neolithic Europe. This article presents a summary of a formal chronological model for the Neolithic tell of Uivar in western Romania. We provide estimates of house duration and relate houses to other features of the development of this tell, from the later sixth to the mid-fifth millennium cal bc . Three wider implications are discussed: that the house must be contextu…
To Cut a Long Story Short
In the context of unanswered questions about the nature and development of the Late Neolithic in Orkney, we present a summary of research up to 2015 on the major site at the Ness of Brodgar, Mainland Orkney, concentrating on the impressive buildings. Finding sufficient samples for radiocarbon dating was a considerable challenge. There are indications, from both features and finds, of activity pre-dating the main set of buildings exposed so far by…
Islands of history
Titelseiten
Settlement Duration and Materiality
Radiocarbon dating and Bayesian chronological modelling, undertaken as part of the investigation by the Times of Their Lives project into the development of Late Neolithic settlement and pottery in Orkney, has provided precise new dating for the Grooved Ware settlement of Barnhouse, excavated in 1985–91. Previous understandings of the site and its pottery are presented. A Bayesian model based on 70 measurements on 62 samples (of which 50 samples …
Die Zeit der großen Gräben
Vorgestellt wird der Versuch einer präziseren Datierung des Erdwerks von Heilbronn-Klingenberg “Schlossberg” am mittleren Neckar. Die angewendete Methode empfiehlt sich als Ausgangspunkt für weitere Untersuchungen zur Datierung und Belegungsdauer anderer Michelsberger Erdwerke des späten 5. bis frühen 4. Jahrtausends calBC. Vom Erdwerk von Klingenberg wurden in den Jahren 1986–1987 zwei Abschnittsgräben ausgegraben, die einen Lößsporn abriegeln, …
A Vinča potscape
Recent work at Vinča-Belo Brdo has combined a total of more than 200 radiocarbon dates with an array of other information to construct much more precise narratives for the structural history of the site and the cultural materials recovered from it. In this paper, we present the results of a recent attempt to construct formal models for the chronology of the wider Vinča potscape, so that we can place our now detailed understanding of changes at Be…
House time
The settlement of Racot 18 in the western Polish lowlands is used as a case study in the investigation of continued development and expansion following initial Neolithic beginnings, and in the formal chronological modeling, in a Bayesian framework, of settlement development. The site belongs to the Late Lengyel Culture of the later 5th millennium cal b.c., and represents the intake of new land following earlier initial colonization. The formally …
Bradshaw and Bayes
The importance of chronology is reasserted as a means to achieving history and a sense of temporality. A range of current methods for estimating the dates and durations of archaeological processes and events are considered, including visual inspection of graphs and tables of calibrated dates and the summing of the probability distributions of calibrated dates. These approaches are found wanting. The Bayesian statistical framework is introduced, a…
Assembling the Dead, Gathering the Living
The great site of Valencina de la Concepción, near Seville in the lower Guadalquivir valley of southwest Spain, is presented in the context of debate about the nature of Copper Age society in southern Iberia as a whole. Many aspects of the layout, use, character and development of Valencina remain unclear, just as there are major unresolved questions about the kind of society represented there and in southern Iberia, from the late fourth to the l…
Between the Vinča and Linearbandkeramik Worlds
New insights into the Early Neolithic economy and management of animals in Southern and Central Europe revealed using lipid residue analyses of pottery vessels
Analyses of organic residues preserved in ceramic potsherds enable the identification of foodstuffs processed in archaeological vessels. Differences in the isotopic composition of fatty acids allow differentiation of non-ruminant and ruminant fats, as well as adipose and dairy fats. This paper investigates the trends in milk use in areas where sheep and goats are dominant in the faunal assemblage and in some sites from the Linearbandkeramik cultu…
The Cultural Project
Starting from questions about the nature of cultural diversity, this paper examines the pace and tempo of change and the relative importance of continuity and discontinuity. To unravel the cultural project of the past, we apply chronological modelling of radiocarbon dates within a Bayesian statistical framework, to interrogate the Neolithic cultural sequence in Lower Alsace, in the upper Rhine valley, in broad terms from the later sixth to the en…
A Vinča potscape
Recent work at Vinča-Belo Brdo has combined a total of more than 200 radiocarbon dates with an array of other information to construct much more precise narratives for the structural history of the site and the cultural materials recovered from it. In this paper, we present the results of a recent attempt to construct formal models for the chronology of the wider Vinča potscape, so that we can place our now detailed understanding of changes at Be…
Building for the Dead
Our final paper in this series reasserts the importance of sequence. Stressing that long barrows, long cairns and associated structures do not appear to have begun before the thirty-eighth century cal. bc in southern Britain, we give estimates for the relative order of construction and use of the five monuments analysed in this programme. The active histories of monuments appear often to be short, and the numbers in use at any one time may have b…
The end of the affair
Parc le Breos Cwm Transepted Long Cairn, Gower, West Glamorgan
First investigated in 1869, the transepted long cairn of Parc le Breos Cwm was re-excavated in 1960–61 but without a report being published. This account presents a number of radiocarbon dates and a detailed re-examination of the human bone assemblages, and attempts to put the monument in local and regional context. Radiocarbon dates place the long cairn in the later part of the earlier Neolithic, and support a fairly long span of time over which…
Excavations in the Neolithic and Bronze Age Complex at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, 1947–1952 and 1981
From 1946 to 1952. excavations were undertaken in advance of destruction by gravel workings of a series of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age monuments at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxon. These included a long enclosure, a cursus, a double ditched henge, pit circles and ring ditches with primary and secondary cremation burials and a notable Beaker burial. Sites I, II, IV, V and VI, all pit circles or ring ditches, were published in 1951. This report descr…
House time
The settlement of Racot 18 in the western Polish lowlands is used as a case study in the investigation of continued development and expansion following initial Neolithic beginnings, and in the formal chronological modeling, in a Bayesian framework, of settlement development. The site belongs to the Late Lengyel Culture of the later 5th millennium cal b.c., and represents the intake of new land following earlier initial colonization. The formally …
Talking About My Generation
Thirty-one radiocarbon results are now available from the West Kennet long barrow, and are presented within an interpretive Bayesian statistical framework. Two alternative archaeological interpretations of the sequence are given, each with a separate Bayesian model. In our preferred interpretation, the barrow is seen as a unitary construction (given the lack of dating samples from the old ground surface, ditches or constructional features themsel…
Did the first farmers of central and eastern Europe produce dairy foods
Although the origins of domestic animals have been well-documented, it is unclear when livestock were first exploited for secondary products, such as milk. The analysis of remnant fats preserved in ceramic vessels from two agricultural sites in central and eastern Europe dating to the Early Neolithic (5900-5500 cal BC) are best explained by the presence of milk residues. On this basis, the authors suggest that dairying featured in early European …
The Life and Times of the House
The settlement record of the Neolithic of the northern Alpine foreland is used to address the question of what difference having high-resolution chronology — in this case principally provided by dendrochronology — makes to the kinds of narrative we seek to write about the Neolithic. In a search for detailed histories, three kinds of scale are examined. The longer-term development of cultural patterns and boundaries is found to correlate very impr…
Anatomy of a Tomb‐west Kennet Revisited
The primary and secondary uses of the West Kennet long barrow are reconsidered. In the first phase, dating perhaps to a late period of the Earlier Neolithic, the monument was used for a variety of burial rites, including bone circulation. The patterned deposits may have belonged to a small social group, and detailed knowledge of the tomb contents may have been restricted to such a group. The secondary phase is seen as covering a long span of time…
To Cut a Long Story Short
In the context of unanswered questions about the nature and development of the Late Neolithic in Orkney, we present a summary of research up to 2015 on the major site at the Ness of Brodgar, Mainland Orkney, concentrating on the impressive buildings. Finding sufficient samples for radiocarbon dating was a considerable challenge. There are indications, from both features and finds, of activity pre-dating the main set of buildings exposed so far by…
A Neolithic Downland Monument in its Environment
Excavations at the Easton Down long barrow were part of a wider programme of research into the Neolithic sequence and context of the Avebury area in north Wiltshire. The short barrow, on high chalk downland to the south-west of Avebury and the upper Kennet valley, and containing only a few inhumations according to Thurnam's 19th-century investigation, dates to the later 4th millennium BC. Test pits around the barrow produced very little struck fl…
The Times of Their Lives
In preparing for the publication of the seven papers in the special supplement of Cambridge Archaeological Journal, we were concerned to find an outlet that could find a worldwide audience, as we believe that these papers have more than regional or period significance. That is a big claim. The case studies presented in the supplement are all of early Neolithic long barrows and long cairns of the fourth millennium cal. bc in southern England. Why …
Europe in the Neolithic
Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire
Wayland's Smithy, on the north scarp of the downs above the Vale of the White Horse, is a two-phase Neolithic tomb. It has been a recognized feature of the historic landscape since at least the 10th century AD. It was recorded by Aubrey and later antiquaries, and continued to be of interest in the 19th century. It was amongst the first monuments to be protected by scheduling from 1882. The first excavations in 1919–20 were haphazardly organized a…
Islands of history
Diversity, lifestyles and rites
A potentially very important and comparatively neglected source of information in debates about the nature of the early neolithic period in northwest Europe is human skeletal material. A new project is concerned with the issues of population diversity, lifestyles and ancestral rites
Once in a Lifetime
Twenty-three radiocarbon results are now available from the Wayland's Smithy long barrow, and are presented within an interpretive Bayesian statistical framework. Four alternative archaeological interpretations of the sequence are considered, each with a separate Bayesian model, though only two are presented in detail. The differences are based on different readings of the sequence of Wayland's Smithy II. In our preferred interpretation of the se…
One Thing After Another
Forty-four radiocarbon results are now available from the Ascott-under-Wychwood long barrow, and are presented within an interpretive Bayesian statistical framework. Three alternative archaeological interpretations of the sequence are given, each with a separate Bayesian model. In our preferred model, pre-barrow occupation including small timber structures and a midden was followed by a gap long enough to allow a turfline to form. Cists and the p…
The world recreated
A classic exposition of the difficulties of dating a major monument and why it matters. Silbury Hill, one of the world's largest prehistoric earth mounds, is too valuable to take apart, so we are reliant on samples taken from tunnels and chance exposures. Presenting a new edition of thirty radiocarbon dates, the authors offer models of short- or long-term construction, and their implications for the ritual landscape of Silbury and Stonehenge. The…
The Earlier Neolithic of Southern England and its Continental Background
Earlier Neolithic Enclosures in North-West Europe
Enclosures with ditches and banks were a feature of Neolithic cultures in western Europe from the end of the Linear Pottery culture onwards, and seem to have served a wide variety of purposes within the settlement patterns and economic strategies based on mixed farming such as prevailed in the fourth and third millennia be (on the uncorrected radiocarbon chronology, used throughout). The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to draw attention to t…
Resources and population in the British Neolithic
Various ways of dividing up the chronological and cultural content of the Neolithic of the British Isles have been proposed. Thus Piggott assigned the Windmill Hill culture to Early and Middle phases, and the Peterborough and other cultures to a Late phase (1954); Clarke proposed similar Early, Middle and Late phases, with the addition of a Final phase (1970,275); Case divided the Irish Neolithic into a beginning, a middle and an end (1969a) (a s…
Beyond domestication in prehistoric Europe
Anatomy of a Tomb‐west Kennet Revisited
The primary and secondary uses of the West Kennet long barrow are reconsidered. In the first phase, dating perhaps to a late period of the Earlier Neolithic, the monument was used for a variety of burial rites, including bone circulation. The patterned deposits may have belonged to a small social group, and detailed knowledge of the tomb contents may have been restricted to such a group. The secondary phase is seen as covering a long span of time…
The Neolithic Causewayed Enclosure at Staines, Surrey
The partial excavation under rescue conditions in 1961–63 of the ditches and interior of an enclosure of the earlier neolithic period is described. The enclosure, covering a total area of approximately 2.4 ha, was defined by double concentric interrupted ditches, which were for the most part naturally filled. There were many traces of activity within the interior, presumed to be contemporary with the ditches, including pits, gullies, post- and st…
Neolithic settlement patterns in temperate Europe
Mesolithic and Neolithic Activity and Environmental Impact on the South-east Fen-edge in Cambridgeshire
Investigations into Mesolithic and Neolithic activity and environmental impact on the Cambridgeshire fen-edge are described, consisting of stratigraphic and pollen analytical research at Peacock's Farm, and trial excavations at Peacock's Farm and Letter F Farm. At Peacock's Farm, the bulk of archaeological occupation was found to be of Mesolithic date, around 8000 BP uncalibrated; minimal signs of Earlier Neolithic activity were recovered. At Let…
A Pre‐enclosure Burial at Windmill Hill, Wiltshire
A pre‐enclosure burial of the Early Neolithic phase at Windmill Hill is described and its significance assessed
A Model for the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in the Upper Kennet Valley, North Wiltshire
The general nature of explanations for the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Britain and the current support for the notion of indigenous change are noted. The need for a more regionalized view of the transition is argued with reference to the upper Kennet valley and surrounding chalk downland in north Wiltshire. Problems in the recovery and presentation of later Mesolithic settlement are discussed. A model of later Mesolithic exploitation of th…
Radiocarbon dating of the Linear Pottery culture
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Problems in Neolithic Archaeology
1. The inference of limits 2. Fighting the clock 3. Putting down roots: taking stock 4. Living in the material world 5. Burial: the changing role of the dead 6. Backward and forward rotes Bibliography Index
Wayland's Smithy, Oxfordshire
Wayland's Smithy, on the north scarp of the downs above the Vale of the White Horse, is a two-phase Neolithic tomb. It has been a recognized feature of the historic landscape since at least the 10th century AD. It was recorded by Aubrey and later antiquaries, and continued to be of interest in the 19th century. It was amongst the first monuments to be protected by scheduling from 1882. The first excavations in 1919–20 were haphazardly organized a…
A late Neolithic complex at West Kennet, Wiltshire, England
The Avebury region has been given World Heritage status for its complex of Neolithic sites - Avebury itself, Silbury Hill, the West and East Kennet long barrows, and others. New fieldwork reveals a further complex of sites on the edges of the Kennet valley bottom
Ancient Britain
Excavations in the Neolithic and Bronze Age Complex at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, 1947–1952 and 1981
From 1946 to 1952. excavations were undertaken in advance of destruction by gravel workings of a series of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age monuments at Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxon. These included a long enclosure, a cursus, a double ditched henge, pit circles and ring ditches with primary and secondary cremation burials and a notable Beaker burial. Sites I, II, IV, V and VI, all pit circles or ring ditches, were published in 1951. This report descr…
The Development and Date of Avebury
Radiocarbon dates on samples excavated earlier this century by Gray and Keiller and one more recently by Pitts, confirm that the henge at Avebury is in the same general Late Neolithic horizon as the other great Wessex enclosures of Durrington Walls, Marden and Mount Pleasant. They leave open to interpretation the details of Avebury's sequence. The monument may have been constructed in a series of stages, but further investigation is badly needed
The Neolithic of the Avebury Area
The implications are discussed of the first five seasons of a regional project to investigate the Neolithic sequence and environment, and the context in which monuments great and small were built, in the area around Avebury, north Wiltshire, England. A five‐phase local sequence is proposed. There was a varying mosaic of clearances, and settlement density may have been low. the episodic character of monument building stands out. With the exception…
An Environmental History of the Upper Kennet Valley, Wiltshire, for the Last 10,000 Years
Research on the late Pleistocene and Holocene environment and archaeology of the upper Kennet valley, north Wiltshire, is described. In concentrating the work in the valley bottom, the main aims were: (1) to see if there was a record of environment and archaeology there, and if so to detail it; and (2) to redress brasses in research towards the visible archaeology of slopes and plateaus and their environmental record. Soils and sediments with bio…
A Neolithic Downland Monument in its Environment
Excavations at the Easton Down long barrow were part of a wider programme of research into the Neolithic sequence and context of the Avebury area in north Wiltshire. The short barrow, on high chalk downland to the south-west of Avebury and the upper Kennet valley, and containing only a few inhumations according to Thurnam's 19th-century investigation, dates to the later 4th millennium BC. Test pits around the barrow produced very little struck fl…
Landscapes of the Mind
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Eternal stones
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People and the diverse past
The richly textured paper on Stonehenge by Mike Parker Pearson & Ramilisonina (1998) develops exciting new ways of looking at Stonehenge and other stone monuments, drawing on analogies from Madagascar and elsewhere to elaborate the importance of ancestors in kinship-based societies. The presentation of practices and beliefs related to ancestors in parts of Madagascar is particularly powerful. Their Neolithic model gains extra credence by being ap…
Parc le Breos Cwm Transepted Long Cairn, Gower, West Glamorgan
First investigated in 1869, the transepted long cairn of Parc le Breos Cwm was re-excavated in 1960–61 but without a report being published. This account presents a number of radiocarbon dates and a detailed re-examination of the human bone assemblages, and attempts to put the monument in local and regional context. Radiocarbon dates place the long cairn in the later part of the earlier Neolithic, and support a fairly long span of time over which…
Europe in the Neolithic
Archaeology (77 obras) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (74 obras) · Geography (68 obras) · History (68 obras) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (41 obras) · History (34 obras) · Radiocarbon dating (28 obras) · Ancient history (27 obras) · Art (21 obras) · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies (19 obras)