Considering that Orkney is a group of relatively small islands lying off the northeast coast of the Scottish mainland, its wealth of Neolithic archaeology is truly extraordinary. An assortment of houses, chambered cairns, stone circles, standing stones and passage graves provides an unusually comprehensive range of archaeological and architectural contexts. Yet, in the early 1990s, there was a noticeable imbalance between 4th and 3rd millennium cal BC evidence, with house structures, and ‘villages’ being well represented in the latter but minimally in the former. As elsewhere in the British Isles, the archaeological visibility of the 4th millennium cal BC in Orkney tends to be dominated by the monumental presence of chambered cairns or tombs. In the 1970s Claude Lévi-Strauss conceived of a form of social organization based upon the ‘house’ – sociétés à maisons – in order to provide a classification for social groups that appeared not to conform to established anthropological kinship structures. In this approach, the anchor point is the ‘house’, understood as a conceptual resource that is a consequence of a strategy of constructing and legitimizing identities under ever shifting social conditions. Drawing on the results of an extensive program of fieldwork in the Bay of Firth, Mainland Orkney, the text explores the idea that the physical appearance of the house is a potent resource for materializing the dichotomous alliance and descent principles apparent in the archaeological evidence for the early and later Neolithic of Orkney. It argues that some of the insights made by Lévi-Strauss in his basic formulation of sociétés à maisons are extremely relevant to interpreting the archaeological evidence and providing the parameters for a ‘social’ narrative of the material changes occurring in Orkney between the 4th and 2nd millennia cal BC. The major excavations undertaken during the Cuween-Wideford Landscape Project provided an unprecedented depth and variety of evidence for Neolithic occupation, bridging the gap between domestic and ceremonial architecture and form, exploring the transition from wood to stone and relationships between the living and the dead and the role of material culture. The results are described and discussed in detail here, enabling tracing of the development and fragmentation of sociétés à maisons over a 1500 year period of Northern Isles prehistory.

New, comprehensive discussion of Orknian Neolithic society based on major series of excavations of domestic sites

This book offers a groundbreaking analysis of Neolithic art and architecture in Orkney, focussing upon the incredible collection of hundreds of decorated stones being revealed by the current excavations at the Ness of Brodgar.

Assembling Past Worlds draws on new materialism and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to explore the potential for a posthumanist archaeology. Through specific empirical study, this book provides a detailed analysis of Neolithic Britain, a critical moment in the emergence of new ways of living, as well as new relationships between materials, people and new forms of architecture. It achieves two things. First, it identifies the major challenges that archaeology faces in the light of current theoretical shifts. New ideas place new demands on how we write and think about the past, sometimes in ways that can seem contradictory. This volume identifies seven major challenges that have emerged and sets out why they matter, why archaeology needs to engage with them and how they can be dealt with through an innovative theoretical approach. Second, it explores how this approach meets these challenges through an in-depth study of Neolithic Britain. It provides an insightful diagnosis of the issues posed by current archaeological thought and is the first volume to apply the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to the extended analysis of a single period. Assembling Past Worlds shows how new approaches are transforming our understandings of past worlds and, in so doing, how we can meet the challenges facing archaeology today. It will be of interest to both students and researchers in archaeological theory and the Neolithic of Europe.

The Neolithic of Britain and Ireland provides a synthesis of this dynamic period of prehistory from the end of the Mesolithic through to the early Beaker period. Drawing on new excavations and the application of new scientific approaches to data from this period, this book considers both life and death in the Neolithic. It offers a clear and concise introduction to this period but with an emphasis on the wider and on-going research questions. It is an important text for students new to the study of this period of prehistory as well as acting as a reference for students and scholars already researching this area. The book begins by considering the Mesolithic prelude, specifically the millennium prior to the start of the Neolithic in Britain and Ireland. It then goes on to consider what life was like for people at the time, alongside the monumental record and how people treated the dead. This is presented chronologically, with separate chapters on the early Neolithic, middle Neolithic, late Neolithic and early Beaker periods. Finally it considers future research priorities for the study of the Neolithic.

This study is the culmination of seven years research into the Carved Stone Balls of Late Neolithic Scotland. It is the first study of these enigmatic artefacts since that undertaken by Dorothy Marshall in 1977 and includes all currently known examples in both museums and private hands, described and analysed in considerable detail.

The Orcadian archipelago is a museum of archaeological wonders. The Orcadian Neolithic is home to some of the best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe: here we can find evidence of a dynamic society with connections binding Orkney to Ireland, to southern Britain and to continental Europe. Yet there is much that remains unknown about the societies that created these sites. In Orcadia, Mark Edmonds traces the development of the Orcadian Neolithic from the early fourth millennium BC through to the end of the period nearly two thousand years later, using artefacts, architecture and the wider landscape to recreate the lives of Neolithic communities across the region.