Papers by Alasdair Whittle
Les sites fossoyes et palissades constituent certainement l’une des manifestations architecturale... more Les sites fossoyes et palissades constituent certainement l’une des manifestations architecturales les plus remarquables des populations du Neolithique moyen. L’occupation chasseenne de Château-Percin a Seilh (Haute- Garonne), ceinturee par deux systemes d’enceintes successifs, a livre plusieurs milliers de vestiges d’un rempart massif elabore en bois et en terre crue. Un violent incendie est a l’origine a la fois de la destruction et de la preservation partielle de ce temoin exceptionnel qui permet d’apprehender l’architecture et les techniques de mise en oeuvre de ces ouvrages au caractere monumental souvent suppose mais rarement observe.
The early Neolithic in northern Europe: new approaches to migration, movement and social connection. In D. Hofmann, V. Cummings, M. Bjørnevad-Ahlqvist and R. Iversen (eds) 2025, The early Neolithic of Northern Europe. New approaches to migration, movement and social connection, 113–124. Leiden: S..., 2025
I sketch notes towards the outline of a possible model for the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in... more I sketch notes towards the outline of a possible model for the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Britain, with reference also to the Early Neolithic sequence in Ireland. I propose an overall gradualist model, in the context of a resetting of debate and research questions in the wake of recent game-changing isotopic and aDNA investigations. I envisage enhanced connections between Britain and Ireland on the one hand and the adjacent continent on the other in the later fifth millennium cal BC, rather than distinct episodes of contact. This was the bow wave for sustained migration and colonisation from the forty-first century cal BC onwards. I caution against seeing a single migration event, and the process may have played out over a period of time. Within an overall gradualist framework, I note various proposals in the literature for some kind of minimal earliest Neolithic, but I think these suggestions can be over-played, with differences in scale mistaken for absence. The pace and visibility of things seem to pick up further by the thirty-eighth century cal BC, at a time when there are still varied possible signs of individual and group migration.
Archaeologia Cambrensis 173, 2024
When John Lubbock, soon after the publication of his agenda-setting book Prehistoric times, which... more When John Lubbock, soon after the publication of his agenda-setting book Prehistoric times, which had defined the terms Neolithic and Palaeolithic (Lubbock 1865), began his excavations at Parc le Breos Cwm on the Gower peninsula in association with local landowner and magnate Henry Hussey Vivian (later Lord Swansea), they were visited by Lord Dunraven and a party from the already well established Cambrian Archaeological Association (Lubbock et al. 1887). It was Dunraven's second presidency of the Cambrians. He was an Anglo-Irish peer, erstwhile MP for Glamorganshire, and with wide interests including spiritualism and archaeology, especially in Ireland; his mother was a Glamorganshire heiress, and his son and successor was to become a glamorous war correspondent. Lubbock's book had ranged widely over the then available evidence in western Europe, covering megaliths and Swiss lake villages alike; one important case study was of the West Kennet long barrow (Lubbock 1865, chapter 5). The 1869 excavation at Parc le Breos Cwm represented a powerful combination of intellectual and social prominence, focused on a site in south Wales. A long time later, at the turn of this millennium, a series of thought-provoking papers observed that the study of the Neolithic in Britain had come to be dominated by narratives from Wessex and Orkney (Barclay 2000; 2001), or in another version, by narratives from Wessex and two satellites, in Orkney and on the Yorkshire Wolds (Barclay 2004, 152; cf. Champion 1996). Lubbock would surely have been surprised by this perspective. Whether or not things were ever quite so lop-sided as Gordon Barclay argued is for historiographical debate elsewhere. Now the Neolithic evidence across Britain is certainly much more evenly distributed, as recent syntheses demonstrably testify (e.g.
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Apr 13, 2018
Land Cover From Pollen Records to specific landscapes, we critically evaluate the strengths and w... more Land Cover From Pollen Records to specific landscapes, we critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses and identify potential remedies, which we then expand into consideration of how simulation can be incorporated into palynological research practice. We argue that the MSA deserves a place within the palynologist's standard tool kit.
Kinds of diversity and scales of analysis in the LBK
Moving northwards: festschrift for Volker Heyd, 2023
I look again at a long-running tension in archaeology between generalisation and particularisatio... more I look again at a long-running tension in archaeology between generalisation and particularisation. I examine several cases of what I call general theory in the recent literature, variously covering issues of agency, ontology, diversity, time and chronology, and social relations, and contrast their often universalising tone with more particularising approaches including aDNA analyses and high-resolution chronologies, which can help in the construction of detailed narratives for the specific historical developments of the European Neolithic. That appeals to more focused, 'middle-range' theories. I use this critique and discussion to contextualise the past and continuing contributions of Volker Heyd to the study of the European Neolithic
Documenta Praehistorica, 2024
IZVLEÈEK-Antropologi e dolgo analizirajo in razpravljajo o sorodstvu in raznolikih spletih odnoso... more IZVLEÈEK-Antropologi e dolgo analizirajo in razpravljajo o sorodstvu in raznolikih spletih odnosov, ki jih ustvarijo ljudje v svojih drubenih praksah. Razprave segajo od nekdanje prevladujoèe teorije rodu do sedanjega bolj fluidnega poudarjanja sorodnosti. Arheologi so od èasov procesualizma sorodstvu posveèali veè pozornosti kot v zgodnjih letih razvoja discipline, vendar do nedavnega na precej omejen in splošen naèin. Z uspešnimi raziskavami stare DNK in nekaj spodbude iz posthumanistiène teorije pa se je za nimanje v zadnjem èasu poveèalo. Razpravljam o nekaterih nedoslednostih pojasnjevanja sorodstva pri antropologih in arheologih; predvsem poudarjanja raznovrstnosti, sorodnosti, monosti in posledicah bilateralnega potomstva ter negotovega razmerja med biologijo in sorodstvom pri prvih. Da bi zaèel raziskovati, kako bi vse to lahko delovalo v arheologiji, sem skiciral tri scenarije v zaporednih fazah neolitika v Britaniji in na Irskem, v èetrtem in tretjem tisoèletju pr. n. št.; pri tem posku šam obliko vati specifiène in ne posplošene modele ter nakazujem obrise mone trajektorije skozi èas. Vprašanja sorodstva: tri skice iz britanskega in irskega neolitika KEY WORDS-kinship; relatedness; diversity; trajectory; Neolithic; Britain and Ireland ABSTRACT-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 successful aDNA investigations, and with some prompt from posthumanist theory, that interest has been renewed recently. I discuss some inconsistencies between the accounts of kinship by anthropologists and archaeologists, notably the emphasis by the former on diversity, relatedness, the possibilities and implications of bilateral descent, and the uncertain relationship between biology and kinship. To begin to investigate how this might all work out in archaeology, I sketch three scenarios from successive parts of the Neolithic in Britain and Ireland, across the fourth to third millennia cal BC, attempting specific rather than generalised models and indicating the outlines of a possible trajectory through time.
Documenta Praehistorica, 2024
IZVLEÈEK-Dolga arheološka razprava o procesu neolitizacije Evrope se je, zahvaljujoè raziskavam s... more IZVLEÈEK-Dolga arheološka razprava o procesu neolitizacije Evrope se je, zahvaljujoè raziskavam stare DNK in drugim znanstvenim raziskavam, konèala v korist velikih migracij. Vzporedno so bile vzpostav ljene bolj robustne in na splošno bolj natanène kronologije. Dolgoroèno gledano, je zgodovinski proces sprememb, ki so jih prinesli neolitski migranti, nepovraten. Kljub vsemu se lahko in mora nastajajoèa 'velika slika' podrobneje preuèiti. Nekatere kljuène implikacije za razumevanje mobilnosti in migracij so bile sicer raziskane, vendar pa je še veliko monosti za boljšo povezavo arheoloških in znanstvenih, predvsem arheogenetskih raziskav. Te lahko razkrijejo nove vidike procesa kolonizacije in ustanavljanja neolitskih naselbin, za katero se zdi, da je bila na zaèetku majhna; nagnjena k prilagajanju, eksperi mentiranju, preobratu in celo propadu; in odprta za stike z domorodnimi skupnostmi. Te monosti dokazujemo z nizom kratkih študijskih primerov s severnega Balkana, Karpatskega bazena in severne Srednje Evrope. Z njimi elimo oblikovati preprost model 'mejnih razmer', ki bi jih lahko uporabljali pri preuèevanju zaèetkov neolitizacije Evrope.
Quaternary International, Sep 1, 2020
The pivotal role of the western Carpathian basin in the transmission of key inventions of food pr... more The pivotal role of the western Carpathian basin in the transmission of key inventions of food production towards central Europe is an accepted fact in Neolithic research. Southern Transdanubia in western Hungary may serve as a unique 'laboratory' for targeted investigations, as north Balkan and central European characteristics overlap in the region. Site-based studies of recently excavated late 6th millennium cal BC Neolithic settlements provide insights into possible patterns in the development of longhouse architecture and settlement layout, different combinations of material culture and their alterations, and technology transfer on a regional scale. In order to gain a more complex view of these themes, three micro-regions have been selected around key sites for further study of different vantage points between Lake Balaton and the Dráva/Drava river. The southernmost one is located in the Southern Baranya Hills, the second along the Danube on the northern fringes of the Tolna Sárköz and in the adjacent section of the Sárvíz valley, while the third lies in the central section of the southern shore of Lake Balaton. Field surveys including the systematic collection of surface finds complemented by geomagnetic prospections can contribute significantly to the reconstruction of settlement clusters. Absolute chronology has become an important research focus due to larger sets of radiocarbon dates interpreted within a Bayesian framework. The two dominant scenarios for the start of the westward expansion of the LBK are hard to harmonise with each other. An approach that estimates the beginning of the process around 5500 cal BC at the latest gains support from a west-central European perspective. In contrast, recent radiocarbon dating programmes with formal modelling of AMS series within a Bayesian framework estimate the appearance of the LBK west of the Carpathian basin hardly before 5350-5300 cal BC. The latter view provides the potential of harmonising the Neolithisation of central Europe with the emergence of the Vinča culture, at least in its northernmost region. Beyond this debate, ancient DNA analyses have enriched the discussions on migration, demic diffusion and the scale of hunter-gatherer contribution to the process with fresh arguments.
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Papers by Alasdair Whittle