Recent analysis of the ceramic assemblage from the Neolithic loch islet settlement of Eilean Dòmhnuill, North Uist, in the Western Isles of Scotland has highlighted the intense conservatism of the potting traditions over a period of more than 800 years. Hebridean Neolithic pottery exhibits clear relationships with pottery from Argyll, Arran, and Bute, as well as Orkney and the north-east mainland of Scotland. It appears to have developed a distinctive, often decoratively elaborate regional form very soon after its initial appearance, which subsequently appears to have undergone little or no significant change until the introduction of Grooved Ware in the early 3rd millenniumbc. An association exists between large assemblages of elaborately decorated Hebridean pottery and a number of artificial islets in freshwater lochs, some very small and producing little or no evidence for domestic activities. This might be explained by the importance of commensality in mediating relations between small communities in the Western Isle at such sites following the introduction of agriculture in the 2nd quarter of the 4th millenniumbc. The conservatism and stasis evident at Eilean Dòmhnuill, in the face of environmental decline, raises wider issues around the adaptive capabilities of the first farming communities prior to significant social changes in the earlier 3rd millenniumbc.
This article presents the results of the recent Historic Environment Scotland-funded project Tracing the Lines: Uncovering Grooved Ware Trajectories in Neolithic Scotland addressing the timing and nature of the adoption, development and ultimate demise of Grooved Ware in Scotland beyond Orkney. Following analysis within a Bayesian framework of over a hundred Grooved Ware-associated radiocarbon dates from Scotland beyond Orkney, evidence is presented that Grooved Ware pottery very closely related to Orcadian prototypes began spreading rapidly between key locales across Scotland towards the end of the 4th millennium BC. This was followed by a process of stylistic drift with regional variations. The so-called Durrington Walls sub-style was introduced some 200 years after the earliest Grooved Ware and is an exception to this pattern of gradual change. Our modelling suggests that the latest Scottish Grooved Ware has a currency that overlaps with the earliest Beakers by between 1 and 145 years and probably between 1 and 60 years. View supplementary material here: Supplementary material | References | Table S1 | Illus S40 Extracted Element
Cereal cultivation in Britain dates back to ca. 4000 BCE, probably introduced by migrant farmers from continental Europe. Widespread evidence for livestock appears in the archaeozoological record, also reflected by ubiquitous dairy lipids in pottery organic residues. However, despite archaeobotanical evidence for domesticated plants (such as cereals), organic residue evidence has been near-absent. Our approach, targeting low-abundance cereal-specific markers, has now revealed evidence for cereals (indicating wheat) in Neolithic pottery from Scottish ‘crannogs’, dating to ca. 3600 – 3300 BCE. Their association with dairy products suggests cereals may have been regularly prepared together as a milk-based gruel. We also observed a strong association between the occurrence of dairy products and smaller-mouthed vessels. Here, we demonstrate that cereal-specific markers can survive in cooking pots for millennia, revealing the consumption of specific cereals (wheat) that are virtually absent from the archaeobotanical record for this region and illuminating culinary traditions among early farming communities.
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