Towards Synthesis: Research and Discovery in Neolithic North-East England

Abstract

The Tweed Valley and its tributaries, and particularly the Milfield Basin in north Northumberland, is an area of strategic significance in the geography of the British Isles and it hosts a rich and varied multi-period archaeological and palaeoenvironmental record. This paper summarises some of the key findings for the Neolithic resulting from a long-term and in-depth landscape research project and provides a new chronological sequence for the Neolithic of the region.Attention is drawn to the discovery of what appears to be a new type of Neolithic structure associated with settlement activity hitherto unrecognised in Britain: post-built timber buildings based on a triangular arrangement of timbers. The paper then turns to a consideration of subsistence and land-use practices and the evidence for cereal agriculture from the immediate outset of the Neolithic in the region. Since 1999 many more radiocarbon measurements have become available for Neolithic activity in the area and, together with those obtained before 1999, have been recalibrated and subjected to Bayesian modelling to produce more precise estimates for Neolithic activity. Important findings include the provision of a more robust estimate for dating the onset of the Neolithic in the region, as well as establishing a chronological framework for the Neolithic–Beaker period ceramic sequence. It also reveals that the current dating available for the henge monuments indicates that this ritual complex most likely dates to the Beaker period and not to the Neolithic proper as they do in some other parts of Britain. Truly ‘Neolithic’ ceremonial monuments in the Milfield Basin remain elusive and few of the potential sites that have so far been identified have yet to be tested by excavation and scientific dating. A clear zoning of rock art is apparent, with hundreds of sites all clustered on the Fellsandstone escarpment, while a variety of Neolithic burial types is attested suggesting the region formed a meeting ground for different cultural influences.

Tracing the lines

“…The first Grooved Ware beyond Orkney, unsurprisingly, exhibits a strong Orcadian character (M Copper in prep), though our dating suggests that it is unlikely to have spread as a simple 'wave of advance' with each community adopting the new style from its immediate neighbours, a probability underlined by recent work suggesting that Woodlands-style Grooved Ware was in use as far south as Wessex by 2950 cal BC (Wessex Archaeology 2020: 102). Before considering Scotland in detail it is worth noting that in northern England Grooved Ware from the Milfield basin in Northumberland is associated with dates from the 29th century cal BC (Millson et al 2011;Waddington et al 2011). Three unmodelled dates on charred hazelnuts found with 'Woodlandsstyle' Grooved Ware (Wainwright & Longworth (Abramson 2003).…”