8th September 2011, 12:11 PM
P Prentice Wrote:there are some buildings - but are they houses?
Hmmm......Some are definitely, some maybe, some unknown.
P Prentice Wrote:where are the settlements and fields?
C?ide fields, County Mayo, Ireland.
Also field systems on Shetland (although some/all of these may be Bronze Age
Settlements at Skara Brae etc. Also I'd call the collection of Neo buildings at Balderbride (excuse my bad spelling?) a settlement
Also not sure about what I've read about Durrington walls settlement. A 'ritual settlement', really!? But not been able to find much on that yet.
Also see the West Heslerton stuff of destruction of early remains and their lovely Beaker period house!
Further afield there are lots of neolithic settlements in the Balkans etc. (and some 'mesolithic' settlements in Denmark).
No reason why same can't be the case in this country..............I'd argue that in the main reasons why there seems to be a lack of Neolithic settlement recorded in this country are:
1) Destruction - large swathes of the country has suffered severe truncation through ploughing (from the neolithic onwards) so older remains will be more heavily truncated hence you loose all shallow postholes etc. leaving only the deeper pits
2) Lack of recognition/dating - pits not containing pottery on most jobs are often assumed to be the same date as nearby features containing pottery (especially on linear/infrastructure excavations)
3) A real drive from academia for the period to be dominated by ritual remains and a mobile populace despite the evidence!
4) Many earlier archaeological remains lying hidden amongst loosely interpreted cropmarks - see Balderbride