The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 62 • Alasdair Whittle
resources in competition for space and social position, long barrows and causewayed enclosures
for segmentary or tribal society and henges for later chiefdoms. Processual concerns with
subsistence (‘palaeoeconomy’) began to produce better recovery of bone and plant remains, but
only on a limited scale. Considerable palynological research was undertaken, in which radiocarbondated
pollen profiles added much to the understanding of changing landscapes. Palynologists,
however, tended to look to the dominant archaeological models in interpreting vegetational
changes; earlier ideas of shifting agriculture and shifting settlement were generally disregarded.
Large, often prolonged excavations occurred at selected sites, especially southern monuments,
such as Hambledon Hill and Crickley Hill causewayed enclosures, Hazleton long barrow and
Mount Pleasant henge.
The post-processual theoretical challenge involved Neolithic examples from the outset.
Shanks and Tilley (1982) examined the meaning of bone arrangements and sortings in southern
long barrows, while Hodder (1982) considered possible conceptual links amongst henges, tombs
and houses in the Later Orcadian Neolithic. As in the processual era, it would be misleading to
claim theoretical unity. Partly from a theoretical perspective and partly as the results of largescale
survey projects started to become available during the 1980s, the sedentary nature of the
Neolithic came increasingly under question, and a dominant role for agriculture was also
challenged (Moffett et al. 1989; Entwhistle and Grant 1989). The meanings of monuments and
their associated practices were emphasized rather than their functions, and material culture
was seen as an active agent in promoting individual and sectional interests rather than as a
reflector solely of group affiliation. The conceptual and symbolic importance of domestication
was emphasized (Hodder 1990; Thomas 1991; 1996). Growing interest in the agency and
independence of Neolithic populations viewed as social actors not only encouraged the new
consensus of continuity from Mesolithic to Neolithic, replacing the colonization model, but
allowed for social changes to have been variable, as opposed to conforming to a universal
process, especially in the Later Neolithic (e.g. Barrett 1994). Field research and its publication
have remained important (though comparatively little has so far been generated directly by the
post-processualist agenda). Recession from the later 1980s reduced the quantity of rescue
excavation, but the gravel workings noted above remain important. Since 1980, there has been
proportionately more work in the north (Barclay 1997), on monuments and monument
complexes in eastern Scotland such as Balfarg, Fife, as well as in Orkney, and on occupation
sites there and in the Western Isles.
Some perceptions have not altered much during this phase of research. There is still a strong
evolutionary assumption that the pattern of cultural and other changes reflects an underlying
process of steady, more-or-less linear progression to greater social complexity and differentiation,
as well as to a higher population with a gradually more intensive economy. There is equally a
strong belief that the social dynamic driving change was competition for power, or at the very
least for social pre-eminence or hegemony. These assumptions have in their turn recently been
questioned (e.g. Thomas 1993; Whittle 1996). Further such particularizing investigations, and a
more engendered Neolithic archaeology, allied to greater concern for shared values and ideals,
may further challenge these assumptions. These new emphases could tie in with the geographically
broader range of field research now being undertaken, which may be recognizing a widely spread
but highly dispersed population. Future studies may focus on slow change among small-scale,
dispersed populations, driven as much by their world view and long ritual cycles as by the demands
of growing population or agricultural intensification.