Gathering Time : Dating the Early Neolithic Enclosures of Southern Britain and Ireland y Alasdair Whittle, Frances Healy and Alex Bayliss

This volume presents the results of a dating programme on the early Neolithic causewayed enclosures of southern Britain and Ireland. By examining hundreds of radiocarbon dates from nearly 40 causewayed enclosures in Bayesian chronological models, in the largest exercise of this kind so far, it is estimated that the main period of enclosure construction lasted from the late 38th century cal BC till the mid-36th century cal BC. While some sites were in primary use for up to three centuries, many others have proved to be of much shorter duration, even down to a generation or less. By comparing results from enclosures with other aspects of the early Neolithic in southern Britain, it is shown that enclosures appeared up to 300 years after the first Neolithic things and practices were used in southern Britain and that the process of the spread of the Neolithic in Britain was gradual and regionalised.