Role of monuments in the Neolithic of the south of Scotland

Abstract

The thesis considers the role of monuments in neolithic society in relation to Scotland south of the Forth-Clyde estuaries, excluding western Galloway. The numbers of known monuments here are low, although neolithic artefacts are widely found, and it is argued that site losses have been high, partly, perhaps, because of insubstantial monument forms, and failures of recognition. To address this problem the thesis presents not only a Catalogue of acceptable neolithic monuments (Volume II), but a Gazetteer (Volume III) discussing evidence for the Neolithic and possible alternative forms of funerary and ritual activity on a Regional basis. Overall physical characteristics of the study area and the history of neolithic research in Scotland are outlined in chapters of the thesis.

Thinness of evidence has imposed a need for a pragmatic approach, and, in order to explore the social and cognitive context of the monuments, comparative methods are employed both spatially, by means of the Regional format of the Gazetteer, and temporally, on the basis of a chronological framework for the Neolithic of Scotland set out in the thesis. Examination of the poorly dated evidence for the Latest Mesolithic in Scotland finds little indication of economic intensification or evolving social complexity. The former seems to be a post-Elm Decline event, and agriculture may have remained a minor option until the later third millennium bc. From c 3200 bc, however, neolithic artefact types appear, primarily in contexts of ritual deposition, and from c 3000 bc substantial and very various monuments are constructed. Size becomes increasingly emphasised, particularly in terms of extremes of elongation, seen at cairns, barrows, megalithic chambers, pit alignments and cursus enclosures being built in the first half of the third millennium. In the final centuries of the millennium a phase of enclosure building produces a range of timber circles and enclosures, ditched and banked sites; stone circles remain difficult to date. Artefact types diversify from the mid-third'millennium, and stylistic messaging becomes increasingly important; ritual deposition is practised throughout the period. Monument and artefact distributions are analysed and discussed in the thesis. It is suggested that ceremonial served initially as a means of declaring neolithic status, but that monument styles and particular ceremonial forms were soon being used as expressions of community identity. 'Special places', whether natural or monument enhanced, acquired their own histories of use and symbolic significance. In the Latest Neolithic the choice of styles of monuments and artefacts became a means of making external rather than purely internal, social statements.