Understanding the Neolithic

Understanding the Neolithic is a groundbreaking investigation of the Neolithic period (4000–2200 BC) in southern Britain. Whilst thoroughly examining the archaeological data of this region, Julian Thomas exposes the assumptions and prejudices which have shaped archaeologists’ accounts of the distant past, and presents fresh interpretations informed by social theory, anthro- pology and critical hermeneutics. This volume is the fully reworked and updated edition of Rethinking the Neolithic (1991), which provoked much heated debate on publication, especially in providing stimulating and radical alternative ways of interpreting archaeological evidence. Understanding the Neolithic questions the impression that there was a universal shift from hunting and gathering to farming, and argues that monuments and other material innovations were not simply the products of economic and technological developments. Rather, new forms of material culture were used in inventive ways by local communities to transform social relationships and create new worlds of meaning.