The Times of Their Lives : Hunting History in the Archaeology of Neolithic Europe

The Times of their Lives explains how archaeologists can now move away from thinking about history in terms of thousands of years, to periods from one or two centuries down to lifetimes and generations -- a little more than two decades. This vastly improved precision comes from the application of Bayesian chronological frameworks for the interpretation of radiocarbon dates. If they do the right things, archaeologists in general and prehistorians in particular need not confine themselves any longer to the long term, which has often been seen as the defining currency of the discipline. Many prehistorians are still uncomfortable with the choice of narratives now available -- or have not yet critically rethought old habits. This book will show how temporally much more precise accounts of the past can be achieved, across a broad range of contexts and situations. It offers a series of case studies across much of the continent, to provide much more precise timings of key features and trends in the European Neolithic sequence than are currently available, and to construct much more precise estimates of the duration of events and phenomena. From these there is the possibility to open up new insights into the tempo of change through the detailed study of selected sites and situations across the span of the European Neolithic, from the sixth to the early third millennia cal BC. At stake is our ability to study the lives of Neolithic people everywhere at the scale of lifetimes, something unimaginable even a few years ago. The hunt is on for the most detailed histories of people in the remote past that we can achieve. We can now routinely, through Bayesian modelling of radiocarbon dates, construct much more precise chronologies than previously, down to the scales of lifetimes and generations, and even on occasion of decades. Better timing opens estimates of duration and the evaluation of the tempo of change. Rather than the conventional default perspective of generally slow change and much continuity, in blocks of time a couple of centuries long or more, we can now examine sequences that are often much more dynamic, quicker-changing, and from time to time more interrupted and punctuated than we had previously imagined. We can now write much more precise and ambitious narratives about the actions, decisions and choices of past people; the pre- can and should come out of prehistory. Despite the absence of written records, such narratives can be aligned much more closely with those of history and its concerns with the specific and the particular, and can serve to rid archaeology of its addictions to generalization and fuzzy chronology. Coming out of a recent major project funded by the European Research Council, and with the experience of Gathering Time (Oxbow Books 2011) also behind it, The Times of their Lives sets out this case. It considers the varying timescales of archaeology, history and anthropology, and the construction of precise chronologies. It examines the reach of precision in a series of case studies across Neolithic Europe to do with big themes of settlement, monumentality and materiality through the sixth to third millennia cal BC. It goes on to consider the implications of much more precise chronologies for narratives of social differentiation and change through the Neolithic sequence, and reflects on how to combine the varying timescales presented by turning points in the long term, by the slow time of daily life, subsistence practices and population growth, and by lifetime and generational developments. It ends by looking ahead to a future archaeology, exploiting the best of archaeological science, which can write precise and detailed narratives for the people of early history. Though focused on the European Neolithic, The Times of their Lives sets a challenge for archaeology as a whole. The Times of their Lives' explains how archaeologists can now move away from thinking about history in terms of thousands of years, to periods from one or two centuries down to lifetimes and generations - a little more than two decades. This vastly improved precision comes from the application of Bayesian chronological frameworks for the interpretation of radiocarbon dates. If they do the right things, archaeologists in general and prehistorians in particular need not confine themselves any longer to the long term, which has often been seen as the defining currency of the discipline.0Many prehistorians are still uncomfortable with the choice of narratives now available - or have not yet critically rethought old habits. This book will show how temporally much more precise accounts of the past can be achieved, across a broad range of contexts and situations. It offers a series of case studies across much of the continent, to provide much more precise timings of key features and trends in the European Neolithic sequence than are currently available, and to construct much more precise estimates of the duration of events and phenomena. From these there is the possibility to open up new insights into the tempo of change through the detailed study of selected sites and situations across the span of the European Neolithic, from the sixth to the early third millennia cal BC. At stake is our ability to study the lives of Neolithic people everywhere at the scale of lifetimes, something unimaginable even a few years ago HISTORY / Europe / General Cover 1 Book Title 2 Copyright 3 Dedication 4 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 1. Hunting history 10 2. Long pasts, brief lives: the lenses of history 28 3. The rags of time: building chronologies 58 4. ‘Sometimes sudden and sometimes slow’: the reach of precision 92 5. Time lords? Community and leadership across the Neolithic sequence 162 6. An old Europe in a new light 218 7. Kinds of history: the future of the Neolithic past 256 Bibliography 264 Index 312 A new history of Neolithic Europe, with major implications for the whole of archaeology, using Bayesian statistical analysis to bring dating down from the long-term to the span of lifetimes. Following on from the revolutionary and award-winning Gathering Time, this is the career culmination work by one of the world’s leading prehistorians.