Neolithic Studies Group Meeting, Autumn 2006 The Archaeology and Science of Human and Animal Mobility in the Neolithic

The theme for the 2006 meeting of the Neolithic Studies Group, held at the British Museum, was mobility in the Neolithic, with several papers concentrating on scientific techniques recently applied to the subject. Mobility is still a key issue within both the British and continental study of the Neolithic, but with, perhaps, a different emphasis within each. British archaeology, with much of the leading post-processual work concentrated on the chalk lands of southern England, has tended to portray the Neolithic as a predominantly insular phenomenon, where groups continued to move around the landscape taking advantage of the yearly cycle of wild resources, and also following a cultural or social round. This view is obviously a reaction to the New Archaeology‘s sedentary farming Neolithic of longhouses and incoming farmers from the continental, that was heavily influenced by work on the European linearbandkeramic (LBK). However, there has been little in-depth work done to understand patterns of mobility within the British Isles and north-western Europe. There is also a continuing argument for a partially sedentary British Neolithic based upon evidence from, and work done within, Ireland and the parts of Britain bordering the Irish Sea (e.g. Mercer 1981; Gibson 2003). Central continental work on Neolithic mobility, on the othe