Neolithic Scotland: ScARF Panel Report

Abstract

The main recommendations of the Panel report can be summarised as follows: The Overall Picture: more needs to be understood about the process of acculturation of indigenous communities; about the Atlantic, Breton strand of Neolithisation; about the ‘how and why’ of the spread of Grooved Ware use and its associated practices and traditions; and about reactions to Continental Beaker novelties which appeared from the 25th century. The Detailed Picture: Our understanding of developments in different parts of Scotland is very uneven, with Shetland and the north-west mainland being in particular need of targeted research. Also, here and elsewhere in Scotland, the chronology of developments needs to be clarified, especially as regards developments in the Hebrides. Lifeways and Lifestyles: Research needs to be directed towards filling the substantial gaps in our understanding of: i) subsistence strategies; ii) landscape use (including issues of population size and distribution); iii) environmental change and its consequences – and in particular issues of sea level rise, peat formation and woodland regeneration; and iv) the nature and organisation of the places where people lived; and to track changes over time in all of these. Material Culture and Use of Resources: In addition to fine-tuning our characterisation of material culture and resource use (and its changes over the course of the Neolithic), we need to apply a wider range of analytical approaches in order to discover more about manufacture and use.Some basic questions still need to be addressed (e.g. the chronology of felsite use in Shetland; what kind of pottery was in use, c 3000–2500, in areas where Grooved Ware was not used, etc.) and are outlined in the relevant section of the document. Our knowledge of organic artefacts is very limited, so research in waterlogged contexts is desirable. Identity, Society, Belief Systems: Basic questions about the organisation of society need to be addressed: are we dealing with communities that started out as egalitarian, but (in some regions) became socially differentiated? Can we identify acculturated indigenous people? How much mobility, and what kind of mobility, was there at different times during the Neolithic? And our chronology of certain monument types and key sites (including the Ring of Brodgar, despite its recent excavation) requires to be clarified, especially since we now know that certain types of monument (including Clava cairns) were not built during the Neolithic. The way in which certain types of site (e.g. large palisaded enclosures) were used remains to be clarified. Research and methodological issues: There is still much ignorance of the results of past and current research, so more effective means of dissemination are required. Basic inventory information (e.g. the Scottish Human Remains Database) needs to be compiled, and Canmore and museum database information needs to be updated and expanded – and, where not already available online, placed online, preferably with a Scottish Neolithic e-hub that directs the enquirer to all the available sources of information. The Historic Scotland on-line radiocarbon date inventory needs to be resurrected and kept up to date. Under-used resources, including the rich aerial photography archive in the NMRS, need to have their potential fully exploited. Multi-disciplinary, collaborative research (and the application of GIS modelling to spatial data in order to process the results) is vital if we are to escape from the current ‘silo’ approach and address key research questions from a range of perspectives; and awareness of relevant research outside Scotland is essential if we are to avoid reinventing the wheel. Our perspective needs to encompass multi-scale approaches, so that ScARF Neolithic Panel Report iv developments within Scotland can be understood at a local, regional and wider level. Most importantly, the right questions need to be framed, and the right research strategies need to be developed, in order to extract the maximum amount of information about the Scottish Neolithic.