Neolithic of Europe

Penny Bickle is a lecturer in the Department of Archaeology, University of York. The main focus of her research is Neolithic Europe, especially in the application of bioarchaeological methods to various sites and time periods to inform on issues of identity and social diversity. She has a particular interest in the examination of burial practices to uncover the social lives and lifeways of the earliest farmers in Europe. Vicki Cummings is Reader in Archaeology in the School of Forensic and Applied Sciences, University of Central Lancashire where she specialises in the Mesolithic and Neolithic of Britain and Ireland, with a particular focus on monuments and landscape. She has a broader interest in hunting and gathering populations, interpretive archaeology and stone tools. Daniela Hofmann is a lecturer in the institute of archaeology of the University of Hamburg. Her research focuses on the Neolithic of Europe with particular emphasis on changes in burial practices, routines and architecture and the construction of identity. Joshua Pollard is a Professor of Archaeology at the University of Southampton. He has wide-ranging research interests in the Neolithic period and has directed and co-directed major fieldwork projects in the Avebury and Stonehenge landscapes.

As with Alasdair Whittle's own research, the coverage in The Neolithic of Europe is broad, ranging geographically from southeast Europe to Britain and Ireland and chronologically from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, but with a decided focus on the former. Taken together, the papers reflect the breadth of Whittle's interest as much as the respect and friendship he commands among colleagues across Europe. They form a suitable gift in celebrating his enormous contribution to the field.

• List of figuresList of tablesList of contributorsTabula gratulatoria 1.  Introduction: Alasdair Whittle and the Neolithic of EuropeJoshua Pollard, Penny Bickle, Vicki Cummings and Daniela Hofmann  2.  ‘Very like the Neolithic’: the everyday and settlement in the European NeolithicPenny Bickle and Evita Kalogiropoulou 3.  The end of the tells: the Iron Age ‘Neolithic’ in the Central and Northern AegeanJames Whitley 4.  Encounters in the watery realm: early to mid-Holocene geochronologies of Lower Danube human–river interactionsSteve Mills, Mark Macklin and Pavel Mirea 5.  Buried in mud, buried in clay: specially arranged settlement burials from the Danubian Sárköz, Neolithic southern HungaryEszter Bánffy, János Jakucs, Kitti Köhler, Tibor Marton, Krisztián Oross and Anett Osztás 6.  The chosen ones: unconventional burials at Polgár–Csőszhalom (north-east Hungary) from the fifth millennium cal BCPál Raczky and Alexandra Anders 7.  A tale of two processes of Neolithisation: south-east Europe and Britain/IrelandRick Schulting and Dušan Borić 8.  Stag do: ritual implications of antler use in prehistoryLászló Bartosiewicz, Alice M. Choyke and Ffion Reynolds 9.  Towards an integrated bioarchaeological perspective on the central European Neolithic: understanding the pace and rhythm of social processes through comparative discussion of the western loess belt and Alpine forelandAmy Bogaard, Stefanie Jacomet and Jörg Schibler 10.  Size matters? Exploring exceptional buildings in the central European early NeolithicDaniela Hofmann and Eva Lenneis 11.  Feasts and sacrifices: fifth millennium ‘pseudo-ditch’ causewayed enclosures from the southern Upper Rhine valleyPhilippe Lefranc, Anthony Denaire and Rose-Marie Arbogast 12.  From Neolithic kings to the Staffordshire hoard. Hoards and aristocratic graves in the European Neolithic: the birth of  ‘Barbarian’ Europe?Christian Jeunesse 13.  Sudden time? Natural disasters as a stimulus to monument building, from Silbury Hill (Great Britain) to Antequera (Spain)Richard Bradley and Leonardo García Sanjuán 14.  Art in the making: Neolithic societies in Britain, Ireland and IberiaAndrew Meirion Jones, Andrew Cochrane and Marta Diaz-Guardamino 15.  Community building: houses and people in Neolithic BritainAlistair J. Barclay and Oliver J. T. Harris 16.  Passage graves as material technologies of wrappingVicki Cummings and Colin Richards  17.  Rings of fire and Groove Ware settlement at West Kennet, WiltshireAlex Bayliss, Caroline Cartwright, Gordon Cook, Seren Griffiths, Richard Madgwick, Peter Marshall and Paula Reimer 18.  Remembered and imagined belongings: Stonehenge in the age of first metalsJoshua Pollard, Paul Garwood, Mike Parker Pearson, Colin Richards, Julian Thomas and Kate Welham 19.  Interdigitating pasts: the Irish and Scottish NeolithicsAlison Sheridan