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Journal article
The tale of a Mesolithic harpoon head from Arisaig
This is a remarkable tale about a remarkable artifact that would have been lost to Scottish archaeology had it not been for a brave decision by a schoolgirl to disregard the views of her teachers over 50 years ago!Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
A view from north of the border
In 2021, Alasdair Whittle and his colleagues published a map showing their model of the Neolithisation of Britain and Ireland featuring, a northwards and westwards spread, from the south-east corner of England, of farming as a subsistence strategy and of other novel, associated, 'things and practices' - to borrow one...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Making sense of Scottish Neolithic funerary monuments: tracing trajectories and understanding their rationale
This contribution offers an overview of the appearance , spread and regionally specific developmental trajectories of funerary monuments in Neolithic Scotland, setting these within the broader context of the arrival of farming groups from Brittany and northern France in the early centuries of the 4th millennium, and the subsequent expansion...Sheridan, J A
funerary monuments , Bayesian models , migration, Neolithic Scotland, passage tombs, cairns, and farming practices
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Book chapter
Disc-rings of Alpine rock in western Europe: typology, chronology, distribution and social significance
In France, disc-rings made from Alpine jades and from serpentinite circulated over very long distances, as far as the Channel coast and that of Brittany. The authors offer here a typo-chronological study of these and other stone bangles, according to the types of rock used, and consider their distribution and...Pétrequin, P ; Cassen, S ; Errera, M ; Pailler, Yves ; Prodéo, F …
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Book chapter
Ancient DNA and modelling the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Britain and Ireland
The current paradigm-changing ancient DNA revolution is offering unparalleled insights into central problems within archaeology relating to the movement of populations and individuals, patterns of descent, relationships and aspects of identity – at many scales and of many different kinds. The impact of recent ancient DNA results can be seen...Sheridan, J A ; Whittle, Alasdair
Neolithic Studies Group, Britain, DNA, Ireland, and human migration
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Journal article
“Balure Dun”
The site at Balure, until relatively recently, was unrecognised as a dun structure, although it had been noted by Forestry Commission operatives as an enclosure and/or cairn and recorded as such on the Forestry Commission’s Heritage database for North Knapdale Forest.Regan, Roddy ; Campbell, Ewan ; Ballin, Torben ; Sheridan, J A ; Cressey, Michael
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Book chapter
The Wroot Neolithic jadeitite axehead
Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Gold in Britain’s auriferous regions, 2450–800 BC
Incorruptible and brilliant, and shining like the sun, gold has always attracted attention. From its earliest known use at Varna around 4500 BC, this metal has been utilised to make some of the finest objects humans have ever possessed. Gold use, and the know-how to work it, arrived in Britain...Knight, Matthew G ; Sheridan, J A ; Horak, Jana
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Book chapter
Archaeological applications of natural gold analyses
Compositional studies of natural gold usually have a geological focus, but are also important in archaeological provenancing. Both methodologies rely on compositional comparison of two sets of samples, one of which is geographically constrained. Here we describe how experiences in gold characterization resulting from geological studies are relevant to archaeology....Standish, C D ; Chapman, R J ; Moles, N R ; Walshaw, R D ; Sheridan, J A
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Other
Obituary. Ian Alexander George Shepherd: an appreciation
An appreciation of Ian Shepherd, Principal Archaeologist of the Aberdeenshire Archaeology Service and an internationally-renowned Bronze Age archaeologist and authority on the archaeology and architecture of North East Scotland.Sheridan, J A
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Lecture
Not just a load of old balls: Late Neolithic developments and the creation of a new world order in Orkney
The remarkable complex of large structures at Ness of Brodgar in Orkney has justly attracted worldwide attention, and has led to some contentious claims on popular TV programmes. This lecture investigates the emergence of the competitive, adventurous, innovative elite in Orkney who were responsible for building Ness of Brodgar and...Sheridan, J A
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Lecture
Making sense of funerary monuments and funerary practices
Megalithic chamber tombs – of widely varying shape and size – loom large in the visible traces of Scotland’s Neolithic, but they formed just one element in a diverse range of practices concerned with dealing with, relating to, and commemorating the dead. This lecture explores this diversity and draws out...Sheridan, J A
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Lecture
An everyday story of country folk?
What was the nature of the farming way of life, and how did it vary over time and space? How well do we understand the range of resources that were being used and the changing environment in which people lived their lives? How did society operate, and where did people...Sheridan, J A
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Lecture
The big picture and regional narratives
Understanding what happened across the Scottish landscape between c.4,000-2,500 BC requires us to adopt multiple scales of enquiry, from the international to the local. This lecture explores the main developments and highlights the diversity in the regional trajectories of social and economic change by focusing on two contrasting and often...Sheridan, J A
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Lecture
Neolithic Scotland: changing perceptions, new approaches, plethora of data, and contested narratives
Our narrative of the past has been, and continues to be, the subject of intense debate, not least in regard to when, how and why the novel way of life appeared and became established in Scotland, and what happened to Scotland’s hunter-fisher-forager communities. This first lecture reviews our understanding, and...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Later prehistoric pottery
The Sculptor’s Cave is one of the most enigmatic prehistoric sites in Britain. Excavated in the 1920s and 1970s, new analysis of the archive has revealed a complex history of funerary and ritual activity from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman Iron Age. Using innovative methods and new techniques, this...Cruickshanks, Gemma ; Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Disc-rings made from Alpine rocks, in the social imagination of Neolithic communities
In France, disc-rings of Alpine jades and of serpentinite circulated over very long distances, as far as the Channel Islands and the coast of Brittany. The authors present a typochronological study for each rock type, along with distribution maps and a general social interpretation. Two origins are identified, of which...Pétrequin, P ; Cassen, S ; Errera, M ; Pailler, Yves ; Pétrequin, A-M …
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Book chapter
Scottish beaker dates: the good, the bad and the ugly
A volume representing collaborative research between the Swedish universities of Kalmar and Stockholm and the University of Sheffield in the UK. The themes centred on the investigation of cultural diversity in the 3rd millennium BC in the British Isles and Scandinavia, not so much to divine any prehistoric cultural links...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
The pottery from Cairnderry and Bargrennan (97-107); The battle axeheads from Cairnderry and Bargrennan (108-111); The bone belt hook from Bargrennan pit 2 (112-124)
This volume presents the methodology and results for the excavations at Cairnderry and Bargrennan, south-west Scotland. A comparative chapter compares the excavation results from both sites, and presents interpretations of these results, particularly in terms of the architecture and the early Bronze Age mortuary practices. Chapter 5 considers the architecture...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
From Picardie to Pickering and Pencraig hill? New information on the 'Carinated bowl Neolithic' in Northern Britain
This wide-ranging collection of essays covers the transformation from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic farmers. It offers a comprehensive and authoritative treatment by leading specialists, and provides the best available overview of this fundamental change in human society.Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Eclogite or jadeitite: The two colours involved in the transfer of alpine axeheads in western Europe
During the 5th and 4th millennia BC, the Neolithic extraction of stone around Mont Viso and in the Mont Beigua massif in the north Italian Alps resulted in the production of large polished axeheads in ecologite, omphacitite, jadeitite and amphibolite - raw materials which were not only rare but which...Pétrequin, P ; Sheridan, J A ; Cassen, S ; Errera, M ; Gauthier, E …
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Book chapter
Dating the Scottish bronze age: "There is clearly much that the material can still tell us"
Results from a current National Museums of Scotland (NMS) radiocarbon dating initiative, the Dating Cremated Bones Project, are presented. The project takes advantage of a recent development in radiocarbon dating that enables reliable dates to be obtained from cremated bone. The results indicate that Collared Urns were in use in...Sheridan, J A
dating, SCOTLAND, Bronze Age, and collared urns
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Book chapter
Battle axeheads; the types and uses of cinerary urns; Early Neolithic carinated bowl pottery
The upgrading of part of the A1 road in south-east Scotland prompted the excavation of eleven archaeological sites. These spanned a period of 5,000 years from the early fourth millenium BC to the early fifth century AD. This volume draws together the results of the excavations and presents the story...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
The Neolithisation of Britain and Ireland: the big picture
This contribution offers a model for the Neolithization of Britain and Ireland featuring multiple strands of immigration, from different parts of France to different parts of these islands - at differing scales and for differing reasons - over the course of several centuries from the third quarter of the 5th...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
A jet bead from Flag Fen, 2004. In: F. Pryor & M. Bamforth (eds), Flag Fen, Peterborough: Excavation and Research 1995-2007
The site at Flag Fen lies at the centre of a once-wet Fenland bay, immediately east of Peterborough. In the Bronze Age a huge alignment of posts crossed a kilometer of wetland to link the two sides of one of the most important and intensively studied prehistoric landscapes in Britain....Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
The Europe of jade: from the Alps to the Black Sea
As it appears in diverse guises – and notably as a founding narrative – the past is at the core of every functioning human society. The idea that the past can be known through scientific research has long been a fundamental challenge for western societies and for European researchers, from...Pétrequin, P ; Cassen, S ; Errera, M ; Sheridan, J A ; Tsonev, T …
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Book chapter
The disc bead necklace from grave 3033
The widening of the road between the Monkton and Mount Pleasant roundabouts on the A253 led to the archaeological investigation of a 3km long strip of land between July 1994 and February 1995. Prehistoric discoveries included Neolithic inhumations and pits, well-preserved Beaker graves and ten ring-ditches of late Neolithic and...Sheridan, J A ; Davis, M
Archaeology, Neolithic , Anglo-Saxon, Roman, and Jewellery
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Book chapter
The composite necklace
Excavation of a Scheduled burial mound on Whitehorse Hill, Dartmoor revealed an unexpected, intact burial deposit of Early Bronze Age date associated with an unparalleled range of artefacts. The cremated remains of a young person had been placed within a bearskin pelt and provided with a basketry container, from which...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
The cinerary urns
This volume presents the results of fieldwork on the East Lothian coastal plain in south-east Scotland investigating the nature of later prehistoric settlement around the hillfort of Traprain Law. Following geomagnetic surveys at thirty sites, six enclosures were excavated, three extensively. All six had complex occupation histories, involving multiple acts...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Section 6.1 The finds: The pottery
The site of Warren Field in Scotland revealed two unusual and enigmatic features; an alignment of pits and a large, rectangular feature interpreted as a timber building. Excavations confirmed that the timber structure was an early Neolithic building and that the pits had been in use from the Mesolithic. This...Murray, H K ; Murray, J C ; Fraser, Shannon M ; Sheridan, J A
Neolithic period, Scotland, Mesolithic period, Excavations, and Prehistoric Dwellings
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Book chapter
Tara Boy: local hero or international man of mystery?
Although building on earlier research, this volume is not intended to be a definitive door-closing statement on the archaeology of Tara. There are many gaps between the themes, and others may be inspired to address those gaps or build on the work contained here. The shafts of light in the...Sheridan, J A ; Jay, Mandy ; Montgomery, Janet ; Pellegrini, M ; Cahill Wilson, J