Isotopic evidence for landscape use and the role of causewayed enclosures during the earlier Neolithic in southern Britain

Neil, S.; Evans, J.; Montgomery, J.; Scarre, C.

doi:10.1017/ppr.2018.6

Isotopic evidence for landscape use and the role of causewayed enclosures during the earlier Neolithic in southern Britain

Neil, S.; Evans, J.; Montgomery, J.; Scarre, C.

Authors

S. Neil

J. Evans

Professor Janet Montgomery janet.montgomery@durham.ac.uk
Professor

C. Scarre

Abstract

The nature of landscape use and residence patterns during the British earlier Neolithic has often been debated. Here we use strontium and oxygen isotope analysis of tooth enamel, from individuals buried at the Hambledon Hill causewayed enclosure monument complex in Dorset, England to evaluate patterns of landscape use during the earlier Neolithic. Previous analysis suggests that a significant proportion of the artefacts found at the site may originate from lithology of Eocene and Upper to Middle Jurassic age that the enclosures overlook to the immediate west and south. The excavators therefore argued that the sector of landscape visible from Hambledon Hill provides an approximate index for the catchment occupied by the communities that it served. Most of the burial population exhibit isotope ratios that could be consistent with this argument. Connections between Hambledon Hill and regions much further afield are also hypothesised, based on the presence of artefacts within the assemblage that could have been sourced from lithology in Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall in south-west England. However, few of the sampled individuals have strontium isotope ratios consistent with having obtained the majority of their diet from such areas during childhood. The individuals who exhibit the highest strontium isotope ratios are all adult males, whom the excavators suggest to have died during one or more episodes of conflict, following the burning and destruction of surrounding defensive outworks built during the 36th century bc. At least one of these individuals, who was found with an arrowhead amongst his ribs, did not obtain his childhood diet locally and has 87Sr/86Sr values that could be comparable to those bioavailable in the south-west peninsula.

Citation

Neil, S., Evans, J., Montgomery, J., & Scarre, C. (2018). Isotopic evidence for landscape use and the role of causewayed enclosures during the earlier Neolithic in southern Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 84, 185-205. https://doi.org/10.1017/ppr.2018.6

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jun 29, 2018
Online Publication Date	Aug 6, 2018
Publication Date	Dec 1, 2018
Deposit Date	Oct 18, 2017
Publicly Available Date	Sep 20, 2018
Journal	Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society for ...
Print ISSN	0079-497X
Electronic ISSN	2050-2729
Publisher	Prehistoric Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	84
Pages	185-205
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1017/ppr.2018.6

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Advance online version © The Prehistoric Society 2018. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.