{"title":"Alasdair Whittle","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into Alasdair Whittle's gripping narratives, where history and suspense intertwine. Perfect for fans of historical mysteries and thrilling adventures, discover meticulously researched stories with a modern edge.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"ancient-dna-and-the-european-neolithic-book-alasdair-whittle-9781789259100","title":"Ancient DNA and the European Neolithic","description":"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 particularly clearly in studies of the European Neolithic, the subject of contributions presented in this volume. We now have new evidence for the movement and mixture of people at the start of the Neolithic, as farming spread from the east, and at its end, when the first metals as well as novel styles of pottery and burial practices arrived in the Chalcolithic. In addition, there has been a wealth of new data to inform complex questions of identities and relationships. The terms of archaeological debate for this period have been permanently altered, leaving us with many issues. This volume stems from the online day conference of the Neolithic Studies Group held in November 2021, which aimed to bring geneticists and archaeologists together in the same forum, and to enable critical but constructive inter-disciplinary debate about key themes arising from the application of advanced ancient DNA analysis to the study of the European Neolithic. The resulting papers gathered here are by both geneticists and archaeologists. Individually, they form a series of significant, up-to-date, period and regional syntheses of various manifestations of the Neolithic across the Near East and Europe, including particularly Britain and Ireland. Together, they offer wide-ranging reflections on the progress of ancient DNA studies, and on their future reach and character.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49564596994321,"sku":"GOR013268773","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49743725560081,"sku":"NGR9781789259100","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50445308068113,"sku":"GOR013268770","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/178925910X.jpg?v=1751345022"},{"product_id":"gathering-time-book-alasdair-whittle-9781842174258","title":"Gathering Time","description":"Gathering Time  presents the results of a major dating programme that re-writes the early Neolithic of Britain by more accurately  dating enclosures, a phenomenon that first appeared in the early  Neolithic: places of construction, labour, assembly, ritual and  deposition. The project has combined hundreds of new radiocarbon  dates with hundreds of existing dates, using a Bayesian  statistical framework. Such formal chronological modelling is  essential if significantly more precise and robust date estimates  are to be achieved than those currently available from informal  inspection of calibrated radiocarbon dates. The resulting dating  project included over 35 enclosures - the largest study so far  attempted in a Bayesian framework. This establishes a new  chronology for causewayed and related enclosures in southern  Britain, which appeared in the final decades of the 38th century  cal BC, increased in number dramatically in the 37th century cal  BC, and began no longer to be built by the end of the 36th  century cal BC. Several enclosures were of short duration - in  some cases probably in use for less than a generation - though  some examples do conform to the conventional assumption of a long  primary use-life. In Ireland, enclosures of this kind are much  scarcer. The project helped to date two of these: Donegore, Co.  Antrim and Magheraboy, Co. Sligo.     As well as establishing a new chronology for enclosures,   Gathering Time  also places these results into their wider context, by considering the chronology of the early Neolithic as  a whole. Well over a thousand other radiocarbon dates have been  critically assessed and modelled in a Bayesian framework - for  settlement, monument building and other activity, region by  region across southern Britain and across Ireland as a whole (a  brief comparative study of Scotland as far north as the Great  Glen is also included). Generally in southern Britain other  Neolithic activity can be dated before the beginnings of monument  building and, among the monuments, long barrows, long cairns, and  related forms clearly preceded the earliest causewayed  enclosures. The first Neolithic things and practices probably  appeared in south-east England in the 41st century cal BC,  arguably by some kind of small-scale colonisation from the  adjacent continent, and spread at a variable pace across the rest  of Britain and Ireland over the next two and a half centuries or  more, a process involving acculturation of local people as well  as immigrants. Enclosures may have been adapted as a social  strategy of harnessing the power of the distant and the exotic,  and perhaps old ancestral ties to the European continent, in a  dynamic and rapidly changing social milieu. Close attention is  given to themes of deposition, material culture and different  kinds of social interaction, from networks of exchange to  episodes of violence. A high tempo of change continued, as very  different constructions came to be built from the 36th century  cal BC onwards: the linear and more arcane cursus monuments. The  study of Irish Neolithic chronology reveals significant  patterning, including a short currency for rectangular timber  houses in the 37th century cal BC, but also highlights the  challenge of establishing more reliable chronologies, for  monuments in particular. Alternative scenarios for the date and  nature of the beginning of the Neolithic in Ireland are modelled.     Gathering Time  ends with reflections on the nature and pace of change in prehistory. If generational timescales are now within  our grasp routinely, more subtle and individualised kinds of  (pre)history can and must be written, and the conventional frame  of the long-term must shift from being familiar and comfortable  to problematic.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":50883617653009,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50883617915153,"sku":"GOR009894396","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1842174258.jpg?v=1750866163"},{"product_id":"problems-in-neolithic-archaeology-book-alasdair-whittle-9780521103893","title":"Problems in Neolithic Archaeology","description":"Problems in Neolithic Archaeology is a notable contribution to the debate about how we can write prehistory. Drawing on both processual and post-processual approaches, it reaffirms the central role of theory and interpretation while accepting as permanent the uncertainty which makes the testing of archaeological hypotheses difficult or even impossible. Dr Whittle asserts in particular the need for greater self-confidence and for the formulation of new theory and questions more appropriate to the archaeological record. The book's specific strength lies, however, in a close contextual study of the Neolithic period in western and central Europe. In this respect it provides an admirable complement to his textbook Neolithic Europe.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52484664230161,"sku":"NLS9780521103893","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53572230185233,"sku":"NIN9780521103893","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521103893.jpg?v=1759856621"},{"product_id":"early-farmers-book-alasdair-whittle-9780197265758","title":"Early Farmers","description":"The Neolithic period was one of the great transformations in human history with profound, long-term consequences. In Europe, there were no farmers at 7000 cal BC, but very few hunter-gatherers after about 4000 cal BC. Although we understand the broad chronological structure of this shift, many pressing research questions remain. Archaeologists are still vigorously debating the identity of those principally involved in initiating change, the detail of everyday lives during the Neolithic, including basic questions about settlement, the operation of the farming economy and the varied roles of material culture, and the character of large-scale and long-term transformations. They face the task not only of working at different scales, but of integrating ever-expanding amounts of evidence.  As well as the data coming from larger and more intensive excavations, there has been a radical increase in the information released by many kinds of scientific analysis of archaeological remains. These now include, alongside longer established methods of looking at food remains and material, the isotopic analysis of the diet and lifetime movement of people, isotopic analysis of cereal remains for indications of manuring, a DNA analysis of genetic signatures, detailed micromorphological analysis of deposits where people lived, and the close examination of the origin and production of varying materials and artefacts.  The 21 chapters by leading experts in the field demonstrate how the combination of archaeological and scientific evidence now provides opportunities for new and creative understandings of Europe's early farmers. They make an important contribution to the debate over how best to integrate these multiple lines of evidence, scientific and more traditionally archaeological, while keeping in central focus the principal questions that we want to ask of our data.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53104940450065,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53104940482833,"sku":"NGR9780197265758","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780197265758.jpg?v=1770381726"},{"product_id":"whittle-collection-book-alasdair-whittle-9798888572429","title":"The Whittle Collection","description":"Alasdair Whittle is one of the most influential British prehistorians of the late 20th to early 21st century. This volume in our new Reflections series re-presents some of his most important papers published in Oxbow titles and celebrates his contribution to our understanding of Neolithic lifeways and the development of Neolithic society in Britain and Europe. The collection illustrates his pioneering work in the interpretation of both monumental and settlement sites, and the spread and nature of early farming in central and western Europe, including investigation of LBK longhouse life. Alasdair has also been at the forefront of the application of Bayesian statistics in radiocarbon dating, helping to revolutionise chronologies at a variety of geographical and temporal scales. This volume seeks to reflect some of the best of his innovative thinking and influence as seen through his publications with Oxbow.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53613101318417,"sku":"NGR9798888572429","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9798888572429.jpg?v=1780316434"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-alasdair-whittle.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}