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Radiocarbon dating events. There may be a contrast with a quieter, slower, less showy Middle Neolithic. W e do not yet know. It will depend on further applications of this new approach to dating. But the turbulent character of the Early Neolithic is now apparent, and we have to ask why – why were things changing, why did people build monuments, and, not least, why was there violent conflict at this time? Bloody Stone Age Four Early Neolithic sites have revealed clear evidence for some sort of armed clash – Carn Brea, Crickley Hill, Hambledon Hill, and Hembury. At Crickley Hill the evidence is especially vivid, with hundreds of flint arrowheads along the line of a palisade and clustered at two entrances. Altogether at least 136 Early or Middle Neolithic burials associated with leaf-shaped arrowheads have been excavated. Traditionally many of these have been interpreted as 'ritual'. But Michael Wysocki, senior lecturer in forensic anthropology and archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire, who is also working on the new dating programme, is unconvinced. 'At Wayland's Smithy we had three arrowheads that the original excavator decided were ritual. When we re-examined the evidence, we were able to work out exactly where the arrowheads were found from the old museum accession labels. It turned out they were closely associated with individual bones – and then we discovered that the tiny broken-off tip of one was still embedded in one of those bones. That was pretty much a smoking gun.' With evidence also for new types of longbow and wararrow, archery-based warfare looks like a significant feature of life in the Early Neolithic. Nor, it seems, was the bow the only weapon. Michael Wysocki has been working with Rick Schulting on the evidence for cranial injuries in the Early Neolithic. Having examined some 350 skulls, they conservatively estimated that 2% revealed fatal injury and a further 4 or 5% healed injury. Many of the observed injuries resulted from the blows of blunt instruments such as clubs, picks, The tip of a leaf-shaped arrowhead embedded in the vertebra of an individual excavated in Ascott-underWychwood barrow. Death probably occurred in the 3630s cal BC. Evidence is mounting for a violent Early Neolithic with massed armed clashes involving archers and people wielding clubs and axes. Photo: Cardiff University. polished axes, or hand-thrown stones. Observed cranial injuries represent only a proportion of the potential victims of interpersonal violence within any population group. So not only does the Neolithic begin to look much more episodic and dynamic; it also looks more violent and dangerous. Were long barrows attempts to substantiate claims to territory in an increasingly divided and competitive world? Were they short-lived because the communities they served were unstable and did not endure? Are they monuments to an era of storm and stress in the first half of the 37th century BC? Or was occasional violence endemic throughout the period, breaking out in different places at different times? Alasdair Whittle is keen to keep the interpretive options open. New dates for other monuments will soon be forthcoming. Prehistory is now on a rollercoaster of new data statistics-driven and computer-aided – that promises to transform our thinking. We should not prejudge the issues. 'The key thing at this stage is that we can start to assign particular events to specific centuries and even to spans of decades. We can think in terms of generations and individual life-spans, and we have more sensitive means with which to explore social memory. These results hold the promise of our being able to begin to write Neolithic histories. Those people in those times must now be our subjects.' Sources Alex Bayliss and John Meadows, Scientific Dating Team, English Heritage Alasdair Whittle, Cardiff University Michael Wysocki, University of Central Lancashire Further information On long barrows: Bayliss, A and Whittle, A (eds.), 2007, Histories of the Dead: building chronologies for five southern British long barrows(supplement to Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 17.1). On Ascott-under-Wychwood: Benson, D and Whittle, A (eds.), 2006, Building Memories: the Neolithic Cotswold long barrow at Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire(Oxbow Books). On violent deaths: Schulting, R and Wysocki, M, 2005, ' "In this chambered tumulus were found cleft skulls …": an assessment of the evidence for cranial trauma in the British Neolithic', in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 71. On Skara Brae: Buck, C, Kenworthy, J, Litton, C and Smith, A, 1991, 'Combining archaeological and radiocarbon information: a Bayesian approach to calibration', in Antiquity, 65. On Stonehenge: Bayliss, A, Bronk Ramsey, C and McCormac, F, 1997, 'Dating Stonhenge', in Cunliffe, B and Renfrew, C (eds.), Science and Stonehenge(British Academy). On Hambledon Hill: Healy, F, 2004, 'Hambledon Hill and its implications', in Cleal, R and Pollard, J (eds.), Monuments and Material Culture: papers in honour of an Avebury archaeologist, Isobel Smith(Hobnob Press). 20 209 archaeologycurrent
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Ros Niblett FIVE DECADES DIGGING Rosalind Niblett has just retired from full-time employment after five decades in archaeology, most of it spent in and around St Albans. Ros is one of the generation of archaeologists who joined the profession before both the 'rescue revolution' around 1970 and the 'PPG16 revolution' around 1990. Both revolutions meant big increases in staffing – the former via local government, the latter from developerfunding. Before that, the number of active archaeologists was tiny, and most people knew each other. 'It was a very small world,' says Ros. 'When I worked on Frere's excavations at Verulamium in the late 50s, everyone visited. On my degree course at Cardiff in the early 60s, there were just six of us – and you met virtually everyone doing degrees elsewhere in the summer because we all went on the same digs.' Ros Dunnett (as she then was) had caught the bug early. Born in north-west London, brought up near Watford, and educated at St Helen's, a local girls' private school, she started digging when she was a teenager. Her civil servant father showed her newspaper accounts of Grimes' excavation of the Temple of Mithras in London, which inspired her to join the Watford Archaeological Society and get on her bike to volunteer on local excavations. Her mother worried, and she was only allowed to go on her first dig – a Roman villa at Moor Park on the edge of Watford in 1956 – in company with her brother. The following year – looking for the Verulamium-Silchester road – she went on her own. But as the youngest member of the team, just fifteen, 'I had to sit under a hedge eating my sandwiches when they all escaped off to the pub for lunch.' That was also the year she started at Verulamium – the start of a 50 year professional engagement with the Roman town. The site was already at the very heart of Roman Britain studies. Landmark excavations by the Wheelers (Mortimer and Tessa) of a rich residential quarter on the southern side of the town in 1930-1933 had formed the picture of RomanoBritish urbanism that came to dominate the academic literature for a generation after. The Wheeler view was encapsulated in the title of the excavation report published in 1936: Verulamium: a Belgic and Two Roman Cities. It was, says Ros, 'a milestone in the history of Romano-British studies since it represented the archaeologycurrent 21 209

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Radiocarbon dating events. There may be a contrast with a quieter, slower, less showy Middle Neolithic. W e do not yet know. It will depend on further applications of this new approach to dating. But the turbulent character of the Early Neolithic is now apparent, and we have to ask why – why were things changing, why did people build monuments, and, not least, why was there violent conflict at this time?

Bloody Stone Age Four Early Neolithic sites have revealed clear evidence for some sort of armed clash – Carn Brea, Crickley Hill, Hambledon Hill, and Hembury. At Crickley Hill the evidence is especially vivid, with hundreds of flint arrowheads along the line of a palisade and clustered at two entrances. Altogether at least 136 Early or Middle Neolithic burials associated with leaf-shaped arrowheads have been excavated. Traditionally many of these have been interpreted as 'ritual'. But Michael Wysocki, senior lecturer in forensic anthropology and archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire, who is also working on the new dating programme, is unconvinced. 'At Wayland's Smithy we had three arrowheads that the original excavator decided were ritual. When we re-examined the evidence, we were able to work out exactly where the arrowheads were found from the old museum accession labels. It turned out they were closely associated with individual bones – and then we discovered that the tiny broken-off tip of one was still embedded in one of those bones. That was pretty much a smoking gun.'

With evidence also for new types of longbow and wararrow, archery-based warfare looks like a significant feature of life in the Early Neolithic. Nor, it seems, was the bow the only weapon. Michael Wysocki has been working with Rick Schulting on the evidence for cranial injuries in the Early Neolithic. Having examined some 350 skulls, they conservatively estimated that 2% revealed fatal injury and a further 4 or 5% healed injury. Many of the observed injuries resulted from the blows of blunt instruments such as clubs, picks,

The tip of a leaf-shaped arrowhead embedded in the vertebra of an individual excavated in Ascott-underWychwood barrow. Death probably occurred in the 3630s cal BC. Evidence is mounting for a violent Early Neolithic with massed armed clashes involving archers and people wielding clubs and axes. Photo: Cardiff University.

polished axes, or hand-thrown stones. Observed cranial injuries represent only a proportion of the potential victims of interpersonal violence within any population group. So not only does the Neolithic begin to look much more episodic and dynamic; it also looks more violent and dangerous.

Were long barrows attempts to substantiate claims to territory in an increasingly divided and competitive world? Were they short-lived because the communities they served were unstable and did not endure? Are they monuments to an era of storm and stress in the first half of the 37th century BC? Or was occasional violence endemic throughout the period, breaking out in different places at different times?

Alasdair Whittle is keen to keep the interpretive options open. New dates for other monuments will soon be forthcoming. Prehistory is now on a rollercoaster of new data statistics-driven and computer-aided – that promises to transform our thinking. We should not prejudge the issues. 'The key thing at this stage is that we can start to assign particular events to specific centuries and even to spans of decades. We can think in terms of generations and individual life-spans, and we have more sensitive means with which to explore social memory. These results hold the promise of our being able to begin to write Neolithic histories. Those people in those times must now be our subjects.'

Sources Alex Bayliss and John Meadows, Scientific Dating Team, English Heritage Alasdair Whittle, Cardiff University Michael Wysocki, University of Central Lancashire

Further information On long barrows: Bayliss, A and Whittle, A (eds.), 2007, Histories of the Dead: building chronologies for five southern British long barrows(supplement to Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 17.1). On Ascott-under-Wychwood: Benson, D and Whittle, A (eds.), 2006, Building Memories: the Neolithic Cotswold long barrow at Ascott-under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire(Oxbow Books).

On violent deaths: Schulting, R and Wysocki, M, 2005, ' "In this chambered tumulus were found cleft skulls …": an assessment of the evidence for cranial trauma in the British Neolithic', in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 71. On Skara Brae: Buck, C, Kenworthy, J, Litton, C and Smith, A, 1991, 'Combining archaeological and radiocarbon information: a Bayesian approach to calibration', in Antiquity, 65. On Stonehenge: Bayliss, A, Bronk Ramsey, C and McCormac, F, 1997, 'Dating Stonhenge', in Cunliffe, B and Renfrew, C (eds.), Science and Stonehenge(British Academy). On Hambledon Hill: Healy, F, 2004, 'Hambledon Hill and its implications', in Cleal, R and Pollard, J (eds.), Monuments and Material Culture: papers in honour of an Avebury archaeologist, Isobel Smith(Hobnob Press).

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