Neolithic Bodies

As a result of recent methodological and theoretical developments in approaches to the human body in archaeological contexts, the theme has recently become a particularly dynamic research area. This volume, building on the Neolithic Studies Group conference 2014, captures the variety of debates developing across research into the Neolithic bodies of the Near East and Europe. Papers are divided into three themes; living bodies, the body in death and the representation of the body.In the first section, papers present new research assessing skeletal evidence, alongside new interpretations of the body in the Southern British Neolithic to examine the lived experience of the body in the Neolithic.The second theme illustrates the variety of approaches arising from the study of death and burial, focusing on the many different ways the dead were treated during the Neolithic.The third theme examines the body as it is represented in Neolithic art, through artefacts and the stone stele found in Western and Mediterranean Europe.The volume begins with an introduction to the recent developments in the field and concludes with a discussion chapter from Julian Thomas, which sets an agenda for future studies on this theme. The approaches taken in the papers presented here bridge many different methodologies, ranging from theoretical treatises to methodological debates. Overall, the volume presents the study of the body in the Neolithic as a contested site, at which overlapping research themes meet, and addresses the insights provided by thinking about past bodies.

The book is produced and presented to a high standard. Individually, the chapters are insightful, thorough and thought-provoking […] the book covers much important ground, and provides a very good snapshot of some current avenues of research into Neolithic bodies.

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. Dr Emilie Sibbesson is senior lecturer in prehistoric archaeology at Canterbury Christ Church University. She specialises in Neolithic archaeology, food technology, and prehistoric ceramics. She is co-editor of Neolithic Bodies (Oxbow, in prep.) and has contributed to two major food studies encyclopaedias: Food Issues (ed. Ken Albala, SAGE Reference 2015) and Archaeology of Food (eds. K. Metheny & M. Beaudry, Rowman & Littlefield 2015). She is secretary of the Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group and has led scientific analysis of pottery assemblages from a series of Neolithic sites in East Anglia, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire.