The social processes involved in acquiring flint and stone in the Neolithic began to be considered over thirty years ago, promoting a more dynamic view of past extraction processes. Whether by quarrying, mining or surface retrieval, the geographic source locations of raw materials and their resultant archaeological sites have been approached from different methodological and theoretical perspectives. In recent years this has included the exploration of previously undiscovered sites, refined radiocarbon dating, comparative ethnographic analysis and novel analytical approaches to stone tool manufacture and provenancing. The aim of this volume in the Neolithic Studies Group Papers is to explore these new findings on extraction sites and their products. How did the acquisition of raw materials fit into other aspects of Neolithic life and social networks? How did these activities merge in creating material items that underpinned cosmology, status and identity? What are the geographic similarities, constraints and variables between the various raw materials, and how does the practise of stone extraction in the UK relate to wider extractive traditions in northwestern Europe? Eight papers address these questions and act as a useful overview of the current state of research on the topic.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Foreword by Timothy Darvill and Kenneth Brophy
• Contents
• Preface and acknowledgements
• List of contributors
• 1. Flint-working areas and bifacial implement production at the Neolithic flint-mining sites in southern and eastern England
• 2. Comings and goings: The wider landscape of Early Neolithic flint mining in Sussex
• 3. Radiocarbon dating on flint mining shaft deposits at Blackpatch, Cissbury and Church Hill, Sussex
• 4. Tangled up in blue: The role of reibeckite felsite in Neolithic Shetland
• 5. Being ‘Mesolithic’ in the Neolithic: Practices, places and rock in contrasting regions in South Norway
• 6. Stonehenge’s bluestones
• 7. Sarsen stone quarrying in southern England: An introduction
• 8. Carn Menyn and the stones of south-west Wales
• 9. Insights into Portland and Greensand chert use during the Neolithic of south-west England
• 10. Crossing the divide: Raw material use in the north-west of the British Isles in the late Mesolithic and Neolithic
• 11. Moving mountains: Reciprocating with rock in the Neolithic
• 12. The social context of lithic extraction in Neolithic Britain and Ireland
• 13. A whiter shade of pale: Powerful relationships between Neolithic communities and the underworld at Monkton Up Wimborne, Dorset