Neolithic and Early Bronze Age 4 Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Edited by Joshua Pollard and Frances Healy from contributions by Frances Griffith, Frances Healy, Andy Jones, Andrew J. Lawson, Jodie Lewis, Roger Mercer, David Mullin, Jacqueline Nowakowski, Joshua Pollard, Helen Wickstead and Peter Woodward 4.1 Introduction The South West contains a wealth and diversity of Neolithic and Early Bronze Age archaeology, much of it of national and international significance. Its quality and character are dictated by differential survival and histories of research, as well as reflecting real vari- ation in the nature of prehistoric activity. One of the major topographic divides is that between the Wessex chalk and the different and diverse terrains of the south-west peninsula. The complementary resources of these two major areas are reflected in diverse modes and media of exchange between them throughout and beyond this period. The uplands of the west, principally Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor, include relict prehistoric landscapes where the rela- tive absence of later cultivation has ensured excellent survival of stone monuments, settlement features and early fieldsystems. In the region’s centre, work within the peats of the Somerset Levels has produced an unparalleled range of prehistoric timber trackways and artefactual material, as well as high-quality environ- mental data. Rich faunal and human bone assemblages have been recovered from the alkaline limestone and chalk bedrocks of Wiltshire, Dorset, the Gloucester- shire Cotswolds and northern Somerset. However, it is on the Wessex chalklands that some of Europe’s most spectacular and intensively studied Neolithic and Early Bronze Age archaeology occurs. This is reflected in the inscription of the Stonehenge and Avebury land- scapes onto the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1986. Extensive exploration over the last three centuries has resulted in the archaeology of Wessex dominating synthetic and interpretive accounts of the British Neolithic and Bronze Age (for example, Barrett 1994b; J Thomas 1999). As in other regions, the picture of the known arch- aeological resource is dominated by sites surviving upstanding on the higher moors and downlands. However, the richness of occupation during this period in the vales and lower ground is attested by major concentrations of lithic material and, more recently, aerial reconnaissance, extensive geophysical survey and rescue work have demonstrated that by the end of the period few areas of the region were not actively used and/or settled. 4.2 Chronologies 4.2.1 The Mesolithic–Neolithic transition The region has one of the most securely-dated Early Neolithic structures in the form of the Sweet Track in the Somerset Levels. Dendrochronologically precise construction dates of 3807/3806 BC for the Sweet Track and of 3838 BC for its predecessor the Post Track (Coles and Coles in Hillam et al. 1990, 218) make it clear that Neolithic artefacts (pottery, single- piece arrowheads, an axehead of chalk flint and a jadeite axehead brought from the Alps) were already current at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC, and that the surrounding woodland was managed and, to some extent, cleared, grazed and cultivated (Coles and Coles 1986; Caseldine 1984a). The region also has one of the best-dated Late Mesolithic deposits, in the upper fill of the Fir Tree Field shaft on Cranborne Chase. Stratified above a group of rod microliths dating from the late 5th or early 4th millennium (see page 58) was a hearth, associated with Neolithic bowl pottery, domestic cattle bone and a ground flint axehead, which produced radiocarbon dates of 3960– 75