UCL Institute of Archaeology

Neolithic

In the early post-glacial period, plant and animal domestication developed in several widely separated regions of the Old World including the Near East, South and East Asia, and parts of Africa (as well as the Americas). This was often in populations which had become partially sedentarised and were living in formative village-based communities. These major economic and demographic developments were often associated with significant changes in social organisation as well as ritual and ideological practices and were accompanied by a wide range of other technological innovations. In time, components of the Neolithisation process spread into adjacent regions either as a result of direct colonisation or selective adoption of its various features by indigenous communities. Staff are involved in research on this period in several areas of the world.

Research

Projects

• The Ancient Levant
  
• Antikythera Survey Project
• Archaeology of growth and development in children
  
• Azraq Project, Jordan
• The Beaker People
  
• The Blackden Project
  
• Boncuklu Hoyuk Project
  
• Çatalhöyük
• Ceramic Temper and identity groups
• Commensality, Cooking, Dining and the Politics of Gastronomy in the Near East
• Cultivating Societies
• Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe (EUROEVOL)
  
• Early Farming in Dalmatia
• The Emergence of Craft Specialisation in the Near East
  
• Examination and Conservation of the 'Ain Ghazal plaster cache
• Feeding Stonehenge
  
• Gender and the Emergence of Villages, Cities and States in the Ancient Near East
  
• The Making of the Middle Sea
• Origins and Spread of Stock-Keeping in the Near East and Europe
• Personal Ornaments in the Ancient Near East
  
• Pre-Pottery Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements and subsistence economy
• Qadisha Valley Project, Lebanon
• The Stones of Stonehenge
  
• Transmission of innovations: comparing and modelling the spread of farming practices in Europe (EUROFARM)
• Upper Esino Valley Survey

Networks

• AG Forschungsgeschichte/History of Archaeology (external network)
• Arbeitsgemeinschaft Neolithikum/Neolithic Workgroup (external network)
• Hunters and Herders - Global Perspectives (IoA network)
• Out of Africa, Into Asia (external network)

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People

• Cyprian Broodbank
• Cristina Castillo
• Sue Colledge
• Kevan Edinborough
• Shahina Farid
• Dorian Fuller
• Andrew Garrard
• Sue Hamilton
• Susanna Harris
• David Jeffreys
• Tim Kerig
• Katie Manning
• Louise Martin
• Mike Parker Pearson
• Stephen Shennan
• Ulrike Sommer
• Marc Vander Linden
• Alison Weisskopf
• David Wengrow
• Todd Whitelaw
• Katherine Wright

Degrees

• BA in Archaeology and Anthropology
• BA or BSc in Archaeology
• BA in Egyptian Archaeology
• MA in Archaeology and Heritage of Asia
• MA in the Archaeology of the Middle East
• MA in Egyptian Archaeology
• MA in Mediterranean Archaeology
• MSc in Environmental Archaeology
• MSc in Palaeoanthropology and Palaeolithic Archaeology

Courses

undergraduate

• Introduction to Egyptian and Near Eastern Archaeology
  
• Introduction to European prehistory
• Structure and Change in Later European Prehistory
• Archaeology of Ancient Egypt
• Archaeology of the Near East: prehistory – 2000 BC
• Archaeology of Early South Asia
  
• The Early Prehistory of the Near East
• Understanding complex societies: Egypt and Mesopotamia in 3rd millennium BC
• The Age of Stonehenge

graduate

• Archaeologies of Asia
• Themes and issues in the archaeology of the E Mediterranean and Middle East
• Evolution of Palaeolithic and Neolithic Societies in the Near East
• The Aegean from first farmers to Minoan states
• The Late Bronze Age Aegean
• British and European Prehistory: Neolithic to Iron Age
• Climate Change and Human Responses in Holocene Africa
• Funerary Archaeology
• Pattern and Process in the Archaeology of the Middle East
• Mediterranean Dynamics
• Mediterranean Prehistory

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