This text presents an investigation of the period 4000 - 2200 BC. Whilst examining the archaeological data of this region, the book exposes the assumptions and prejudices which have shaped archaeologists' accounts of the distant past, and presents fresh interpretations informed by social theory, anthropology and critical hermeneutics. The book is a fully reworked and updated edition of the the book Rethinking the Neolithic, which provoked much heated debate on publication, especially in providing alternative ways of interpreting archaeological evidence.

A complex enclosure identified by aerial photography at Dunragit Galloway, was demonstrated by excavation to have been of Late Neolithic date, and comprised three concentric timber ramped post-rings, 120-300 m in diameter. The two outer post-rings each comprised large uprights interspersed with smaller members, probably forming a continuous palisade. Each was a single-phase structure and the posts had rotted out. The inner ring had largely been made up of large, freestanding posts, most of which had rotted away, but some of which had been deliberately removed, the post-holes being...