- The Neolithic saw the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (see Chapter 4 Palaeolithic and Mesolithic) to one dominated by agriculture, transforming the way people lived their lives. The agricultural cycle would have shaped their day-to-day existence: the annual pattern that saw the planting of crops and the birth of young domesticated animals in spring, growth and ripening through summer and harvesting in autumn. All in preparation for a time of darkness and relative austerity throughout the winter months.
- Throughout the Neolithic, much effort appears to have been invested into the building and rebuilding of prominent monuments within the landscape, using earth, stone and timber. For the construction of these monuments, whole communities may have come together at certain times of year, creating what has been described as ‘ritualised landscapes’ (Thomas 1986). The broad patterns of architectural and material culture change evidenced during the Neolithic are similar across mainland Scotland and indeed across Neolithic Britain in its entirety, with a general move from the use of timber for monumental construction towards stone.
- Intra-regional variation is apparent in the chambered cairns and long cairns: the way in which architectural elements were used to define a space, and how this space was used for the placing of human remains. This might very well be a physical expression of diversity in regional and even local identities. The character of these cairns has been examined and discussed since Bryce first explored the chambered cairns of Arran in the early 1900s, and three distinct forms are now recognised (Cummings 2016). Firstly, there is the ‘Clyde’ group, including the chambered cairns of Arran, such as Monamore and Giants Graves I and II, and also Dumfries and Galloway examples Cairnholy I and II. These are composed of a rectangular chamber and an often-imposing stone façade. The second is the ‘Bargennan’ group: named after the White Cairn of Bargrennan. This form of monument has a chamber, or chambers, set within a round cairn. The third group are located further to the east and comprise long cairns like Slewcairn and Lochhill, which have no megalithic elements at all. Instead, they employed timber or drystone construction to construct their internal elements and facades. This apparent variation in tomb-building is complemented by sites like Beckton Farm, which, although used for the deposition of human remains, never even saw the building of a mound.
- In South West Scotland, the predominant treatment of the dead was cremation, which used the transformative power of fire to reduce flesh to bone. Cremated human bone has been recovered predominantly from chambered cairns. It was sometimes placed within the chamber (as at Cairnholy I), sometimes in a pit beyond the chamber and forecourt area (White Cairn) and sometimes in deposits associated with timber mortuary houses (as at Lochhill and Beckton Farm). We cannot know what choices and decisions governed the way in which the dead were differentiated, but the diversity of practice suggests that these changed over time and that the treatment of the dead also varied on an intra-regional level. Previous assumptions that collective burial in chambered and other varieties of cairn reflected a relatively unstratified society cannot be borne out.
- The Neolithic of South West Scotland has survived in the form of a suite of monuments, features and artefacts that embody the decisions and actions made by people over several thousand years. These superficially conform to broader trends occurring elsewhere, across Britain as well as Scotland, and yet at the same time, detailed study reveals distinctive ways in which these trends were used and changed to suit not just regional but local needs. In some aspects, regional distinctiveness may have become more marked over time. This possibility is supported by the increasingly regionalised groupings of decorated Late Neolithic Grooved Ware and Impressed Ware pottery, which replaced Early Neolithic undecorated types like the carinated bowl. These changing pottery styles may reflect changes in the way in which food was prepared, cooked and even served (Parker Pearson 2003). However, it is also possible that identity was expressed in different ways during the earlier Neolithic, perhaps through the preferential use of particular raw materials. Ballin has suggested, for example, that the different patterns seen in the distribution of pitchstone may reflect allegiances between social groups as much as the preferential use of a particular raw material and an ability to procure it (Ballin 2009, 62-74).
- Eventually, the Grooved Ware pottery tradition was replaced with the distinctive Beaker pottery during the final stages of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. The first appearance of Beakers also coincided with the first apparent occurrences of individual burials. Here, single bodies were placed within a stone-built cist, often – but not necessarily – in association with grave goods. Prior to this Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age transitional phase (now often termed the ‘Chalcolithic’), the individual is lost to us (see Chapter 6 Chalcolithic and Bronze Age). For South West Scotland, we have no evidence for how they were differentiated in life or why they were differentiated in death. All we see is the physical result of how the framework of their beliefs resulted in a range of decisions and actions which shaped their world, creating a lasting legacy that we are still discovering today.