Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Home sweet home: investigating Neolithic houses in Britain through the microwear and residue analysis of tools

Objective

The construction of houses is a defining feature of the earliest farming communities in NW Europe, but we have a limited understanding of the role of the house in the development of Neolithic societies. How was the house constituted? How did dwelling in houses alter the composition of daily maintenance tasks? How did these changes effect social reproduction? This project will address these fundamental questions within the context of the British Neolithic. Starting from the premise that areas around houses are spaces defined by activities (cooking, craft activities etc.) the project explores how the house was defined through material practices. This will be achieved by reconstructing the character and spatial arrangement of those practices through the analysis of the tools used to conduct them. Tool use will be investigated by analysing: a) microscopic traces of wear characteristic of using tools on different materials (e.g. wood, bone, hide) b) residues left on tools (e.g. blood, minerals and plant starch).

Two case studies have been chosen that include the best-preserved Neolithic houses in Britain: a) the Orkney Islands where multiple settlements have been found with well-preserved stone-built Neolithic houses b) the Late Neolithic settlement at Durrington Walls that once housed the builders of Stonehenge. The case studies include a variety of settlement types (e.g. individual/aggregated, short-term/long-term). The analysis will show whether these different forms of settlements were associated with different ranges of technical activities. Ultimately the research will show how houses were used during their earliest developmental stage.

The scientific training that will be offered by the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University lies at the heart of this project. The training programme will develop new scientific skills for the researcher and significantly enhance his opportunities for career independence, whilst contributing to European research excellence.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

MC-IEF - Intra-European Fellowships (IEF)

Coordinator

UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN
EU contribution
€ 243 847,80
Address
RAPENBURG 70
2311 EZ Leiden
Netherlands

See on map

Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data
My booklet 0 0