Another book on Neolithic Britain. Is this one any different from the growing number of titles published over recent years? This is a seemingly modest, hardback book, artistically presented with an ambiguously distorted cover photograph of Wayland's Smithy. The ambiguity does not end there, for throughout this quite experimental volume are numerous interesting and often curious images of past sites, objects and landscapes. Evidently the goal is not a standard student text book that would provide a crib for an essay—this book is dense, intense and serious. It is written by two leading scholars who review their own experiences of trying to make sense of Neolithic Britain over their careers, and in some ways, they continue a very particular trend of personalised British writing about Britain's prehistory.

Why is it that archaeological writing on the Neolithic stands apart from that on other prehistoric or later periods? Certainly, little of the philosophical anguish so prevalent in Neolithic writing is present in that on the contiguous periods of Britain's prehistory. Neither the Mesolithic nor the Bronze Age have been interrogated in this way, and the impression is that where economic, environmental and technical concerns provide sufficient grist to the theoretical mill, there is less space for ponderings on ‘social practice’. Identifying, understanding and theorising such ‘practice’ is, however, central to these authors’ concerns and it dominates the discussion throughout the book.

It is worth pausing at this point to consider why scholarship of Neolithic Britain has evolved around the question of social practice. Perhaps the mode of teaching Britain's Neolithic is one explanation, a distinctive form that stems from Cambridge in the 1960s and 1970s, under the influence of David Clarke. One can see the impact of his thinking in the ideas of John Bintliff, Bob Chapman, Andrew Sherratt and Andrew Fleming. At Cambridge, Clarke and his successor, Ian Hodder, had to provide teaching in both archaeological theory and in the Neolithic of Europe, developing an explicitly adventurous subdiscipline that combined these two elements of the Cambridge ‘tripos’ degree. The intellectual effect has been vast, influencing many researchers and later teachers of the Neolithic, who continue to perpetuate a particular period trend. Ray was inspired directly, and Thomas through the influence of teachers at Bradford and Sheffield who had been students of Clarke.

So what of the book? It is seductive in its style of presentation and reads as if recording a cosy discussion in the pub, chewing over various debates and instances of new and significant data intermingled with quite a lot of social anthropological thinking. Some of the newer or rethought data are presented in long, detailed ‘thick description’, which is useful and insightful, and this too is incorporated into the complex mosaic of discussion. In this discussion, the debates often go round a few times before reaching a satisfactory conclusion. This is not a criticism, as there is value in attacking ideas from several angles and in different ways, before bringing a debate to a close. But what is a criticism is the editing of this type of writing. There are immensely long and complex sentences, often five or six lines in length, which make for a challenging read. In editorial terms too, perhaps some of the repetition could have been more efficiently structured or even omitted. Stylistically, this book is demanding, clearly intended for the very well-informed post-doctoral reader, who has already absorbed recent monographs on dating, genetics and archaeological science, as well as recently discovered sites mentioned throughout the text. Such a reader might also enjoy the artistic, creative approach pursued by the authors. There are no in-text references at all, evidently a decision by the authors to facilitate their informal style and to demonstrate their impressively artistic and free-thinking approach. Finding references in the ‘Chapter Commentaries’ and ‘Bibliographic Commentary’ at the end of the book is difficult, even irritating, and one must occasionally resort to internet searches for some of the site data. Sometimes, the endearing style of discussion is replaced by self-important statements. I cannot see an undergraduate making sense of some elements, and instead possibly being put off the Neolithic entirely. This is not, as proclaimed on the back cover, a “comprehensive introduction to the period”.

The book is organised in an original manner. The first chapter is confessional, with a personalised discussion of the ‘classic’ earlier writing on Neolithic Britain, intermingled with theoretical ideas of this interpretative journey. It maps out the current trends, the issues of dating, aDNA, theoretical interpretations and their evolution. Such viewpoints are refreshing and informative, if somewhat grandiose. The following five chapters offer a chronological review, starting with the cultural threshold of 4000 BC, then two chapters focused on the narratives of the fourth and third millennia BC, interspersed with discursive chapters exploring ‘Social beings and practice’ and ‘Kinship, history and descent’. The latter chapter admits to a degree of repetition, which is explained as involving “an abstraction of, and a concentration upon, specific historical dimensions of such (social) practice” (p. 319). The book's conclusion is entitled: ‘A lived Neolithic’. Here, justifications for better understanding the Neolithic are offered, with tourism and public comprehension cited, alongside an explanation of why the Mesolithic (whose people failed to build monuments) “does not impose itself upon us visually, demanding our attention in the way that Silbury Hill or the Callanais stones do” (p. 324). Other similar, obvious sentiments are expressed in the summing up—whether about landscape, agriculture, settlement, society or material practices. The book winds up with some final further reflections. Perhaps this interesting volume would have been better titled ‘Personal reflections on our quest to understand Neolithic Britain’. A worthy quest indeed.