The Sheridan Collection

Key Papers by Prehistorian Alison Sheridan on Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Archaeology

Alison Sheridan, Alison Sheridan

• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9798888572535
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: Social Sciences

Celebrates Alison Sheridan's influential research on Neolithic to Bronze Age material culture, pottery, and monumentality in Britain and Ireland.

This third title in the new Oxbow Reflections series celebrates the academic career of leading British prehistorian Alison Sheridan as seen through her many contributions to collected works and monographs published by Oxbow Books. In collaboration with the author, we have selected papers that reflect some of the major themes that have been the subject of her long-term research into the understanding and interpretation of many aspects of material culture and monumentality in the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland, within their European context

Alison has published meticulously researched contributions on specific object types and materials from countless excavations and research projects, from jewellery of jet, faience, amber and gold to jadeitite axeheads, with a particular focus on Scotland. She is most renowned for her decades’ long work on developing a typological and chronological framework for the introduction, manufacture and use of pottery in the Scottish and Irish Neolithic and on the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Britain and Ireland, re-evaluating the evidence in the light of developments in radiocarbon dating and isotope and ancient DNA analysis.

In these papers we see demonstrated the breadth and development of some of Alison’s key interests and most influential ideas that continue to inspire scholars and stimulate debate. Includes an introduction by the author.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Sources
• Editorial Note
• Preface
• 1. Introduction: From Dewlish to Monte Viso, a Long and Winding road
• 2. The Neolithization of Britain and Ireland: The ‘big picture’ (2010)
• 3. Ancient DNA and Modelling the Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition in Britain and Ireland (with Alasdair Whittle, 2022)
• 4. Interdigitating Pasts: The Irish and Scottish Neolithics (2017)
• 5. Making Sense of Scottish Neolithic Funerary Monuments: Tracing Trajectories and Understanding their Rationale (with Rick Schulting, (2020)
• 6. Grooved Ware in Orkney (2023)
• 7. Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland, 2023: Retrospect and Prospect (2023)
• 8. A Rumsfeld Reality Check: What We Know, What We Don’t Know and What We Don’t Know We Don’t Know About the Chalcolithic in Britain and Ireland (2012)
• 9. Contextualising Kilmartin: Building a Narrative for Developments in Western Scotland and Beyond, From The Early Neolithic to the Late Bronze Age (2012)
• 10. Dating the Scottish Bronze Age: ‘There is Clearly Much That The Material Can Still Tell us’ (2007)
• 11. Discussion of Disc Bead and Spacer Plate Necklaces of Jet and Jet-like Materials (2015)
• 12. Fifty Shades of Green: The irresistible Attraction, use and Significance of Jadeitite and other Green Alpine Rock types in Neolithic Europe (with Pierre Pétrequin, Anne-Marie Pétrequin, Serge Cassen, Michel Errera, Estelle Gauthier and Frédéric Prodéo, (2019)