Foreword: ‘The prehistory of my own lands, the lowlands’

Summary

This volume consists of a series of contributions that reflect our current understanding of many aspects of the archaeology of mainland Scotland in the Neolithic period (that is, between c. 4000 and 2500 bc). The unusual geographical focus of the book stems from its origins: to honour the contributions to this subject of Gordon Barclay, an eminent scholar of the Scottish Neolithic, whose focus throughout his career where the Neolithic was concerned had a resolutely lowland gaze. Neolithic studies in Scotland have traditionally been dominated by the study of the spectacular Orcadian record, and have often been taken forward in the shadow of developments in southern England. It is evident that Gordon became very frustrated over the time, effort and resources spent on excavations and research on Orkney and Wessex (the ‘luminous centres’) relative to other parts of the country. Yet, rather than just complain, Gordon sought to re-balance this with his own work and, with the support of various colleagues and digging partners, he also developed a very important intellectual argument for the need to study what had often appeared marginal and peripheral – whether that be eastern lowland Scotland as a region, or cursus monuments, or Neolithic settlement sites or cropmarks. As a result, it would be fair to say that Gordon's contribution to the study of the field evidence for the British Neolithic is immense; in particular, he revolutionised our understanding of the Neolithic north of the Border while literally inspiring a generation of new researchers.

The contributors to this volume all owe a great debt of gratitude to Gordon: professionally, personally or both. This is reflected in the topics covered by the chapters, inspired by a comment, or challenge or words of wisdom from Gordon, or by the results of one of his excavations, or a paper he wrote or even whole research areas that he worked on. And each contributor was asked to prepare a chapter to this book written in a similarly tireless and enthusiastic spirit to that which Gordon has always shown in his work, hence the attention to detail and sheer depth to many of the following chapters. During the Neolithic phase of his career Gordon was a great collator of lists of sites or other features that he often generously passed on to fellow archaeologists, and some of that spirit is here too.