The Return of the Rinyo-Clacton Folk? The Cultural Significance of the Grooved Ware Complex in Later Neolithic Britain

Abstract

The Grooved Ware complex in Later Neolithic Britain has proved a perplexing phenomenon for prehistorians. While originally identified by Stuart Piggott as one of a series of ‘Secondary Neolithic Cultures’, it was later recognized as a special-purpose assemblage, connected with inter-regional contacts between socially pre-eminent groups. Yet Grooved Ware appears to have been at once special and mundane, ceremonial and domestic. In this contribution I suggest that Grooved Ware and its associated domestic architecture, originating in the north of Scotland, provided a medium for the elaboration of the notion of the domestic community in southern Britain, creating a new conception of the social at a time of profound change. Communal feasting, monumental structures and pit deposition all drew upon the imagery of the house and the household to provide a new means of social integration.