Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; List of Contributors; List of Illustrations; List of Tables; Acknowledgements; Chapter 1: The Warren Field Project: place and context; 1.1 Background to the excavation; 1.2 Geomorphic setting; Chapter 2: A line in the landscape: the pit alignment circa 8210-3650 cal BC; 2.1 The excavated evidence; 2.2 Palaeoenvironmental synthesis; 2.3 Discussion of the pit alignment; Chapter 3: A new kind of place: the timber hall circa 3820-3690 cal BC; 3.1 The excavated evidence; 3.2 Palaeoenvironmental synthesis; 3.3 Discussion of the structure
3.4 The timber hall and the emergence of new ways of living3.5 Biographies of people and place; Chapter 4: The local context: other sites on the Crathes Castle Estate; 4.1 Other features in the Warren Field; 4.2 Neolithic features on the Crathes Castle Overflow Car Park site; Chapter 5: Radiocarbon dating; 5.1 The radiocarbon dating of the pit alignment and the timber hall; Chapter 6: The finds; 6.1 The pottery; 6.2 Organic residue analysis of pottery samples from Warren Field timber hall and the Crathes Castle Overflow Car Park site; 6.3 Stone tools; 6.4 A possible carbonised wooden bowl
EpilogueAppendices; Appendix 1: Details of features in the timber hall (Table 15); Appendix 2: Thin section descriptions (Table 16); Appendix 3: Pollen data (Tables 17-19); Bibliography
Summary
The site of Warren Field in Scotland revealed two unusual and enigmatic features; an alignment of pits and a large, rectangular feature interpreted as a timber building. Excavations confirmed that the timber structure was an early Neolithic building and that the pits had been in use from the Mesolithic. This report details the excavations and reveals that the hall was associated with the storage and or consumption of cereals, including bread wheat, and pollen evidence suggests that the hall may have been part of a larger area of activity involving cereal cultivation and processing. The pits ar