Penny Bickle is Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of York and her research focuses on daily routine in the Neolithic period.
Bickle's research focuses on life in the Neolithic period. She is Principal Investigator for the Counter Culture project, which investigates social diversity in central Europe across one thousand years of the Neolithic period. [1] She is an adviser on Consuming Prehistory project, which examines food consumption at Stonehenge. [2] She was featured on BBC Radio 3 discussing the importance that finds of pig bones could have for the site. [3] Another area of interest for Bickle is the role that dairy played in prehistoric diet. [4] She collaborated on the NeoMilk Project which examined the role of cattle and dairy products in Neolithic Europe. [5]
The role of gender in prehistoric societies is one that Bickle has explored, examining the differences between male-sexed and female-sexed bodies in Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture. [6] This research includes examining isotopic, archaeological and osteological data from Moravia and western Slovakia. [7] She has also examined ageing and childhood in the LBK culture and how it intersects with social identity. [8]
Bickle is leading a research project examining the Neolithic at Wildmore Fen, Lincolnshire. [9] She is also interested in different theoretical approaches to archaeology. [10] Bickle wrote the entry for 'Science and Feminism' in the Encyclopaedia of Archaeological Sciences. [11]
Bickle graduated from the University of Sheffield with a degree in Archaeology in 2002. [12] She worked in commercial archaeology before moving to Cardiff University to study for her MA, graduating in 2004. [12] She then studied for a PhD examining at Neolithic architecture in northern France, which was awarded in 2009. [12] It was entitled: Life and death of the longhouse: Daily life during and after the early Neolithic in the river valleys of the Paris Basin. [13] Post-doctoral, interdisciplinary projects included: part of a team at the Universities of Oxford and Durham, she worked on Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture in Europe; [14] then at the University of Cardiff on The Times of Their Lives, which used Bayesian statistical analysis to create more precise chronologies for the Neolithic. [15]
Bickle was appointed Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of York in 2014, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2019. [12]
Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons, two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument, now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli.
The Bell Beaker culture, also known as the Bell Beaker complex or Bell Beaker phenomenon, is an archaeological culture named after the inverted-bell beaker drinking vessel used at the very beginning of the European Bronze Age, arising from around 2800 BC. Bell Beaker culture lasted in Britain from c. 2450 BC, with the appearance of single burial graves, until as late as 1800 BC, but in continental Europe only until 2300 BC, when it was succeeded by the Unetice culture. The culture was widely dispersed throughout Western Europe, being present in many regions of Iberia and stretching eastward to the Danubian plains, and northward to the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and was also present in the islands of Sardinia and Sicily and some coastal areas in north-western Africa. The Bell Beaker phenomenon shows substantial regional variation, and a study from 2018 found that it was associated with genetically diverse populations.
The Vinča culture (ʋîːntʃa), also known as Turdaș culture, Turdaș–Vinča culture or Vinča-Turdaș culture, is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southeast Europe, dated to the period 5400–4500 BC. Named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo, a large tell settlement discovered by Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasić in 1908, it represents the material remains of a prehistoric society mainly distinguished by its settlement pattern and ritual behaviour.
The Únětice culture, Aunjetitz culture or Unetician culture is an archaeological culture at the start of the Central European Bronze Age, dated roughly to about 2300–1600 BC. The eponymous site for this culture, the village of Únětice, is located in the central Czech Republic, northwest of Prague. There are about 1,400 documented Únětice culture sites in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, 550 sites in Poland, and, in Germany, about 500 sites and loose finds locations. The Únětice culture is also known from north-eastern Austria, and from western Ukraine.
Bylany is a Danubian Neolithic archaeological site located around 65 km (40 mi) east of Prague in the Czech region of Bohemia. Excavation began in 1955 and work continues today.
The Neolithic long house was a long, narrow timber dwelling built by the first farmers in Europe beginning at least as early as the period 5000 to 6000 BC. They first appeared in central Europe in connection with the early Neolithic cultures such as the Linear Pottery culture or Cucuteni culture. This type of architecture represents the largest free-standing structure in the world in its era. Long houses are present across numerous regions and time periods in the archaeological record.
Cardium pottery or Cardial ware is a Neolithic decorative style that gets its name from the imprinting of the clay with the heart-shaped shell of the Corculum cardissa, a member of the cockle family Cardiidae. These forms of pottery are in turn used to define the Neolithic culture which produced and spread them, commonly called the "Cardial culture".
Caroline Ann Tuke Malone is a British academic and archaeologist. She was Professor of Prehistory at Queen's University, Belfast from 2013 and is now emeritus professor.
The Rössen culture or Roessen culture is a Central European culture of the middle Neolithic.
The Michelsberg culture is an important Neolithic culture in Central Europe. Its dates are c. 4400–3500 BC. Its conventional name is derived from that of an important excavated site on Michelsberg hill near Untergrombach, between Karlsruhe and Heidelberg (Baden-Württemberg), Germany.
C. Joshua Pollard is a British archaeologist who is a professor of archaeology at the University of Southampton. He gained his BA and PhD in archaeology from the Cardiff University, and is a specialist in the archaeology of the Neolithic period in the UK and north-west Europe, especially in relation to the study of depositional practices, monumentality, and landscape. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
The Talheim Death Pit, discovered in 1983, was a mass grave found in a Linear Pottery Culture settlement, also known as a Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture. It dates back to about 5000 BC. The pit takes its name from its site in Talheim, Germany. The pit contained the remains of 34 bodies, and evidence points towards the first signs of organized violence in Early Neolithic Europe.
Julian Stewart Thomas is a British archaeologist, publishing on the Neolithic and Bronze Age prehistory of Britain and north-west Europe. Thomas has been vice president of the Royal Anthropological Institute since 2007. He has been Professor of Archaeology at the University of Manchester since 2000, and is former secretary of the World Archaeological Congress. Thomas is perhaps best known as the author of the academic publication Understanding the Neolithic in particular, and for his work with the Stonehenge Riverside Project.
Timothy Darvill OBE is an English archaeologist and author, best known for his publications on prehistoric Britain and his excavations in England, Wales, and the Isle of Man. He is Professor of Archaeology in the Faculty of Science and Technology Bournemouth University in England. In April 2008 he co-directed excavations within Stonehenge, together with Professor Geoffrey Wainwright and Dr Miles Russell, to examine the early stone structures on the site. The work featured heavily in a BBC Timewatch programme which examined the theory that Stonehenge was a prehistoric centre of healing. He was appointed OBE in the 2010 Queen's Birthday Honours.
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK) is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic period, flourishing c. 5500–4500 BC. Derived from the German Linearbandkeramik, it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, falling within the Danubian I culture of V. Gordon Childe.
The Karsdorf remains are the bodies of more than 30 Neolithic humans who were buried in the vicinity of Karsdorf, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.
Elisabeth Ruttkay was a Hungarian-born, naturalized Austrian citizen, who was an archaeologist specializing in New Stone Age and Bronze Age studies in Austria. She was the winner of both the Lower Austria Promotion Prize and the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.
Alexandra Bayliss is a British archaeologist and academic. She is Head of Scientific Dating at Historic England, and a part-time Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Her research focuses on the construction of exact chronologies of European Neolithic archaeological sites, through the application of Bayesian statistical modelling of radiocarbon dates.
Early European Farmers (EEF), First European Farmers, Neolithic European Farmers, Ancient Aegean Farmers, or Anatolian Neolithic Farmers are names used to describe a distinct group of early Neolithic farmers who brought agriculture to Europe and Northwest Africa (Maghreb). Although the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe has long been recognised through archaeology, it is only recent advances in archaeogenetics that have confirmed that this spread was strongly correlated with a migration of these farmers, and was not just a cultural exchange.
Barbara Bender is an anthropologist and archaeologist. She is currently Emeritus Professor of Heritage Anthropology at University College London.