Excavation of islands around Britain to establish origins of Neolithic period
Archaeologists at the University of Liverpool are investigating three island groups around Britain to further understanding of why, in approximately 4,000 BC, humans altered their lifestyle from hunting and gathering to farming the land.
Some scholars believe that this change occurred due to colonists from the continent moving into Britain, bringing farming and pottery-making skills with them, but others argue that the indigenous population of Britain adopted this new lifestyle gradually on their own terms.
To shed new light on the debate, archaeologists, in collaboration with the University of Southampton, are excavating three island groups in the western seaways and producing oceanographic models to understand what sailing across this area would have been like in 4,000 BC. The team will also construct a database of 5th and 4th millennium occupation sites.
It will be interesting to see how they interpret what they find. It could be that people were moving over bringing farming with them (along with their artifacts) or diffusion of farming practices and trade/exchange with artifacts, although if everything was coming over as a set piece, one would tend to argue for migration. I believe in other parts of Europe genetic evidence has trended towards migration of agriculturalists rather than diffusion of practices.
UPDATE: More at The Independent.
