Lifting the Lid

: Investigating Ceramic Variability and Social Practices at the Onset of the Neolithic in the Outer Hebrides Through Organic Residue Analysis

Abstract

This thesis is an in-depth study of the culinary role of pottery from the Early-Middle Neolithic period in the Outer Hebrides. This is a region which is rich with unique archaeological features. These include crannog sites1 (small artificial islets) and a unique pottery tradition often made up of highly elaborated forms and decorative schemas. It is then of considerable interest to uncover information about dietary and subsistence patterns as well as potentially regionalised cultural practices in the region.

This study employed organic residue analysis to analyse the extracted lipid residues from 332 Neolithic Hebridean vessels. From this, the original contents of the vessels and, derived from this, the culinary and social role of these pots from different contexts were re-constructed and interpreted. Findings revealed that pots from domestic sites were used almost universally for processing dairy resources whereas those from crannogs were used significantly more for processing ruminant meat products. This supports the interpretation that Hebridean crannogs were special gathering places, wherein the commensal sharing of food took place and from which a unique set of Hebridean identities emerged (Copper and Armit 2018). Furthermore, the study was also to confirm differences in the culinary uses of different vessel forms including jars and Unstan bowls.

This in-depth analysis of a single region greatly expands the current corpus of data concerning Early Middle Neolithic dietary practices in Britain and Ireland. It also allowed comparison of these results with other middle Neolithic ceramic assemblages from other regions of Britain and Ireland. This comparison has revealed that although there were some broad similarities across regions, there were also traits completely unique to the Outer Hebrides, including, most significantly, the cooking of aquatic foodstuffs. It is likely that food played a key relational role in the construction and reinforcement of a unique Hebridean identity.

Date of Award	19 Feb 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Lucy J E Cramp (Supervisor) & Duncan Garrow (Supervisor)