[quote="Evergreen Dazed"]I'm reading Huttons 'Pagan Religions..' at the moment and have been thinking about the evidence for Neolithic occupation found at some, as they remain now, IA hill fort sites.

I know finds of Neolithic houses are rare due to the nature of their construction, but I wonder if many, outside of very large communities, will be found on naturally defended areas such as hill tops, meaning a very large number will be under hill forts?

Apart from Durrington, Orkney (which is different anyway) I'm not sure in what sort of landscape Neolithic houses have been found in Britain. Were they in naturally defended areas?

Are we in the middle of a shift in thinking about the Neolithic in terms of a 'peaceful' time, and should we now consider it war-like, or is the general thinking still that Neolithic occupation of defended areas is an exception?[/quote

Hill tops do seem to have been used , relatively recent Irish discoveries are Knocknarea ,Turlough Hill (Co Clare )Mullafarghna (Co Sligo ) in Cornwall Carn Brea and more recent finds at Carn Galver and Helman Tor suggest settlement due to the amount of artefacts found . It was the hill tops that have the best evidence for warfare (as opposed to interpersonal violence ).

I've never bought the peaceful Neolithic stuff , it seems to have been politically inspired rather than evidence based , marxist : (Childe ) egalitarian society , everybody poor and happy with no place for the greedy and feminist : (Gimbutas )goddess worship until warrior blokes took over .