Is there a British Chalcolithic? - People, Place and Polity in the later Third Millenium BC (Friday 18th - Sunday 20th April 2008) is a major international conference organised by the Prehistoric Society and Bournemouth University Centre for Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage. The conference will be held at the School of Conservation Sciences, Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, Dorset (England) and will discuss the British Chalcolithic in terms of society and culture and to compare this with our European parallels. Questions to address might be: why don't we use the term 'Chalcolithic' in the UK? Is there a distinctive Chalcolithic 'package’ incorporating more than just a bunch of objects, i.e. cultural traits, social organisation and monumentality? Or is it just a question of semantics?
     This conference is intended to be about people, and social context, seeing the bigger picture than individual sites or objects. The speakers will define and characterise artefacts assemblages, cultural identities and monumental activity and examine the presence, character or absence of a distinct Chalcolithic in British and Irish prehistory. Is the Chaloclithic synonymous with the Beaker phase? What is the Chalcolithic period, and what characteristics define it?
     Further details and on-line registration can be found online. You can also get in contact by email at csconferences@bournemouth.ac.uk