ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter connects the books themes of Gifts, Dwellings and Landmarks within a narrative for the period 2500–700 BC. The narrative is shaped by a relational theory of kinship and organised around accounts of six centuries. It opens with the twenty-fourth century, the arrival of continental populations and the widespread making, use and deposition of beaker pottery. The twenty-first and seventeenth centuries marked periods of localisation as regions took on distinct characters in mortuary rites and monument traditions. By the fourteenth century, settlements were widespread and varied, and in the eleventh century, imposing enclosures became powerful places in social life. The availability of iron during the eighth century weakened the kinship created through metalwork exchange and prestigious feasting rituals. New collective labour projects and prominent domestic settlements dominated social life.
