This thesis uses behavioural foundations, with a task-based methodology, to examine the nature of places in a prehistoric river valley, using assemblage size, type and distribution of artefacts. The aim is to analyse concepts of settlement sites, and to
question the categorisations, scale and direction of interpretations and archaeological narratives. For example, at a recent meeting to discuss the relationship between human behaviour and Mesolithic sites, it was pointed out that the concept of ‘off-site’ archaeology was a complete oxymoron (Wickham-Jones; 2021a). How could there have been activity ‘off’ the site when the site is purely our own construct? Although this contradiction is often acknowledged, in practice it has been more difficult to integrate the scale of site-based investigation with the archaeological record of a wider
contemporary landscape. This means that specific site-based narratives persist and often give a generalised perspective on prehistoric chronologies. A focus on sites with ‘absolute’ dates, for example, makes it hard to see scales in practice, or relationships
between sites (and spaces in between), or between separate groups of people, including Mesolithic and Neolithic ‘cultures’. Despite these tensions, however, dominant and homogenous accounts of chronologies have been, and can be challenged (e.g. see Conneller and Overton; 2018, for Early Mesolithic, Griffiths; 2014, for Late Mesolithic Early Neolithic), as have conflated narratives of subsistence (e.g. Milner; 2006), and gender-situated tasks (e.g. Finlay; 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006). The results of this thesis
suggest further challenges may come from integration of diverse data sources