Secondary Neolithic

A term used to describe a number of Neolithic communities composed entirely of Mesolithic peoples who adopted Neolithic equipment. For example, in Britain this was a group characterized by the use of Peterborough Ware or Grooved Ware (Rinyo-Clacton Ware). Such groups of Mesolithic ancestry had acquired the arts of farming and associated crafts (like pottery manufacture) from Primary Neolithic groups, e.g. the Windmill Hill culture.

Term used by Stuart Piggott to describe a number of later Neolithic groups in Britain, characterized by the use of Peterborough ware or Grooved ware (Rinyo-Clacton Ware). He believed these groups to represent populations of Mesolithic ancestry who had acquired the arts of farming and associated crafts such as pottery manufacture from Primary Neolithic groups, such as the Windmill Hill culture, which he thought represented an intrusion of farming peoples from the Continent. This view is not widely held today: the later Neolithic groups in Britain are thought to have developed directly out of the earlier Windmill Hill group and the concept of a Secondary Neolithic in British prehistory is now unfashionable.