The Mount Pleasant Period is a phase of the later

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several part ...

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

dating to between c. 2750 BC and 2000 BC. It was so named by Colin Burgess in the 1970s using Mount Pleasant henge as its

typesite In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron Ag ...

. The period is divided into three phases, the Frankford industries, the Migdale-Marnoch industries and then the Ballyvalley-Aylesford industries. During this period, Beaker pottery appears in the archaeological record and metalworking, initially using

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

but with bronze working appearing at the end. It followed the Meldon Bridge Period and was superseded by the

Overton Period The Overton Period is the name given by archaeologist Colin Burgess to a division of prehistory in Britain covering the period between 2000 BC and 1650 BC. It follows the Mount Pleasant Period and precedes the Bedd Branwen Period, and is name ...

. There are parallels with the

Unetice culture The Únětice culture or Aunjetitz culture ( cs, Únětická kultura, german: Aunjetitzer Kultur, pl, Kultura unietycka) is an archaeological culture at the start of the Central European Bronze Age, dated roughly to about 2300–1600BC. The epo ...

of continental Europe.

Notes

References

Periods of the British Bronze Age {{UK-archaeology-stub