While the past doesn't change, our knowledge and understanding of it are being transformed by new discoveries and new research – and this is especially the case with the Neolithic period, the time of the first farming communities from the late 5th millennium to around 2500 BCE.

This lecture offers some highlights from the past decade or so – from the revelations provided by the application of ancient DNA analysis to human and other animal remains, to the spectacular discoveries at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney and the surprising results of a major, French-led, international research project, Projet JADE on the use of jadeite and other Alpine rocks to make very special axeheads such as the one from Newton Peverill on display in Dorset Museum.

Dr Alison Sheridan is a retired Principal Curator of Early Prehistory and now Research Associate with National Museums Scotland, Edinburgh. Her archaeological career began in Dorset when, as a 13-year-old schoolgirl, she was accepted to join Bill Putnam's dig at Dewlish Roman Villa.

She has specialised in the Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age of Britain and Ireland and has written and lectured extensively about the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition and about 4th to 2nd millennium BCE material culture.

You may have seen her on Time Team, Meet the Ancestors and Digging for Britain and in 2020, she was voted Current Archaeology's Archaeologist of the Year.