“Grisly figures from the first systematic survey of early Neolithic British skulls reveal that life then was no rural idyll.” (New Scientist) Muggings were rife, deaths from assault-related head injuries a common cause of death. In and of itself this information is not telling, but it certainly does some harm to the myth of the Neolithic pastorale and the notion that scourges such as war and crime are products of the rise of the city-state, domestication and agriculture, and social class distinctions.