Note: this research framework, created by Alison Sheridan (National Museums Scotland) and Gabriel Cooney (University College Dublin), forms part of an article, ‘The Boyne to Brodgar initiative: understanding – and preserving, presenting and raising awareness of – Neolithic monuments and the people who built and used them in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man’, which will appear in the spring 2016 edition of the Journal of Irish Archaeology. The authors thank the Editor, Carleton Jones, and the publisher, Nick Maxwell, for permission to reproduce it here.

• Research theme 1: the beginnings of Neolithic monumentality
• Research theme 2: regional trajectories (and inter-regional connections)
• Research theme 3: late fourth and early third millennium developments linked to inter-regional and long-distance contacts
• Research theme 4: Late Neolithic monumentality and the impact of the appearance of novel Continental practices around the 25th century
• Research theme 5: the builders and users of Neolithic monuments, the cultural and physical environment in which the monuments were built, and the meaning of the monuments
• References for five themes