The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe Read online

  THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF

  NEOLITHIC EUROPE

  THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF

  NEOLITHIC EUROPE

  Edited by

  CHRIS FOWLER, JAN HARDING,

  and

  DANIELA HOFMANN

  Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom

  Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University press in the UK and in certain other countries

  © Oxford University Press 2015

  The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

  First Edition published in 2015

  Impression: 1

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  Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

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  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Data available

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015930592

  ISBN 978–0–19–954584–1

  eISBN 978–0–19–166689–6

  Cover image: anthropomorphic figurine in kaolinite, 4000–3500 BC, from Cuccuru S’Arriu (Cabras). National Archeological Museum, Cagliari, Sardinia.

  © Alinari Archives/Getty Images.

  Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

  PREFACE

  THIS book is an ambitious project, involving over 70 authors working in more than 45 different institutions in 15 countries. We would like to thank all the authors for their hard work. A number of contributors agreed to co-author chapters with specialists they had not worked with before, sometimes based in different countries, and we have been delighted with the degree of cooperation and collaboration between them. This has been vital in producing a series of chapters that work across the national and regional boundaries which have often deflected archaeologists from synthesis at a scale that matches that of Neolithic phenomena. With a work of this scope, it is perhaps inevitable for delays to occur, and we would like to thank all contributors for their patience during this process.

  First conceived in 2007, the Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe provides summaries of key debates that are ongoing and will remain current over coming years. The future is bright and exciting, and the chapters in the volume aim to function as valued waypoints, marking out how that future looks now and outlining how scholars have arrived at their present positions. Many authors reflect on emerging and future research at the time of writing; some have marked their chapters with a ‘date stamp’ indicating the last time that content was updated to put it in precise context, but all of the trends and trajectories identified remain valid at the time of press. Nonetheless, the European Neolithic is a very dynamic field of study, with every year yielding further projects on varied aspects of life in this period; just in the lifetime of the production of this volume there have been numerous significant developments in radiocarbon dating and chronologies, palaeo-genetics, and the application of stable isotope analyses, to name just a few. No such work can be exhaustive, but this volume aims to be highly representative and as comprehensive as possible, both in terms of the regions and material covered and analytical methods and interpretative approaches.

  Copyright permission for images has been obtained from the legal holder wherever possible. Every effort has been made to identify and contact the copyright holders, but in some cases this has not been possible; for instance, where the age of the images is such that their creators have passed away and/or the publisher no longer exists. Throughout, the copyright holders are acknowledged for each image, and we would like to reiterate our thanks to them here. If oversights or errors are identified with copyright acknowledgements we undertake to investigate these and if appropriate correct the information in any future edition. The editors would like to thank John Robb for supplying the base maps adapted for Maps 1–4.

  We would like to thank Hilary O’Shea for commissioning the volume, three anonymous reviewers of the initial proposal for their constructive comments, Taryn Das Neves, Annie Rose, and Michael Dela Cruz at OUP for producing the hard copy and online versions of the book, and Sivaraman G, Janish Ashwin, and Prashanthi Nadipalli, Sunoj Sankaran at Newgen for their work with the copy-editing.

  CONTENTS

  List of Figures

  List of Contributors

  Maps

  PART I INTRODUCTION

  1.The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe: An Introduction

  CHRIS FOWLER, JAN HARDING, AND DANIELA HOFMANN

  PART II MOBILITY, CHANGE, AND INTERACTION AT THE LARGE SCALE

  2.Environments and Landscape Change

  TONY BROWN, GEOFF BAILEY, AND DAVE PASSMORE

  Movement of Plants, Animals, Ideas, and People

  3.Movement of Plants, Animals, Ideas, and People in South-East Europe

  JOHANNES MÜLLER

  4.The Neolithization of Mediterranean Europe: Mobility and Interactions from the Near East to the Iberian Peninsula

  JEAN GUILAINE

  5.Central and Eastern Europe

  WOLFRAM SCHIER

  6.Moving Animals and Plants in the Early Neolithic of North-Western Europe

  ANNE TRESSET

  7.Language, Genes, and Cultural Interaction

  STEPHEN SHENNAN

  Sequences of Cultural Interaction and Cultural Change

  8.The Balkan Neolithic and Chalcolithic

  JOHN CHAPMAN

  9.The Neolithic in Mediterranean Europe

  CAROLINE MALONE

  10.Early Neolithic Manifestations in Central and Eastern Europe

  DETLEF GRONENBORN AND PAVEL DOLUKHANOV

  11.The Atlantic Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition

  NICK THORPE

  PART III NEOLITHIC WORLDS AND NEOLITHIC LIFEWAYS

  Houses, Habitation, and Community

  12.Settlements in South-East Europe

  PÁL RACZKY

  13.Domestic Space in the Mediterranean

  DEMETRA PAPACONSTANTINOU

  14.Longhouse Lifestyles in the Central European Neolithic

  JONATHAN LAST

  15.Lakeside Dwellings in the Circum alpine region

  FRANCESCO MENOTTI

  16.The Bandkeramik Longhouses: A Material, Social, and Mental Metaphor for Small-Scale Sedentary Societies

  ANICK COUDART

  17.Houses, Halls, and Occupation in Britain and Ireland

  KENNETH BROPHY

  18.Places of Settlement in Southern Scandinavia

  MATS LARSSON

  Subsistence and Social Routine

  19.Stable Isotopes and Neolithic Subsistence: Pattern and Variation

  RICK SCHULTING

  20.Subsistence Practices and Social Routine in Neolithic Southern Europe

  AMY BOGAARD AND PAUL HALSTEAD

/>   21.Subsistence Practices in Central and Eastern Europe

  LÁSZLÓ BARTOSIEWICZ AND MALCOLM LILLIE

  22.Subsistence Practices in Western and Northern Europe

  PETER ROWLEY-CONWY AND TONY LEGGE

  23.The Neolithic Year

  DIMITRIJ MLEKUŽ

  24.Religious Routine and Pilgrimage in the British Isles

  ROY LOVEDAY

  Materiality and Social Relations

  25.Invention and European Knapping Traditions

  MARJORIE DE GROOTH

  26.Shared Labour and Large-scale Action: European Flint Mining

  MARTA CAPOTE AND PEDRO DÍAZ-DEL-RÍO

  27.Stone and Flint Axes in Neolithic Europe

  GABRIEL COONEY

  28.Pots and Potters in the Mesolithic–Neolithic Transition in South-East Europe

  MIHAEL BUDJA

  29.Linearbandkeramik Pottery and Society

  JOACHIM PECHTL

  30.Ceramics and Society in Northern Europe

  JOHANNES MÜLLER AND RICK PETERSON

  31.Bell Beaker Pottery and Society

  MARC VANDER LINDEN

  32.A Miniature World: Models and Figurines in South-East Europe

  STRATOS NANOGLOU

  33.Spondylus gaederopus/Glycymeris Exchange Networks in the European Neolithic and Chalcolithic

  JOHN CHAPMAN AND BISSERKA GAYDARSKA

  34.Amber

  TONY AXELSSON, MORTEN RAMSTAD, AND ANDERS STRINNHOLM

  35.The First Metalwork and Expressions of Social Power

  VOLKER HEYD AND KATHARINE WALKER

  36.Early Metallurgy in Iberia and the Western Mediterranean

  MARTIN BARTELHEIM AND MARK PEARCE

  37.Early Metallurgy in Western and Northern Europe

  BENJAMIN W. ROBERTS AND CATHERINE J. FRIEMAN

  38.Deposition in Pits

  DUNCAN GARROW

  39.Animals and Social Relations

  ARKADIUSZ MARCINIAK AND JOSHUA POLLARD

  Monuments, Rock Art, and Cosmology

  40.Central European Enclosures

  JÖRG PETRASCH

  41.Italian Enclosures

  ROBIN SKEATES

  42.Causewayed Enclosures in Northern and Western Europe

  NIELS H. ANDERSEN

  43.Chambered Tombs and Passage Graves of Western and Northern Europe

  VICKI CUMMINGS, MAGDALENA S. MIDGLEY, AND CHRIS SCARRE

  44.Neolithic Rock Art in Iberia

  SARA FAIRÉN-JIMÉNEZ

  45.The Rock Art Tradition of Valcamonica–Valtellina during the Neolithic Period

  ANGELO EUGENIO FOSSATI

  46.Rock Art and the Rock Surface: Neolithic Rock Art Traditions of Britain, Ireland, and Northernmost Europe

  ANDREW COCHRANE, ANDREW MEIRION JONES, AND KALLE SOGNNES

  47.Underground Religion in the Central Mediterranean Neolithic

  ROBIN SKEATES

  48.A Place in the Cosmos: Celestial Bodies and the Passage Graves of Western Europe

  MICHAEL HOSKIN

  Death, Bodies, and Persons

  49.Mortuary Practices, Bodies, and Persons in the Neolithic and Early–Middle Copper Age of South-East Europe

  DUŠAN BORIĆ

  50.Burial and Human Body Representations in the Mediterranean Neolithic

  JOHN ROBB

  51.Mortuary Practices, Bodies, and Persons in Central Europe

  DANIELA HOFMANN AND JÖRG ORSCHIEDT

  52.Mortuary Practices, Bodies, and Persons in Northern Europe

  KARL-GÖRAN SJÖGREN

  53.Mortuary Practices and Bodily Representations in North-West Europe

  CHRIS FOWLER AND CHRIS SCARRE

  PART IV CONCLUSION: DEBATES IN NEOLITHIC ARCHAEOLOGY

  54.Unexpected Histories? South-East and Central Europe

  ALASDAIR WHITTLE

  55.Commentary: What Do We Mean by ‘Neolithic Societies’?

  JULIAN THOMAS

  56.The Decline of the Neolithic and the Rise of Bronze Age Society

  KRISTIAN KRISTIANSEN

  Author Index

  Subject Index

  LIST OF FIGURES

  1.1Schematic representation of main archaeological cultures by key area.

  2.1The present climates of Europe with local Mediterranean winds.

  2.2Proxy climatic reconstruction from two raised mires in the UK.

  2.3Dendrochonologically dated wild animal bone frequencies and cultures from eastern and western Swiss Neolithic lake villages.

  2.4The probability density function of alluvial radiocarbon dates for upland and lowland river catchments in Great Britain during the Neolithic.

  3.1Early Neolithic networks in south-eastern Europe.

  3.2Transhumance and communication: the Dinaric example of early Neolithic farmers and Mesolithic foragers.

  3.3Okolište, the Visoko basin, and the reconstruction of local and regional late Neolithic mobility.

  3.4Distribution of tell settlements, copper production, Spondylus, and shaft-hole axes in south-east Europe.

  3.5The distribution of local and exotic items in burials of the central area of the Varna cemetery

  4.1Reconstruction of Parekklisha–Shillourokambos.

  4.2Map of the ‘arrhythmic’ diffusion of agriculture throughout Europe.

  4.3Early Neolithic Impressed Ware of the central and western Mediterranean.

  5.1Distribution of earliest LBK, 5500–5300 BC and early to late LBK, 5300–4900 BC.

  5.2Circular enclosure at Ippesheim, Bavaria, c. 4900–4800 BC.

  5.3Wheels and wagon parts in the circumalpine region 3500–2500 BC.

  5.4Earliest evidence for wheeled transport in central and eastern Europe.

  5.5Reconstruction of a triangular two-wheeled wagon with detachable rotating axle, based on the wooden drag fragment from Reute, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (3709–3707 BC).

  6.1Main flows of domesticate diffusion during the Neolithization of Europe.

  7.1Summed radiocarbon date probabilities taken as a proxy measure for the Neolithic populations of several regions of north-west Europe.

  8.1Map of key sites in the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin.

  8.2Schematic representation of cognitive complexity in later prehistoric Bulgaria.

  8.3(a) Plan of Polyanitsa Phase IV; (b) dispersed tell network.

  8.4Spatial scale of mortuary practices.

  9.1Map of a modified ‘wave of advance’ in 200-km arcs, showing the expansion of Neolithic farming and culture into the Mediterranean with additional radiometric dates and broad ceramic groups.

  9.2Diagram summarizing explanatory models for the spread of farming.

  10.1The spread of the Neolithic in western Eurasia. (a) Early Atlantic, (b) Middle Atlantic, (c) the three streams of Neolithization and the palaeogenetic map of the early Holocene.

  10.2Neolithic cultures in central Europe.

  10.3Neolithic cultures in eastern Europe and Siberia.

  12.1The geographical distribution of Neolithic tell settlements in south-east Europe between 6700/6500 and 4600/4500 BC.

  12.2The tell settlement of Berettyóújfalu-Herpály with excavation trenches from 1977 to 1982.

  12.3The tell settlement of Berettyóújfalu-Herpály. Detail of a north–south section showing the stratigraphic sequence.

  12.4The tell settlement of Berettyóújfalu-Herpály. Reconstruction of house 11, a two-storey building, with the objects found within.

  13.1A post-framed structure typical of the main habitation phase of Makri in Greece.

  13.2House no. 4.7, Asagi Pinar layer 4, western Anatolia.

  13.3Complex of structures, Khirokitia Vounous, Cyprus.

  14.1Representative house-plans; (a) early LBK; (b) middle/late LBK; (c) middle Neolithic.

  14.2Different models of household space in the LBK. (a) Layout of pits within the Hofplatz in the Merzbachtal; (b) discard patterns in the flanking pits at Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes; (c) fenced enclosure attached to an SBK longhouse at Atting-
Rinkam.

  14.3Examples of settlement layouts. (a) Rows of successive early LBK houses at Schwanfeld; (b) houses and enclosures at Erkelenz-Kückhoven; (c) related geometry of selected houses and the northern enclosure at Köln-Lindenthal; (d) Rössen longhouses with suggested Hofplätze and communal structures at Inden.

  15.1Schematic drawing of the Pfahlbauproblem (the lake-dwelling dispute).

  15.2Reconstruction of two Neolithic lake-dwelling houses (left: Hornstaad-Hörnle, Germany; right: Arbon-Bleiche 3, Switzerland).

  15.3Internal division of a wetland Neolithic house at Ehrenstein (Schussenried culture), Germany.

  15.4Miniature model of houses and surroundings of the Arbon-Bleiche 3 Neolithic lake-dwelling settlement.

  16.1Reconstruction of a Linearbandkeramik house, Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes, Paris Basin, France.

  16.2(1) Tripartite Linearbandkeramik house; (2) bipartite house.

  16.3(1) Options for the front section; (2) options for the central section; (3) options for the rear section; (4) options for the ground plan.

  16.4The abstract structuration of the Bandkeramik longhouse tradition.

  17.1Interpretive plans of early Neolithic rectangular timber buildings in Britain and Ireland.

  17.2Excavation of a possible Neolithic house at Laigh Newton, Ayrshire.

  17.3Plans of the four excavated early Neolithic timber halls in lowland Scotland.

  17.4Interpretive plans of various late Neolithic sub-circular buildings in Britain and Ireland.

  18.1Early Neolithic houses at Dagstorp, western Scania.

  18.2The Pitted Ware site Fräkenrönningen.

  18.3Late Neolithic houses from Fosie IV, Malmö.

  19.1Map showing locations of key sites.

  19.2δ13C and δ15N values on human bone collagen from Neolithic sites in eastern Sweden.

  19.3δ13C and δ15N values on human bone collagen from Neolithic sites in Greece.

  19.4Cattle and human δ13C and δ15N results for selected earlier Neolithic sites in southern Britain.

  20.1Sites in south-east Europe mentioned in the text.

  20.2Sites in south-west Europe mentioned in the text.

  21.1Selective processes and feedback systems determining the interpretation of bioarchaeological evidence.

  21.2Stable isotope analysis of Ukrainian and Latvian late Mesolithic and early Neolithic human and faunal remains.