Temporal dynamics of Linearbandkeramik houses and settlements, and their implications for detecting the environmental impact of early farming

Long-held ideas concerning early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik (LBK) settlements in central Europe have been thoroughly challenged in recent years, for example, regarding their internal organisation or the use-life of individual houses. These topics have now also been addressed with the help of large radiocarbon (14C) datasets. In the light of this discussion, we present findings of our ongoing research at Vráble in south-western Slovakia. Intensive prospection by fieldwalking, geophysics and sedimentology, complemented by targeted excavations and archaeobotanical investigations, aims to unravel social and temporal relationships between three adjacent LBK settlements. A total of 23 of the c.300 houses revealed by geophysical prospection have been dated. Bayesian chronological modelling of this dataset, comprising 109 14C ages from 104 samples, indicates that the three LBK settlements at Vráble coexisted, and that overall the LBK settlement lasted for c. 200–300 years. Our results imply a ‘short’ use-life for individual houses (median c.20–30 y), suggesting that relatively few houses were inhabited simultaneously. Our data suggest that the overall LBK population at Vráble might have increased over the course of occupation, but probably never exceeded 200–300 individuals, based on the number of houses that could have been occupied contemporaneously. We compare the Vráble evidence with Bayesian chronologies for other LBK sites, and discuss the implications of these findings for models of population agglomeration and recognising the environmental impact of early farming communities.

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Dental calculus reveals Mesolithic foragers in the Balkans consumed domesticated plant foods

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1603477113 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 113 (37) ◽

pp. 10298-10303 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Emanuela Cristiani ◽

Anita Radini ◽

Marija Edinborough ◽

Dušan Borić

Keyword(s):

Direct Evidence ◽

Dental Calculus ◽

Southeast Europe ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Human Teeth ◽

Plant Foods ◽

The Balkans ◽

Farming Communities ◽

Early Farming ◽

Late Mesolithic

Researchers agree that domesticated plants were introduced into southeast Europe from southwest Asia as a part of a Neolithic “package,” which included domesticated animals and artifacts typical of farming communities. It is commonly believed that this package reached inland areas of the Balkans by ∼6200 calibrated (cal.) BC or later. Our analysis of the starch record entrapped in dental calculus of Mesolithic human teeth at the site of Vlasac in the Danube Gorges of the central Balkans provides direct evidence that already by ∼6600 cal. BC, if not earlier, Late Mesolithic foragers of this region consumed domestic cereals, such as Triticum monococcum, Triticum dicoccum, and Hordeum distichon, which were also the main crops found among Early Neolithic communities of southeast Europe. We infer that “exotic” Neolithic domesticated plants were introduced to southern Europe independently almost half a millennium earlier than previously thought, through networks that enabled exchanges between inland Mesolithic foragers and early farming groups found along the Aegean coast of Turkey.

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Recent research on early farming in central Europe

Documenta Praehistorica ◽

10.4312/dp.28.6 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 28 ◽

pp. 85-97 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Peter Bogucki

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Ongoing Debate ◽

Farming Communities ◽

Agricultural Communities ◽

History Of ◽

Early Farming

Farming communities were established in many parts of central Europe Between approximately 5600 and 4500 BC. Although these communities have been studied for over a century, much more remains to be learned about them. This article will provide an overview of the history of this research, some important recent discoveries, and a sense of the ongoing debate about the origins of these agricultural communities.

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6600–6000 cal BC Abrupt Climate Change and Neolithic Dispersal from West Asia

10.1093/oso/9780199329199.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Bernhard Weninger ◽

Lee Clare

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Abrupt Climate Change ◽

Western Anatolia ◽

Southeast Europe ◽

The Balkans ◽

Farming Communities ◽

Anatolian Plateau ◽

Decadal Scale ◽

Early Farming ◽

New Hypothesis

Recent advances in palaeoclimatological and meteorological research, combined with new radiocarbon data from western Anatolia and southeast Europe, lead us to formulate a new hypothesis for the temporal and spatial dispersal of Neolithic lifeways from their core areas of genesis. The new hypothesis, which we term the Abrupt Climate Change (ACC) Neolithization Model, incorporates a number of insights from modern vulnerability theory. We focus here on the Late Neolithic (Anatolian terminology), which is followed in the Balkans by the Early Neolithic (European terminology). From high-resolution 14C-case studies, we infer an initial (very rapid) west-directed movement of early farming communities out of the Central Anatolian Plateau towards the Turkish Aegean littoral. This move is exactly in phase (decadal scale) with the onset of ACC conditions (~6600 cal BC). Upon reaching the Aegean coastline, Neolithic dispersal comes to a halt. It is not until some 500 years later—that is, at the close of cumulative ACC and 8.2 ka cal BP Hudson Bay cold conditions—that there occurs a second abrupt movement of farming communities into Southeast Europe, as far as the Pannonian Basin. The spread of early farming from Anatolia into eastern Central Europe is best explained as Neolithic communities’ mitigation of biophysical and social vulnerability to natural (climate-induced) hazards.

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Herbivore diets and the anthropogenic environment of early farming in southern Scandinavia

The Holocene ◽

10.1177/0959683616652705 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 98-109 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Kurt J Gron ◽

Peter Rowley-Conwy

Keyword(s):

Early Period ◽

Bone Collagen ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Human Influence ◽

Domestic Species ◽

Southern Scandinavia ◽

Early Farming ◽

Dietary Variation ◽

Funnel Beaker Culture ◽

Feeding Environments

Farming practice in the first period of the southern Scandinavian Neolithic (Early Neolithic I, Funnel Beaker Culture, 3950–3500 cal. BC) is not well understood. Despite the presence of the first farmers and their domesticated plants and animals, little evidence of profound changes to the landscape such as widespread deforestation has emerged from this crucial early period. Bone collagen dietary stable isotope ratios of wild herbivores from southern Scandinavia are here analysed in order to determine the expected range of dietary variation across the landscape. Coupled with previously published isotope data, differences in dietary variation between wild and domestic species indicate strong human influence on the choice and creation of feeding environments for cattle. In context with palynological and zooarchaeological data, we demonstrate that a human-built agricultural environment was present from the outset of farming in the region, and such a pattern is consistent with the process by which expansion agriculture moves into previously unfarmed regions.

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In the light of new data: The population of the first farming communities in the eastern Marmara region

Praehistorische Zeitschrift ◽

10.1515/pz-2020-0004 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 95 (1) ◽

pp. 48-77

Author(s):

M. Songül Alpaslan-Roodenberg ◽

Jacob Roodenberg

Keyword(s):

Demographic Data ◽

Mortuary Practices ◽

Marmara Region ◽

Sea Of Marmara ◽

Degenerative Arthritis ◽

Farming Communities ◽

High Infant Mortality ◽

Early Farming ◽

Attitude Toward Death ◽

Early Farmers

AbstractFollowing on from a few decades of osteological analysis this study presents an assessment of the data retrieved from human population samples provided by four early farming sites, namely Ilıpınar, Menteşe, Barcın and Aktopraklık, located in the lake basins southeast of the Sea of Marmara. It highlights various aspects of that population such as demographic data, health, trauma, and ancient people’s attitude toward death. The research aims to identify and discuss similarities and dissimilarities between the studied Neolithic settlements in this region, especially with regard to paleo-demographic data and the use of violence. With exception of a small group of burials at Aktopraklık that contrasted with regular inhumations, it seems that mortuary practices barely differed from one community to another, and transcended across regional boundaries. The use of wooden planks covering the bottom of grave pits, which were first discovered at Ilıpınar, may serve as an example. Early farmers of the eastern Marmara region suffered mostly from joint diseases and degenerative arthritis. Their life expectancy was similar for adults of both sexes, at between 25–40 years, while two of the four communities showed high infant mortality.

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Confirmation of the first Neolithic rondel-type enclosure in Poland

Antiquity ◽

10.1017/s0003598x00048262 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 86 (334) ◽

pp. 1084-1096 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Zbigniew Kobyliński ◽

Otto Braasch ◽

Tomasz Herbich ◽

Krzysztof Misiewicz ◽

Louis Daniel Nebelsick ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Central Europe ◽

Aerial Photography ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

North East ◽

The North ◽

Danube Region

The early Neolithic rondel is a large curvilinear ditched and palisaded enclosure found in increasing numbers in Central Europe. It has close links with the tells of the Danube region, themselves highly suggestive instruments of the earliest Neolithic. Here the authors extend the distribution of rondels further to the north-east, with the discovery and verification of the first example in Poland. As they point out, it is aerial photography that made this advance possible and we can expect many more discoveries, given appropriate investment in the art.

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The First Neolithic Occupation of La Cova del Randero (Pedreguer, Alicante, Spain)

Open Archaeology ◽

10.1515/opar-2020-0206 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (1) ◽

pp. 1492-1505

Author(s):

Consuelo Roca de Togores Muñoz ◽

Laura M. Sirvent Cañada ◽

Silvia Martínez Amorós ◽

Olga Gómez Pérez ◽

Virginia Barciela González ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Radiocarbon Dating ◽

Ovis Aries ◽

Upper Palaeolithic ◽

Early Neolithic ◽

Specific Nature ◽

Environmental Characteristics ◽

Farming Communities ◽

Multidisciplinary Study ◽

Pastoral Communities ◽

Mountain Environment

Abstract The excavations at “Cova del Randero” (Pedreguer, Alicante, Spain) began in 2007 within the programme of archaeological interventions of the Archaeological Museum of Alicante. The cavity, located in one of the valleys that connect the coast with the inland mountains, presents a wide sequence of occupations that begins in the Upper Palaeolithic and continues throughout the different phases of the Neolithic. The results of a multidisciplinary study, carried out in an archaeological context associated with the first Neolithic presence of the cavity, are presented here. This occupation is defined by a unique combustion structure to which a set of artefacts and biofacts are linked. This archaeological context, probably of a specific nature, is related to the first agro-pastoral communities settled in the area. The fireplace is well defined stratigraphically and sedimentologically because of its reddish soil, which corresponds to hunter-gatherer occupation levels of the cavity, and under the greyish sediments that characterise the use of the cave as a fold during the Middle Neolithic. This occupation event was dated both by the associated materials, among which a fragment of cardial ceramic was found, and by radiocarbon dating of a metacarpus of Ovis aries around 5075–4910 cal BC (epicardial Early Neolithic). This data allows us to link the occupation of the cavity at this time with pastoral activity in a medium mountain environment. However, it also allows us to infer the environmental characteristics in which the first farming communities of the mountains of Alicante were developed.

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