scholarly journals Late Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers in Central Europe: new data from eastern Poland

Antiquity ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Tadeusz Wiśniewski ◽  
Barbara Niezabitowska-Wiśniewska

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1295-1344
Author(s):  
Erich Kirschneck

Abstract La Hoguette and Limburg pottery and the role their producers played in the Neolithization of western Central Europe are still a matter of debate. These styles exist in parallel to Linearbandkeramik (LBK) but are different from LBK pottery and here called Non-LBK wares. The various Non-LBK styles are mainly defined based on decoration, but this does not coincide with important technological features. Therefore, an technological approach including the parameters of temper, vessel morphology, and firing methods was used for an alternative classification and to trace knowledge transmission networks. It is suggested that several technologically distinguishable Non-LBK pottery traditions of different geographical origins existed contemporaneously in western Central Europe. While the early mineral- and organic-tempered ware shows some similarities with the Earliest and Early LBK, the widespread early bone-tempered pottery with its uniform design cannot be traced back to either Cardial or LBK pottery. This is probably the oldest pottery in western Central Europe. This means that here pottery emerged first as a tradition outside both the LBK and Cardial cultures. Increasing interaction between producers of various Non-LBK wares and LBK pottery makers can then be traced over several centuries. All styles are shown to be diverse and dynamic and to be undergoing substantial internal development. The persistent mutual influencing is a key for understanding the development of Non-LBK pottery, as well as for innovations within LBK ceramic production. Here, a hypothesis is proposed that the makers of Non-LBK wares may be hunter-gatherers, although this cannot currently be proven.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexey G. Nikitin ◽  
Peter Stadler ◽  
Nadezhda Kotova ◽  
Maria Teschler-Nicola ◽  
T. Douglas Price ◽  
...  

AbstractArchaeogenetic research over the last decade has demonstrated that European Neolithic farmers (ENFs) were descended primarily from Anatolian Neolithic farmers (ANFs). ENFs, including early Neolithic central European Linearbandkeramik (LBK) farming communities, also harbored ancestry from European Mesolithic hunter gatherers (WHGs) to varying extents, reflecting admixture between ENFs and WHGs. However, the timing and other details of this process are still imperfectly understood. In this report, we provide a bioarchaeological analysis of three individuals interred at the Brunn 2 site of the Brunn am Gebirge-Wolfholz archeological complex, one of the oldest LBK sites in central Europe. Two of the individuals had a mixture of WHG-related and ANF-related ancestry, one of them with approximately 50% of each, while the third individual had approximately all ANF-related ancestry. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios for all three individuals were within the range of variation reflecting diets of other Neolithic agrarian populations. Strontium isotope analysis revealed that the ~50% WHG-ANF individual was non-local to the Brunn 2 area. Overall, our data indicate interbreeding between incoming farmers, whose ancestors ultimately came from western Anatolia, and local HGs, starting within the first few generations of the arrival of the former in central Europe, as well as highlighting the integrative nature and composition of the early LBK communities.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexey G. Nikitin ◽  
Peter Stadler ◽  
Nadezhda Kotova ◽  
Maria Teschler-Nicola ◽  
T. Douglas Price ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTArchaeogenetic research over the last decade has demonstrated that European Neolithic farmers (ENFs) were descended primarily from Anatolian Neolithic farmers (ANFs). ENFs, including early Neolithic central European Linearbandkeramik (LBK) farming communities, also harbored ancestry from European Mesolithic hunter gatherers (WHGs) to varying extents, reflecting admixture between ENFs and WHGs. However, the timing and other details of this process are still imperfectly understood. In this report, we provide a bioarchaeological analysis of three individuals interred at the Brunn 2 site of the Brunn am Gebirge-Wolfholz archeological complex, one of the oldest LBK sites in central Europe. Two of the individuals had a mixture of WHG-related and ANF-related ancestry, one of them with approximately 50% of each, while the third individual had approximately all ANF-related ancestry. Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios for all three individuals were within the range of variation reflecting diets of other Neolithic agrarian populations. Strontium isotope analysis revealed that the ~50% WHG-ANF individual was non-local to the Brunn 2 area. Overall, our data indicate interbreeding between incoming farmers, whose ancestors ultimately came from western Anatolia, and local HGs, starting within the first few generations of the arrival of the former in central Europe, as well as highlighting the integrative nature and composition of the early LBK communities.


2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Hofmann

This paper is concerned with the impact of ancient DNA data on our models of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in central Europe. Beginning with a brief overview of how genetic data have been received by archaeologists working in this area, it outlines the potential and remaining problems of this kind of evidence. As a migration around the beginning of the Neolithic now seems certain, new research foci are then suggested. One is renewed attention to the motivations and modalities of the migration process. The second is a fundamental change in attitude towards the capabilities of immigrant Neolithic populations to behave in novel and creative ways, abilities which in our transition models were long exclusively associated with hunter-gatherers.


2015 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 380-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Sterling

Landscape archaeologies that pay attention to cultural importance of place have become increasingly common in recent years in many parts of the world. However, these approaches have largely failed to make inroads into Pleistocene European hunter–gatherer archaeology. This is partly due to a focus on economics, survival, and neo-liberal assumptions of ‘efficiency’ in early modern human behaviour. With evidence of lithic use drawn from cave sites, survey, and open-air excavation, I argue that Upper Paleolithic hunter–gatherers left clues to the importance of certain places in the landscape. Lithic tools in particular have been undervalued for their symbolic meaning, which goes well beyond style and ethnicity models. Raw material has been seen as evidence of mobility and trade, but possible cultural motives behind material choices have been downplayed or ignored.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 116-124
Author(s):  
Marek Nowak

The origins of the Neolithic, understood as a phenomenon with food economy dependent on agriculture, in east-central Europe are associated with the appearance of communities reflected by the Linear Band Pottery culture (LBK) in ca . 5500 BC. These communities settled only small enclaves, distinguished by ecological conditions favourable to farming. Situation of this kind persisted in the 5th millennium BC, when territories under discussion were inhabited by post-Linear groups. Consequently, at that time, hunter-gatherers still occupied ca. 70% of these territories. Such situation changed from 4200/4100 BC onwards, due to the formation and spectacular territorial expansion of the Funnel Beaker culture (TRB). This expansion covered both the areas previously inhabited by hunter-gatherers and farmers. Around 3500 BC Neolithic formation encompassed virtually the whole of this part of Central Europe. Parallel to the first and second Neolithisations, independent processes of ceramisation of the Late Mesolithic communities proceeded. While in the 5th millennium BC they were fairly selective, in the 4th millennium BC they were quite intensive. A new cultural model formed here which might be called para-Neolithic. Archaeological data indicate contacts between TRB and para-Neolithic communities. The latter phenomena (mainly the Neman culture) show also a significant territorial development.


Author(s):  
Penny Bickle ◽  
Alasdair Whittle

The Neolithic period worldwide can readily be identified as one of the great transformations in human history—in Europe, there were no farmers at c.7000 cal BC, but very few hunter-gatherers after c.4000 cal BC—with long-term consequences still felt today. However, it remains difficult to capture both the detail of everyday lives during the Neolithic, and the flow of long-term transformations. This introduction asks how we are to combine all our expanding data, and at what scales we should interpret them. The challenges facing integrated and multi-scalar approaches are illustrated by a recent project on Linearbandkeramik (LBK) lifeways in central Europe, which united isotopic, osteological and archaeological analyses in an investigation of cultural diversity. The other chapters that follow are introduced. The chapter ends by looking to how we better integrate archaeological science, through a shared focus on debating what questions we should ask.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 195-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Czekaj-Zastawny ◽  
Jacek Kabaciński ◽  
Thomas Terberger ◽  
Jolanta Ilkiewicz

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 61-86
Author(s):  
Mihael Budja

We present two parallel and 32 000 years long trajectories of episodic ceramic technology use in Eurasian pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer societies. In eastern, Asian trajectory the pottery was produced from the beginning. Ceramic figurines mark the western, European trajectory. The western predates the eastern for about eleven millennia. While ceramic cones and figurines first appeared in Central Europe at c. 31 000 cal BC the earliest vessels in eastern Asia was dated at c. 20 000 cal BC. We discuss women’s agency, perception of containment, ‘cross-craft interactions’, and evolution of private property that that may influenced the inventions of ceramic (pyro)technology.


2021 ◽  
Vol 288 (1952) ◽  
pp. 20210969
Author(s):  
Joel D. Irish ◽  
Donatella Usai

Some researchers posit population continuity between Late Palaeolithic hunter–gatherers of the late Pleistocene and Holocene agriculturalists from Lower (northern) Nubia, in northeast Africa. Substantial craniodental differences in these time-successive groups are suggested to result from in situ evolution. Specifically, these populations are considered a model example for subsistence-related selection worldwide in the transition to agriculture. Others question continuity, with findings indicating that the largely homogeneous Holocene populations differ significantly from late Pleistocene Lower Nubians. If the latter are representative of the local populace, post-Pleistocene discontinuity is implied. So who was ancestral to the Holocene agriculturalists? Dental morphological analyses of 18 samples (1075 individuals), including one dated to the 12th millennium BCE from Al Khiday, near the Upper Nubian border, may provide an answer. It is the first Late Palaeolithic sample ( n = 55) recovered within the region in approximately 50 years. Using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System to record traits and multivariate statistics to estimate biological affinities, Al Khiday is comparable to several Holocene samples, yet also highly divergent from contemporaneous Lower Nubians. Thus, population continuity is indicated after all, but with late Pleistocene Upper—rather than Lower Nubians as originally suggested—assuming dental traits are adequate proxies for ancient DNA.


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