Sign-Objects Among Neolithic Faunal Remains, Visible Symbols

The purpose of this article is to present an inventory of certain faunal remains from Linearbandkeramic (LBK) settlements in the Paris Basin (Ile-de-France, Hauts-de-France and Champagne) that seem to belong to a particular category, that of “sign-objects,” in other words, tangible evidence intended to be shown and directly interpretable by an observer belonging to the society which produced them. Based on three categories of archaeological contexts, a ceremonial enclosure, settlements and graves, we will attempt to highlight the species that were important to Neolithic society. Two of them, the domestic cattle and the aurochs, are particularly involved in the deposits through the exhibition of their bones or their horn cores. Sheep and roe deer are also involved through, for example, transformed bones such as perforated tibias or sharpened roe deer antlers. The results of the analysis were integrated into an archaeological model previously developed to approach the social structure of the Neolithic society.

Territoriality and Settlement in Southern France in the Early Neolithic: Diversity as a Strategy?

In the western Mediterranean, the question of the settlement patterns of the first farming communities remains a much debated issue. Frequently compared with the LBK model, based on hundreds of well-documented villages, the settlement organization of the Impressed Ware complex is still poorly characterized and highly diversified. New data obtained in Southern France (Languedoc) may shed light on this matter, based on new excavations, revised data, and a multi-proxy perspective (site type, domestic area, food supply strategies, activities, spheres of acquisition of raw material, and so forth). Rather than reproducing a pattern of site locations and settlement structuring, it seems that these Early Neolithic groups sought to optimize the location and structuring of their settlements in relation to the specific characteristics of the surrounding environment and available resources. We therefore propose that the diversity observed in the settlement organization of these first farming communities is a reflection of a social organization well-adapted to the diversity of the ecosystem.

Worlding Excavation Practices

This paper seeks to do justice to the often complex, messy, and sometimes ambiguous meaning making practices of archaeological field work. Taking recent adoptions of assemblage theory and sensory studies in archaeology as an angle of arrival, I contribute here to discussions on self-reflective and interpretive archaeology. Drawing on empirical encounters with troweling and backfilling at the Ardnamurchan Transitions Project in western Scotland, I describe the production of archaeological knowledge in terms of storying: the coming into existence of an earthly archaeological world through sensory correspondences. I show how storying generates meaning and knowledge through correspondences of more proximate with more distant excavation practices and interplays between them. Furthermore, I propose that through storying, archaeological meaning making as well as knowledge production can be understood as worlding: the generation of sustained remembrances of earthly events with lively corresponding materials.

Funerary Practices as a Testimony of Ideology in Western Linearbandkeramik Culture

The Linearbandkeramik (LBK) is behind the spread of the Neolithic way of life in a large part of Western Europe. This period is often regarded as the beginning of social inequalities whose ideological frameworks deserve to be highlighted. According to social anthropologists, funerary practices are relevant for this debate as they reflect the symbolic thought in relation to death. In addition, as they are perpetuated by the living, funerary practices are pertinent in addressing the ideological values, symbolic systems, and thoughts that support social organisation. Whilst examining how grave goods are allocated amongst the LBK population, we have identified a small group of dominant men characterised by a specific burial kit (adzes, arrows, lighter set, and red deer antlers), a richer protein intake in diet, and their local origin. Comparing them to other social categories characterised by minor marking of identity in grave goods, poorer protein intake in diet, and of diverse origin, we aim to explore the ideological frameworks and values sustaining the social LBK system. LBK dominant ideology appears to revolve around hunting and exploits in warfare, manhood, and virility, in short around violent behaviours perhaps linked to a territorial competition.

Art, Creativity and Automation. From Charters to Shared 3D Visualization Practices

In this study, we introduce the themes of the Special Issue on Art, Creativity and Automation. Sharing 3D Visualization Practices in Archaeology, and present the most important outcomes of a roundtable session involving prominent researchers in the field, organized by the authors during the Archon Winter School in February 2020. By assessing the diversity of research aims, artistic projects, creative practices and technology used in the contributions to the Special Issue, and drawing on the thoughts and perspectives generated during the roundtable discussion, we seek to identify shared challenges within the community of visualizers which could ultimately pave the way to shared practices. In this light, we assess whether established charters and guidelines are still relevant in a now matured digital archaeology, where visualization techniques have attained a central position in archaeological knowledge production. Although parts of the guidelines have become common practice, the remainder did not keep up with the fast pace of development of digital practice and its current fundamental role in archaeology, and as a result some of the guidelines risk becoming obstructive in archaeological creative practice.

Innovations of the Beginning of the Sixth Millennium BC in the Northern Pontic Steppe

This study focuses on the pottery-bearing (“Neolithic”) sites of the northern Azov Sea region. The vessels ornamented with comb imprints appeared there in the sixth millennium BC. In the light of a recent re-dating of the Rakushechny Yar site sequence, the sites of the northern Azov region appeared to be the earliest evidence for this innovation. The innovation in the ceramic assemblage is accompanied by an innovative lithic tool set. The latter included macro-blades and fan-shaped end-scrapers, which were previously unknown in the studied region. Their reanalysis (including new field work at the single-layer site of Chapaevka) helped formulate a hypothesis of maritime transmission of comb-ornamented ceramics in the Black and Azov Sea. This hypothesis will stimulate further discussions regarding the ways of Neolithization in Eastern Europe. It underlines the connections between Balkan “classic” Neolithic and pottery-bearing sites of the Ukrainian Steppe. The impressed ware from Makri and other mainland Greek sites is treated as the closest analogy to the finds of the northern Azov Sea region.

Tradition in Transition: Technology and Change in Archaeological Visualisation Practice

Archaeologists are the mediators between fragmented, and often contested, pasts and the momentary present. To record, organise, interpret, and reconstruct complex narratives of the past and to communicate these to present-day peers and the public, they use a wide range of visualisation methods. As such, visualisation methods form an intrinsic part of the representation of practical and intellectual findings, being crucial to knowledge production in archaeology. The adoption and adaptation of digital visualisation technology changes the way archaeologists shape new knowledge. However, for a discipline that is particularly concerned with how technology had an effect on past societies, for example, the impact of the potter’s wheel on local ceramic production strategies, archaeologists have a remarkably limited awareness of how current (digital) technology has an impact on their own visualisation practice and the subsequent knowledge production. This study presents the conceptual framework “tradition in transition,” which integrates technological and visualisation methodologies, and aims to provide a framework to analyse the underlying processes and mechanisms that shape and change the practice of creating visualisations.

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

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.

The Phenomena La Hoguette and Limburg – Technological Aspects

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.

Keeping the Frontier: Steps “Towards Neolithization” in the Eastern Gulf of Finland

This article is an attempt to understand the driving forces behind the process of Neolithization in the Eastern Europe Forest zone, where the consumption economy existed till the Bronze or even till the Early Iron Age. Main peculiarities of the sociocultural development in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland region (EGF) on the transition from Mesolithic to farming societies (sixth – first ka. BC) are discussed in relation to the changes in material culture, subsistence strategy, communication system and settlement pattern. The process of neolithization lasted there for several thousand years. Overview of the dynamics of the social and cultural development in the region revealed several phases of substantial changes in archeological materials (presumably reflecting considerable sociocultural changes). These changes happened later than in the neighboring territories and were preceded by dramatic environmental transformations that affected prehistoric communities in the coastal zone. For the population of the region, innovations could be considered as not “steps toward,” but “retreat in the face of” neolithization. Resistance of the population of EGF to the innovations could be based on environmental conditions that were extremely favorable for hunter–gatherers’ subsistence, but made farming (especially early farming) rather risky.