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Mobilities, Entanglements and Transformations in Neolithic Societies of the Swiss Plateau (3900 – 3500 BC)

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Mobilities, Entanglements and Transformations in Neolithic Societies of the Swiss Plateau (3900 – 3500 BC) Bern Working Papers on Prehistoric Archaeolog y No. 1 Institute of Archaeological Sciences Prehistory Albert Hafner Caroline Heitz Regine Stapfer March 2016 Mobilities, Entanglements, Transformations. Outline of a Research Project on Pottery Pratices in Neolithic Wetland Sites of the Swiss Plateau Project’s Title: Mobilities, Entanglements and Transformations in Neolithic Societies of the Swiss Plateau (3900 – 3500 BC) Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation Project No 100011_156205 Project management: Prof. Dr. Albert Hafner Institute of Archaeological Sciences Prehistory University of Bern Switzerland Project management: Prof. Dr. Vincent Serneels Department of Geosciences Section of Earth Sciences, Archaeometry University of Fribourg Switzerland Impressum Series ISSN: 2297- 8607 e-ISBN: 978-3-906813-12-7 (e-print) DOI: 10.7892/boris.77649 Editors: Albert Hafner and Caroline Heitz Institute of Archaeological Sciences, Prehistory University of Bern Muesmattstrasse 27 CH-3012 Bern This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter- national License English language editing: Andrew Lawrence, Sharon Shellock, Ariane Ballmer Layout: Designer FH in Visual Communication Susanna Kaufmann Photographs (front page): Today’s shore of Lake Neuchâtel, Pfyn and Michelsberg pottery from the Neolithic bog settlement of 2 Thayngen-Weier, Northern Switzerland (Caroline Heitz). Table of Contents 1. Aims and research questions 4 2. State of research 5 3. Case studies 10 4. Mixed methods research-design 13 5. Some words on applied methods 17 6. Intended synthesis and anticipated impact of the project 18 7. Scientific collaborations and education of young scholars 19 8. References 21 3 Abstract 1. Aims and research questions A large number of Late Neolithic sites (3900–3500 BC) The project’s main objective is to gain a deeper understand- in Switzerland, southern Germany and eastern France ing of the complex relations between social groups living offer outstandingly well-preserved stratified archaeolog- in wetland sites on the Swiss Plateau between 3900 and ical materials. Due to the wide use of dendrochronology, 3500 BC. These relations can be observed in similarities settlement remains and artefact assemblages can now be and differences in the material culture of contemporaneous placed into a precise and fixed chronological framework, settlements. The majority of a site’s artefacts show typically thus presenting a unique case within prehistoric archae- local or regional features: pottery was made in the typical ology. In earlier research, chronological and regional units regional style and out of locally available clays. As a start- were constructed on the basis of pottery. These spatial and ing point we hypothesise that pottery was usually made temporal units of typical pottery sets were understood as by local communities sharing specific pottery production ‘Neolithic cultures’, i.e. as culturally more or less homoge- practices and using materials that were available near their nous entities connected with (ethnic) identities. Today, with settlements. However, very frequently we also find vessels a larger data corpus of excavated settlements at hand, we made in different styles out of local AND/OR not locally can begin to understand that this period of the past was available raw materials in these settlements. Our study in fact characterised by a multitude of cultural entangle- aims at tracing such phenomena by focussing on pottery ments and transformations. This is indicated by the occur- production practices1. In order to understand social ties, rence of local and non-local pottery styles in one and the mobilites and possible triggered transformations on the same settlement: for example Cortaillod pottery typical basis of ceramics we need to elaborate on how the typical for the region is found together with NMB-styled pottery regional pottery styles looked between Lake Neuchâtel and in settlements at Lake Neuchâtel, and Michelsberg pottery Lake Constance during the first half of the 4th millennium BC regularly occurs in settlements at Lake Constance, where as well as in the neighbouring regions. Furthermore, differ- Pfyn pottery style is the typical local one. These and many ent modes of production and usages of clays and tempers more examples show that there must have been complex (pottery production practices) need to be approached by entanglements of social ties expanding between eastern analysing the pottery of selected settlements. Thus our France, southern Germany and the Swiss Plateau. Given subordinate research questions are: these circumstances the former notions of Neolithic culture should be critically revised. Therefore, the Prehistoric • How can local practices of pottery production in a Archaeology Department at the Archaeological Institute of settlement be recognized and differentiated from the University of Berne started a four-year research project others belonging to more distant places? funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation in late • How can we determine in large quantities whether 2014, called: ‘Mobilities, Entanglements and Transforma- vessels were produced locally or brought to the tions in Neolithic Societies of the Swiss Plateau (3900–3500 settlements from outside? BC)’. Its objective is to address the topic sketched above • What could different pottery styles and pottery by adopting a mixed methods research (MMR) design, practices in one single settlement tell us about combining qualitative and quantitative approaches from people’s mobilities and social ties? archaeology and archaeometry. The approach is theoret- • What were the different ranges and directions and ically based on Pierre Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology and possible contexts of mobility? his concept of habitus but includes further concepts of • Did the encounter of people with different pottery practice theories. By shifting the focus to the movement practices transform local pottery productions? Were of people, ideas and things – to pottery production prac- new vessel types, styles or techniques appropriated or tices in contexts of mobility – a deeper understanding of the rejected on local scale? Did they trigger changes? transformative capacities of encounters can be achieved. This opens the path for new insights into Neolithic societies We approach these phenomena by multi-sited archaeology including social, cultural and economic dynamics that were and the analysis of pottery from selected key sites between underestimated in former research. Key words: Mixed methods research, culture, habitus/social 1 As a second priority, the geological provenance of raw ma- practice, p-XRF analysis, multivariate statistics, archaeo- terials used for stone stools will be investigated; this part of 4 metry, Neolithic wetland sites, pottery, 4th millennium BC. the project will not be elaborated upon in this paper. Lake Neuchâtel and Lake Constance (see 3. Case studies). realities but also functioned as tools to establish chronolog- The precise chronology and outstanding archaeological ical frameworks (Lüning 1972; Wotzka 1993; Hafner/Suter conservation of wetland sites in these regions allows us to 2003; Roberts/Vander Linden 2011). With the introduction follow the phenomena of mobility, social ties and transforma- of radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology, however, the tions in a very close way. The project’s main objectives are: notion of archaeological cultures was that chronologically relevant types of material culture –mainly pottery – could • Elaborating a mix of qualitative and quantitative be equated with social groups and deductively coherent methods from archaeology (humanities), and archaeo- bounded entities could be constructed. metry (science) to address mobility and pottery While, as we shall see in the following, the ‘Neolithic production practices. cultures’ served more as chronological and spatial • Recognizing objective regularities and deviations in entities, the idea that they represented ethnic groups was data using (multivariate) statistics in order to still perpetuated even though the latter stayed less outspo- characterize typical local pottery production practice ken (Fig. 1). and finding vessels made in different styles or with non-local raw materials. During the 20th century very different ways out of this issue • Investigating the creative processes of pottery produc- – the problematic a priori linking of constructed archaeolog- tion in a context of mobility and encounter: using ical cultures with imagined ethnic entities – were chosen. qualitative methods to understand the making of These new directions followed not only paradigmatic shifts individual vessels, interpreting decisions about the raw in archaeology over the following decades but they were material, style and technological choices of the potters. also informed by national research traditions (Veit 1990; Wotzka 2000; Eggert 2013; Demoule 1999; Müller-Scheßel/ However, in order to address the inherent dynamics Burmeister 2006; Vander Lindern/Roberts 2011). British connected to peoples’ mobilities with a coherent concep- scholars following post-processual archaeology rejected tual framework, a critical review of the former research and the notion of archaeological cultures but stressed the active its notions of Neolithic societies first needs to be under- role of material culture and its meanings in the processes taken. This is inevitable because some of the currently used of identity formation and in the reproduction of social rela- pottery
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