Models and Scenarios of the Neolithic in Central Europe

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Journals of Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana Documenta Praehistorica XXXIX (2012) Models and scenarios of the Neolithic in Central Europe Ivan Pavlu˚ Institute of Archaeology CAS CR, Prague, CZ [email protected] ABSTRACT – The Neolithic in Central Europe can no longer be characterised as comprising a com- pact population of a single society in which organisations and subsistence strategies were homoge- neous. Despite the apparent uniformity of the pottery, the period was characterised by a mosaic of small communities that differed in both economic and social organisation for almost two millennia. These genetically diverse communities inhabited geographical spaces of varying size, from regions to micro-regions to single settlements. The polymorphous modes of exploiting natural resources ensu- red successful long-term survival, even when the results of the emerging farming economy were un- certain and unreliable in some groups. IZVLE∞EK – Srednjeevropskega neolitika ni ve≠ mogo≠e povezovati z enovito populacijo in homoge- no organizirano dru∫bo z enotno strategijo pre∫ivetja. Kljub navidezni uniformnosti lon≠arskih pro- dukcij, so se v ≠asu skoraj dveh tiso≠letji oblikovale majhne skupnostih, ki so se razlikovale tako v dru∫beni ureditvi kot gospodarskih strategijah. Genetsko razli≠ne skupine so bile naseljene v prosto- rih razli≠nih velikosti, od regije in mikro regije do posameznega naselja. Mnogoli≠na izraba narav- nih virov je zagotavljala dolgoro≠no pre∫ivetje, tudi takrat, ko so bili u≠inki razvijajo≠ega se kmeto- vanja negotovi. KEY WORDS – Central Europe; Neolithisation; Bohemia; palaeoeconomy; settlement patterns The cultural-historical model In the latter half of the 20th century, synthetic work the central European uplands” (Kaczanowska, on the origin and development of the Neolithic in Kozłowski 2003.245). Central Europe was based on the idea that the spread of the Neolithic lifestyle was connected with the mi- In the 1980s, these basic theses were further sup- gration of people from regions which had already ported by anthropological research (Vencl 1982. undergone Neolithisation – the notion of demic diffu- 650), which confirmed a general trend of migra- sion – proceeding through several successive stages tions along the diagonal south-east–north-west axis from the Near East to Anatolia and the Aegean, and through Europe. As early as the 1970s, gradual im- then in two directions, north to the Carpathian Ba- provements in genetic studies of European popula- sin and west to the Mediterranean. Before 5500 tions led to the creation of a model known today as calBC, in northern Transdanubia, the early Star≠evo the wave-of-advance (Ammerman, Cavalli-Sforza Culture, perhaps under the influence of the emerg- 1984). The aim of this model was to provide an al- ing Vin≠a Culture, gradually transformed into the ternative to older theories that posited an autochtho- earliest Linear Pottery Culture, which then spread nous origin for the European Neolithic, which were further to north-western and eastern Europe: “From based on structural-anthropological concepts and lin- centres in Transdanubia and lower Austria, the ked to the nationalism of the mid-20th century (Am- LBP began to expand into the loess territories of merman 2003.13). However, today’s palaeogenetic DOI> 10.4312\dp.39.7 95 Ivan Pavlu˚ research can be seen from the distance as having its generation to another … and from one civilisation own problems that could affect the archaeological to another” (Delage 2004.106). It then becomes quite theories derived from it (Cavalli-Sforza 2003.302– ineffective to explore and describe Neolithic society 306). either in ethnographic terms used for pre-state rural societies, or contemporary terms such as trade, con- Most cultural-historical concepts explicitly or impli- tacts, mobility and hierarchy. It is more desirable to citly included the idea that Neolithic cultures are explore the socio-economic conditions of group iden- identifiable with certain population groups with di- tities, which would lead to the reconstruction of Neo- stinctive pottery who moved through Europe, car- lithic communities identifiable by house or gender rying the Neolithic with them. Because archaeologi- particularities, or by local and regional strategies for cal evidence of older settlements is scarce, it was as- creating social groups (Asouti 2006.106). In this re- sumed that these Neolithic groups expanded into spect, the mobilisation and intensification of the en- territories abandoned by the previous populations, tire network of relations between individual ele- where they laid the foundations of, for example, a ments of Neolithic society play an important role. new cultural landscape. These theories of Neolithi- Temporal and spatial changes in social conditions, sation had their own inner logic, did not contradict together with their local manifestations, could have modern ideas of prehistoric society, and were in ac- become the basis for a complete reconstruction of cord with the prevalent concept of a progressive li- social organisation in the Neolithic, although little of near development that led directly to later historical the research on Neolithic settlements seems useful entities in Europe. so far. The cultural-historical model of the origin and deve- In the separate spheres model of the aceramic Neo- lopment of Central European Neolithic society can lithic (Fig. 1), which shows a division of the Levant be compared with the geographical-cultural model into regions of farmers, herders and hunters (Bar- of Epipalaeolithic development in the Levant, which Yosef 2002), the cultural-historical concept meets led to the emergence of a Neolithic society in the Na- the socially-defined division of territory. It proves tufian period. This model was developed over a long impossible to abandon entirely the archaeological period by the Lyon School (Aurenche et al. 1981) classification of regions based on morphological com- and can be divided into four steps: (i) the discovery parisons of different artefact types, and replace this and geographical location of prehistoric cultures in with a purely socio-economic classification, because a given period, (ii) a finer categorisation of cultural the archaeological method does not permit this. On groups, (iii) the drawing out proposal of a hierarchy the one hand, contemporary anthropological models of these groups by comparing their content and de- offer no guidance for studying the Neolithic (Perlés termining centres of evolution, and (iv) observing 2001.305). On the other hand, all reflections on the the changing geographical location of these centres social organisation of the Neolithic, as opposed to over a given period (Delage 2004.105). This model later hierarchical societies, are essentially based on has been debated, and its historical core is believed interpretations of the available cultural-geographical to be rooted in the philosophical tradition of the Eu- classifications of Neolithic architecture and rituals ropean Enlightenment. The evolutionary progress- (Kuijt 2000.315). based view of history included the idea that history is an unequivocal process heading towards the im- Reflections of this kind must necessarily rely on vi- provement of the human condition, which is measu- sible archaeological artefacts, as is well documented rable by intellectual and political maturity and tech- by the elaborate interpretations of long-distance nical progress. trade in, and barter with, obsidian and other raw materials needed in the chipped stone industry. This Applied to archaeology, the criticism of such a con- is true of the Near East (Asouti 2006.102–104), the cept of history consists of rejecting all notions of hi- Aegean (Perlés 2001; Tangri 1989; Runnels 1989; story as a gradual and linear development towards Halstead 1999) and the Carpathian Basin (Matei- a predictable future. Therefore, today’s archaeologi- ciucová, Małecka-Kukawka 2007; Whittle 1996). cal work questions interpretations that state that The generalising nature of archaeological finds – “traits (architecture, pottery, domesticated animals first the chipped stone industry, then pottery – does and plants, life in villages etc.) once invented and not permit the identification of real social groups. found valuable in reference to modern Western Ci- Rather, it creates an illusory classification of space vilization will always be kept and passed from one and creates an impression of uniformity, thus con- 96 Models and scenarios of the Neolithic in Central Europe lowlands until the 3rd millennium BC (Nowak 2009.451–461). The sync- hronous density of settlements at the beginning of the earliest Linear Pot- tery phase was substantially lower than a complete map of the Neoli- thic population shows. The relatively rapid occupation of the main areas suitable for farming used to be con- sidered as evidence of rapid and massive colonisation. However, the low density of the initial settlements might also have reflected the low density of the previous population (Pavlů, Květina 2008). Pre-farming populations were much more scatte- red than settled populations. How- ever, because of their greater mobi- Fig. 1. Near East. Pre-pottery spheres model (after Bar-Yosef 2002; lity, hunter-gatherers, populations Asouti 2006). used larger areas. Therefore, at the cealing the subtleties of the social identities of the time when the first groups started to

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