The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe

by Chris Fowler

  Contributors to the final section on Death, bodies, and persons explore human bodies and personhood through mortuary evidence and bodily representations. As the authors are at pains to stress, these media can only provide a partial perspective, and need to be contextualized alongside the evidence for daily routines, the use of artefacts, and the inhabitation of space. As well as outlining both general trends and local diversity, most chapters in this section stress that archaeologically visible funerary rites are not representative of the whole population, and that a degree of selection must have taken place. The bases for such selection are seldom easily discernible, though factors may include age and/or sex, and in some cases these may reiterate or chime with older, Mesolithic, values (Borić, Chapter 49). Funerary rites may achieve many varied things, including idealized representations of identities or the material composition and connectedness of the community or individual—as explored in Borić’s account of burial in south-eastern Europe. Robb (Chapter 50) considers the importance of both local practices and their relation to broader episodes of change, exploring the importance of interaction at the larger scale. Thus, he analyses the impact of a convergence of new mortuary practices and anthropomorphic decorated stelae during the third millennium, with neither sphere evidently intended to record individual biographies. Within such general trends, the standardization of burial varies widely across regions and periods, and the interpretation of such patterns remains a significant challenge.

  In their contribution, Hofmann and Orschiedt (Chapter 51) draw particular attention to the changing significance of disarticulation in the central European sequence. Often marginalized as ‘deviant’ in previous accounts of the early Neolithic, the fragmentation of corpses at this time actually seems connected to shared ideas of personhood, whilst in the late Neolithic it is more likely reserved for outcasts. Variation also remains an interpretative challenge in southern Scandinavia (Sjögren, Chapter 52). There, early Neolithic mortuary practices were diverse and complex, but the deliberate disarticulation of human remains in chambered tombs may have been far rarer than archaeologists imagined in previous decades. By contrast, Sjögren warns, some late Neolithic ‘single graves’ actually show signs of the manipulation of the body after death. Hence, body treatment does not neatly correspond with the context in which the remains were placed, and this resonates with the review of evidence from Britain, Ireland, and northern France presented by Fowler and Scarre (Chapter 53). Placing emphasis on mortuary practices as transformations of the dead, Fowler and Scarre highlight a range of treatments, with bodies variously buried intact, cremated, or after a period of decay, and with a wide range of contexts used for their disposal. Whilst the monumental bodies of tombs endured in the landscape, human bodies were often shown to be ephemeral by contrast, albeit it in varied ways, and this is echoed in the lack of stone or ceramic anthropomorphic representations. As several of these chapters explore, bodies may have belonged to groups as much as, or more than, to individuals—and both depictions of bodies and their treatment after death may have formed an important arena through which the concerns of at least some of the community were brought to the fore. Each of the contributions in this section explores not only varying ways in which the dead were treated, but also varied reasons for, and effects of, those treatments.

  LOOKING AHEAD

  The volume highlights just how much has been achieved in our understanding of Neolithic Europe. Investigations have often been ambitious and open to new and radically different approaches—and the result is a diversity of interpretation and a wealth of debate. This collection summarizes past traditions and current thinking, but crucially also provides a sense of the future direction of research that is exciting, productive, and sometimes unexpected (e.g. Whittle, Chapter 54). Throughout, contributions refer to issues and problems which can absorb future efforts, and it is clear that innovations in archaeological techniques and increasing opportunities for prehistorians to work outside their national traditions are opening up scales of study and research questions which hitherto would not have been possible. One important part of this is an increasing willingness to abandon interpretations which are exclusively rooted either in the grand narrative or the micro-scale, in the mono-causal or in singularly historic factors, and to challenge ingrained theoretical perspectives, whether those are implicit or explicit in prior research. Instead, there is an awareness that the integration of studies across scales, and combining different techniques, themes, and theoretical heritage, opens the door to thorough and insightful syntheses. In this sense, the volume is as much about the future of Neolithic studies as it is about its past.

  REFERENCES

  Allen, M.J., Gardiner, J., and Sheridan, A. (eds) 2012. Is there a British Chalcolithic? People, place and polity in the later third millennium. Oxford: Oxbow.

  Bagolini, B. 1992. Il Neolitico nell’Italia settentrionale. In A. Guidi and M. Piperno (eds), Italia preistorica, 274–305. Rome: Laterza.

  Barker, G. 2006. The agricultural revolution in prehistory: why did foragers become farmers? Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Billamboz, A. 2012. Dendrochronology in wetland archaeology. In F. Menotti and A. O’Sullivan (eds), The Oxford handbook of wetland archaeology, 617–632. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Bocquet-Appel, J.-P. 2009. The demographic impact of the agricultural system in human history. Current Anthropology 50, 657–660.

  Bogucki, P. 2008. The Danubian–Baltic borderland: northern Poland in the fifth millennium BC. In H. Fokkens, B. Coles, A. van Gijn, J. Kleijne, H. Ponjee, and C. Slappendel (eds), Between foraging and farming, 51–65. Leiden: Leiden University.

  Bolender, D.J. (ed.) 2010. Eventful archaeologies: new approaches to social transformation in the archaeological record. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

  Brandt, G., Haak, W., Adler, C.J., Roth, C., Szécsényi-Nagy, A., Karimnia, S., Möller-Rieker, S., Meller, H., Ganslmeier, R., Friederich, S., Dreseley, V., Nicklisch, N., Pickrell, J.K., Sirocko, F., Reich, D., Cooper, A., Alt, K.W., and The Genographic Consortium. 2013. Ancient DNA reveals key stages in the formation of central European mitochondrial genetic diversity. Science 342, 257–261.

  Cipolloni Sampó, M. 1992. Il Neolitico nell’Italia meridionale e in Sicilia. In A. Guidi and M. Piperno (eds), Italia preistorica, 334–365. Rome: Laterza.

  Craig, O., Steele, V.J., Fischer, A., Hartz, S., Andersen, S.H., Donohoe, P., Glykou, A., Saul, H., Jones, D.M., Koch, E., and Heron, C.P. 2011. Ancient lipids reveal continuity in culinary practices across the transition to agriculture in northern Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, 17910–17915.

  Cummings, V. 2012. What lies beneath: thinking about the qualities and essences of stone and wood in the chambered tomb architecture of Neolithic Britain and Ireland. Journal of Social Archaeology 12(1), 29–50.

  Fowler, C. 2004. In touch with the past? Bodies, monuments and the sacred in the Manx Neolithic. In V. Cummings and C. Fowler (eds), The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: materiality and traditions of practice, 91–102. Oxford: Oxbow.

  Garrow, D. and Sturt, F. 2011. Grey waters bright with Neolithic Argonauts? Maritime connections and the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition within the “western seaways” of Britain, c. 5000–3500 BC. Antiquity 85(327), 59–72.

  Gramsch, A. and Sommer, U. (eds) 2011. A history of central European archaeology. Theory, methods, and politics. Budapest: Archaeolingua.

  Gronenborn, D. (ed.) 2005. Climate variability and culture change in Neolithic societies of central Europe, 6700–2200 cal BC. Mainz: RGZM.

  Gronenborn, D. 2009. Transregional culture contacts and the Neolithization process in northern central Europe. In P. Jordan and M. Zvelebil (eds), Ceramics before farming, 527–550. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

  Gronenborn, D. 2010. Fernkontakte aus dem nördlichen Europa während der Bandkeramischen Kultur. In J. Suteková, P. Pavúk, P. Kalábková, and B. Kovár (eds), Panta Rhei. Studies in chronology and cultural development of south-ea
stern and central Europe in earlier prehistory presented to Juraj Pavúk on the occasion of his 75th Birthday, 561–574. Bratislava: Comenius University.

  Gronenborn, D. and Petrasch, J. (eds) 2010. The spread of the Neolithic to central Europe. Mainz: RGZM.

  Harris, O. 2014. (Re)assembling communities. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 21, 76–97.

  Hodder, I. 1990. The domestication of Europe: structure and contingency in Neolithic societies. Oxford: Blackwell.

  Hodder, I. 2013. From diffusion to structural transformation: the changing roles of the Neolithic house in the Middle East, Turkey and Europe. In D. Hofmann and J. Smyth (eds), Tracking the Neolithic house in Europe. Sedentism, architecture and practice, 349–362. New York: Springer.

  Hofmann, D. and Smyth, J. (eds) 2013. Tracking the Neolithic house in Europe. Sedentism, architecture and practice. New York: Springer.

  Kind, C-J. 1998. Komplexe Wildbeuter und frühe Ackerbauern. Bemerkungen zur Ausbreitung der Linearbandkeramik im südlichen Mitteleuropa. Germania 76, 1–23.

  Kunst, M. 2010. ‘Neolithisierung—Eine Begriffsbestimmung’. In D. Gronenborn and J. Petrasch (eds), The spread of the Neolithic to central Europe, 13–22. Mainz: RGZM.

  Lichardus, J. (ed.) 1991. Die Kupferzeit als historische Epoche. Bonn: Habelt.

  Louwe Kooijmans, L. 2007. The gradual transition to farming in the Lower Rhine Basin. In A. Whittle and V. Cummings (eds), Going over. The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in north-west Europe, 287–309. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy.

  Lüning, J. 1996. Erneute Gedanken zur Benennung der neolithischen Perioden. Germania 74, 233–237.

  Mottes, E., Nicolis, F., and Schlichtherle, H. 2002. Kulturelle Beziehungen zwischen den Regionen nördlich und südlich der Zentralalpen während des Neolithikums und der Kupferzeit. In G. Schnekenburger (ed.), Über die Alpen. Menschen—Wege—Waren, 119–135. Stuttgart: Archäologisches Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg.

  Noble, G. 2006. Neolithic Scotland: Timber, stone, earth and fire. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

  Pluciennik, M. 2008. Hunter-gatherers to farmers? In A. Jones (ed.), Prehistoric Europe. Theory and practice, 16–34. New York: Wiley Blackwell.

  Robb, J. 2008. Tradition and agency: human body representations in later prehistoric Europe. World Archaeology 40, 332–353.

  Robb, J. 2013. Material culture, landscapes of action, and emergent causation: a new model for the origins of the European Neolithic. Current Anthropology 54(6), 657–683.

  Robin, G. 2012. The figurative part of an abstract Neolithic iconography: hypotheses and directions of research in Irish and British passage tomb art. In A. Cochrane and A. Jones (eds), Visualising the Neolithic, 140–160. Oxford: Oxbow.

  Rowley-Conwy, P. 2011. Westward Ho! The spread of agriculture from central Europe to the Atlantic. Current Anthropology 52(4), 431–451.

  Rowley-Conwy, P. 2014. Foragers and farmers in Mesolithic/Neolithic Europe, 5500–3900 cal BC: beyond the anthropological comfort zone. In F. Foulds, H. Drinkall, A. Perri, D. Clinwick, and J. Walker (eds), Wild things: recent advances in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic research, 185–201. Oxford: Oxbow.

  Scharl, S. 2004. Die Neolithisierung Europas. Ausgewählte Modelle und Hypothesen. Würzburger Arbeiten zur prähistorischen Archäologie Band 2. Rahden: Marie Leidorf.

  Sheridan, A. 2010. The Neolithization of Britain and Ireland: the big picture. In B. Finlayson and G. Warren (eds), Landscapes in transition, 89–105. Oxford: Oxbow.

  Strahm, C. 1994. Die Anfänge der Metallurgie in Mitteleuropa. Helvetia Archaeologica 97, 2–39.

  Thomas, J. 1988. Neolithic explanations revisited: the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Britain and South Scandinavia. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54, 59–66.

  Thomas, J. 1996. Neolithic houses in mainland Britain and Ireland—a sceptical view. In T. Darvill and J. Thomas (eds), Neolithic houses in northwest Europe and beyond, 1–12. Oxford: Oxbow.

  Vander Linden, M. 2011. To tame a land: archaeological cultures and the spread of the Neolithic in western Europe. In B. Roberts and M. Vander Linden (eds), Investigating archaeological cultures. Material culture, variability, and transmission, 289–319. New York: Springer.

  Webmoor, T. 2007. What about ‘one more turn after the social’ in archaeological reasoning? Taking things seriously. World Archaeology 39(4), 547–562.

  Whittle, A. 1996. Europe in the Neolithic. The creation of new worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Whittle, A. and Bayliss, A. 2007. The times of their lives: from chronological precision to kinds of history and change. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(1), 21–28.

  Whittle, A. and Cummings, V. (eds) 2007. Going over: the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in northwest Europe. London: British Academy.

  Whittle, A., Healy, F., and Bayliss, A. 2011. Gathering time: dating the early Neolithic enclosures of southern Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxbow.

  Winter, J.C. 2009. Das kulturhistorische Paradigma und seine Bedeutung für die Erforschung der Geschichte schriftloser Kulturen. In D. Krausse and O. Nakoinz (eds), Kulturraum und Territorialität. Archäologische Theorien, Methoden und Fallbeispiele, 43–61. Rahden: Marie Leidorf.

  PART II

  MOBILITY, CHANGE, AND INTERACTION AT THE LARGE SCALE

  CHAPTER 2

  ENVIRONMENTS AND LANDSCAPE CHANGE

  TONY BROWN, GEOFF BAILEY, AND DAVE PASSMORE

  ENVIRONMENTS, SCALE, AND AGENDAS 6500–2500 BC

  THIS chapter considers the ‘environment’ between 6500–2500 BC, a period which encompasses most of what archaeologists have regarded as ‘Neolithic’ within Europe. This enormous stretch of time amounts to 40% of the Holocene sub-stage of the Pleistocene. At about 10.2 million km2, Europe as defined here is also large, equivalent to 7% of the Earth’s landmass. It stretches over 35o of latitude and 50o of longitude and from just below sea level to 5633 m in altitude (Mt Elbrus in the Caucasus). Two implications follow; first, this chapter is necessarily an overview and highly selective, and secondly, ‘scale’ is itself an important issue when dealing with any idea of the European Neolithic.

  The ‘scale’ problem becomes apparent when considering the record of climate change across Europe. Europe has today a wide variety of local climates ranging from the Arctic-Alpine to the semi-desert. The only climates (sensu the Köppen climatic classification) it does not have are the sub-polar continental, hyper-arid, and monsoon-dominated wet tropical climates. Local climates are determined by latitude, continentality (effectively longitude), and altitude. This can be illustrated by the variety of local winds which affect the countries bordering the Mediterranean alone (Fig. 2.1). It is, however, possible to identify common forcing conditions (pattern of global pressures and temperatures) for this region due to the underlying importance of the Westerlies and therefore conditions over the north Atlantic. So, for example, even the Mediterranean parts of Europe are under the influence of westerly cyclonic tracks for the delivery of precipitation. The extent to which these air masses penetrate into Europe is controlled through blocking by eastern high pressure systems. The Azores High and North Atlantic High also affect the path of these Westerlies over Europe and this control has been associated with differential climate change in northern and southern Europe. From these synoptic constraints it is apparent that the Holocene climate of Europe would have been closely related to fluctuations in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index and to both El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the thermohaline circulation (THC), and through these ultimately to global factors such as variations in solar output (so-called sub-Milankovitch forcing) and astronomically forced variations in solar influx (Milankovitch forcing). However, the European landmass is characterized by small–medium altitude mountain ranges especially at about 42o–47o of latitude (Picos de Europe, Pyrenees, Alps, Apennines, Carpathians) which create strong orographic (topographic relief induced) patterning including rain-shadows and local winds, both n
ow and in the past.

  FIG. 2.1. The present climates of Europe with local Mediterranean winds derived from a variety of sources.

  NEOLITHIC EUROPEAN CLIMATES FROM LAKES AND BOGS

  Over the past 20 years there has been an explosion of research into Holocene climatic change, driven by the need to test global and regional climate models and by the prevailing ideological belief that climate change is the greatest scientific challenge of the present age. Within Europe, appropriate geochemical and biological climate proxies covering this period can be derived from lake sediments, raised mires, and alluvial sequences. Probably the most comprehensive source of palaeoclimatic data is the lake level record, which covers both southern and northern Europe. Within the Global Lake Level Database there are over 700 records from Europe (Prentice et al. 1996) which have been used by the BIOME 6000 project to map vegetation patterns. The Alpine region, being in the centre of Europe, is probably the most valuable. One of the most comprehensive data sets is provided by 26 lakes in the Jura Mountains (Magny 2004), from which 15 phases of higher lake levels were identified, four within the Neolithic (Table 2.1). In a more recent study of Lake Le Bourget in France, Arnaud et al. (2005) have correlated the lake level record with at least three periods of flooding by the Rhone, suggesting that this record is applicable for the entire western Alps region. Studies of lake levels in southern Europe are less common but several crater lakes in Italy have produced long sequences, such as Lago Grande di Monticchio, which shows rather subdued Lateglacial interstadials and Younger Dryas with relative climatic stability in the early Holocene (Allen et al. 2002). This is in contrast to northern Africa where there is abundant evidence of wetter conditions well into the Neolithic (Roberts 1998).