The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe

by Chris Fowler

  However, arguably more interesting than the first appearance of farming for many of the arguments outlined above is the evidence that Figure 7.1 provides for subsequent complex demographic histories, and there is no reason to believe that these are unique to the regions shown. Moreover, these are very gross aggregate regions. It is likely that at the scale of actual settlement areas they would be even more pronounced (cf. Pétrequin 1997). Indications of population decline at the end of the LBK are apparent not just in the aggregate radiocarbon patterns shown in Figure 7.1, but also more locally (e.g. Zimmermann 2002), and the results of Linderholm’s (2008) and Bramanti et al.’s aDNA studies have been described above. What are needed to understand the real histories of genes and languages are reconstructions of local demographic histories coupled with aDNA analyses.

  Thus, for example, if we take the coastal zone of the Low Countries, which was outside the area of LBK distribution, the initial adoption of farming in the late fifth millennium is represented by the adoption of cereal cultivation as one strategy among many by local forager groups (Cappers and Raemaekers 2008), with no suggestion that this was precipitated by pressure from adjacent growing farming populations. The local population growth associated with this suggested by Figure 7.1 would lead one to predict the existence/expansion of local Mesolithic genes and languages here, but whether this left a long-term legacy is uncertain. The suggestion of population decline in the Low Countries after 6,000 years ago potentially implies that this expansion was short-lived, so whatever languages and genes were current here in the late fifth millennium may have disappeared.

  In Denmark, by contrast, it seems that a foraging economy based largely on aquatic resources supported a large population in contact with farming cultures to the south for hundreds of years, which then switched largely to agriculture over the space of a couple of hundred years after 4000 BC, with the appearance of the local TRB culture. If this is really what happened, this large population could have provided the basis for the continuation of local Mesolithic genes and languages. In Germany, although all the populations after the arrival of the LBK are basically agricultural ones, in contrast to the Low Countries, the major population fluctuations suggested by Figure 7.1 indicate the strong possibility of regional abandonments and recolonizations throughout Neolithic prehistory and no doubt later, given the very low population levels that generally prevailed (cf. Zimmermann et al. 2009), with obvious potential genetic and linguistic consequences.

  CONCLUSION

  In summary, aDNA evidence is becoming increasingly important in accounting for the patterns observed in more conventional archaeological evidence, as is the characterization of regional population histories. In the case of the European Neolithic, inferences about language will almost certainly depend on information from these other sources, rather than language data providing a basis for inferences or tests of hypotheses in their own right, though further technical advances like those used to infer the date of proto-Indo-European may alter this. Mathematical and simulation modelling of the processes involved in the spread of farming and of the implications of interpopulation interactions for genetic and linguistic patterns will continue to provide an important basis for the development and testing of specific hypotheses about the spread of farming. However, they will need to incorporate more spatially and chronologically specific information if they are to be useful in understanding the more localized population turnover patterns that are beginning to emerge from the aDNA and demographic proxy data for Europe after the initial arrival of agriculture.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank Mark Thomas and Lucia Nagib for their comments on a previous version of this paper, and Bernd Weninger for Figure 7.1.

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  Sequences of Cultural Interaction and Cultural Change

  CHAPTER 8

  THE BALKAN NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC*

  JOHN CHAPMAN

  INTRODUCTION

  DWELLING between the Mediterranean zone of the Aegean and Anatolia and the cooler and snowier central European heartlands, the communities living in south-east Europe 7000–4000 cal BC created distinctive social formations leaving enduring marks on today’s landscapes (Fig. 8.1). First studied systematically by V. Gordon Childe in 1929, these groups have been the focus of intensive research for the past 40 years (Tringham 1971; Hodder 1990; Whittle 1996; Bailey 2000; Chapman and Gaydarska 2006). They lived in a mosaic of settings, comprising two large Danubian plains and mountainous regions almost 3,000m in height (the word ‘Balkan’ is Turkish for ‘mountain’). This topographic setting provided a suite of complementary resources—summer pasture, metals, lithics, and stones for tools in the mountains; alluvial gold, potting clay, and arable lands in the lowlands—and created the potential for symbolical differentiation of these two zones. The interplay of the Familar (one’s local community), the Foreign (other settlements sharing the same material culture), and the Other (communities with different material culture and lifeways) (Neustupný 1998) led to distinctive cultural combinations.

  FIG. 8.1. Map of key sites in the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin: 1—Polgár-Csőszhalom; 2—Gorzsa; 3—Parţa; 4—Lepenski Vir; 5—Rudna Glava; 6—Vinča–Belo Brdo; 7—Grivac; 8—Ai Bunar; 9—Karanovo; 10—Dolnoslav; 11—Ovcharovo; 12—Polyanitsa; 13—Goljamo Delchevo; 14—Varna; 15—Durankulak; 16—Baia Hamangia; 17—Sabatinovka; 18—Nebelivka.

  This account has four sections, covering the nested, and closely inter-related, socio-spatial contexts of (i) persons, (ii) households, (iii) corporate groups in the settlement context, and (iv) regional settlement networks in the landscape. Each section ranges far and wide, with the heuristic use of the terms in Table 8.1 to provide a non-evolutionary social and cultural framework.

  Table 8.1 Outline chronology of the Balkan Neolithic and Chalcolithic

  Period Date (cal. BC) Principal social networks

  Late Mesolithic 8000–5000 Lepenski Vir; Schela Cladovei; Pobiti Kameni; Soroki group; Jászág group

  Early farmers 6300–5000 Karanovo I/II; west Bulgarian painted wares; Starčevo; Körös; Criş; Impresso

  Mature farmers 5200–4500 Karanovo III-V; Usoe; early Vinča; early Butmir; Hungarian LBK; Dudeşti; Boian; Hamangia

  Climax period 4700–4000 Karanovo VI; Varna; Sava; Gumelniţa; late Vinča; late Butmir; Tisza-Herpály; Cucuteni; Tripolye

  Post-Climax Copper Age 4000–3000 Karanovo VII; Cernavoda; late Cucuteni; late Tripolye; Coţofeni; Salcuţa IV; Baden

  The communities termed ‘early farmers’ represent people whose subsistence economies relied largely upon domesticated plants and animals mainly deriving from Anatolia and/or the Aegean. The twi
n settlement forms of the tell and the flat site showed regional variations, as did painted wares, whilst other forms of material culture (figurines, bone spoons, stamp seals, antler sickles, and coarse wares) were found in each region. Intra-mural burials predominate, with few grave goods and little gender differentiation.

  After a millennium of farming, social integration and improved farming techniques led to a higher degree of sedentism and settlement nucleation, and an expansion in areas settled among those groups termed ‘mature farmers’. Typically south Balkan lifeways, such as tell living, became more common north of the Danube. Local and regional identities were marked materially by using diverse decorated wares, figurines, and other ritual equipment. Alongside intra-mural burials, corporate cemeteries of individual burials emerge as a focus for consumption of prestige goods.

  The complex ‘climax period’ (Chalcolithic/late Neolithic) betokens significant regionalization in all aspects of cultural identity. A staggering level of material diversification—whether in metallurgy, ritual, lithic technology, or ceramics—is found among communities often living on tells, but most particularly in their cemeteries. Enclosed sites are also a feature of these fifth millennium communities.

  In the ‘post-climax chalcolithic’, markedly different depositional strategies reduced the quantity and diversity of material culture on small settlements, large corporate cemeteries and, more frequently, in metal and other hoards. An exception to settlement dispersion is the growth of Ukrainian Tripolye mega-sites, up to 320ha in size—the largest settlements in fourth-millennium Europe.