The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe

by Chris Fowler

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  * * *

  * Paper first received March 2009

  CHAPTER 21

  SUBSISTENCE PRACTICES IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE*

  LáSZLó BARTOSIEWICZ AND MALCOLM LILLIE

  Subsistence is production without major surplus, when ‘people … grow what they eat’

  (Waters 2007, 2).

  BIOARCHAEOLOGICAL evidence results from multiple feedback mechanisms between differential preservation, selective recovery, and ideologically determined interpretation (Fig. 21.1). Consequently, the different techniques employed by bioarchaeologists throughout the Near East and Europe make it difficult to develop a nuanced understanding of the transition to agriculture (e.g. Conolly et al. 2008). Beyond these technical differences, the Neolithic in central and eastern Europe shows considerable diversity in subsistence strategies. Historically, the spread of agriculture across Europe was viewed as a process of population diffusion from the Balkans (see Bogaard and Halstead, this volume), where agriculture had flourished under Near Eastern influences. However, subsequent research has revealed complex alternatives (e.g. Barker 1985; Colledge et al. 2004, 2005; Richards et al. 2000; Whittle 1996; Zvelebil 1986). Hunting, fishing, and gathering clearly varied in importance, depending on location and socio-economic conditions. As Bogucki (2004, 202) notes, the spread of agriculture across Europe combined colonization and local adoption.

  FIG. 21.1. Selective processes and feedback systems determining the interpretation of bioarchaeological evidence. Note the interrelatedness of preservation, recovery, and interpretation and the way they link traditionally disparate biological and archaeological reasoning.

  Mixed agriculture reached central Europe from the south-east and south. The available domesticated crops, and most animals, originated in the Near East. The earliest domesticated anima
ls—caprines (sheep/goat), cattle, and pig—in Europe occur in Greece by c. 7000 BC (e.g. Price 2000). Across Europe, many factors influenced the rate of spread, integration, and ultimate adoption of these new/alternative subsistence strategies as ‘farming’ was disseminated (Thomas 2004). Hence, the timing of the onset of the Neolithic varies throughout Europe. This chapter contrasts three areas. In central Europe, an early focus on caprines gives way to an emphasis on cattle, with regionally varying contributions of wild resources. In Ukraine, indigenous groups gradually adopt domesticates, and a similarly piecemeal and protracted process is also evident in the Baltic, our final case study (e.g. Zvelebil and Dolukhanov 1991; Zvelebil and Lillie 2000). Throughout the area, summers are cooler and precipitation heavier than in the Balkans or the middle Danube Basin, and winters are colder in general (Barker 1985, 135). Postglacial foragers exploited the rich fauna in mixed forests and open woodland and grassland habitats on loess soils.

  CENTRAL EUROPE

  Central Europe shows little evidence of ‘complex’ foragers (Milisauskas 2002, 153–155), and the archaeological record suggests that early farming cultures, such as the Starčevo/Körös/Criş and Linearbandkeramik (LBK), are intrusive. This section contrasts sequences from Hungary, Poland, and Switzerland to illustrate the variability in the uptake of domesticates.

  The Danube valley probably served as a key Neolithic ‘gateway’ between the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin. One of the best studied sites, Lepenski Vir on the Serbian side of the Iron Gates, with its unusual deposits of wild animal remains (Dimitrijević 2008), does not look typical of cultural developments at the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition. Whilst Mesolithic evidence is extremely scarce in the Carpathian Basin, Neolithization here probably expanded from the Balkans, as variants of the Starčevo/Körös/Criş culture reached the middle Danube at c. 6200–6000 BC (Whittle et al. 2002, 107–117), during a presumed climatic optimum. Caprines were definitely introduced, as domestic sheep and goat had no wild ancestors in Europe (Bökönyi 1978).