Cultural Landscapes and Neolithisation Processes: Outline of a model for the Scheldt basin (Belgium) (original) (raw)

Abstract

Recent research has indicated the continuation of a hunting-fishing-gathering way of life in the lower Scheldt basin for over a millennium after the first arrival of agriculture in the middle Scheldt. Current evidence suggests multiple hiatuses in cultural change from the late 6th-late 5th millennium BC. This paper provides the outline of a model that seeks to explain these hiatuses from the perspective of indigenous hunter-fisher-gatherer cultural landscapes. The outline investigates the significance of palaeoecological and social contexts in relation to cultural transmission processes during the transition to agriculture. Recent ethnoarchaeological research from hunter-fisher-gatherers in temperate and boreal environments is referenced as a structural analogy for illuminating the important relationship between territoriality and social mediation within hunter-gatherer groups at the Mesolithic-Neolithic interface.

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