The Stone Age of north-eastern Europe 5500–1800 calBC : bridging the gap between the East and the West (original) (raw)
Related papers
Schier 2014 Oxford Handbook of the Neolithic - Central and Eastern Europe
The essay describes major movements of people and ideas in central and eastern Europe during the sixth to third millennium BC. For the sixth millennium, Neolithization itself is the main issue, the debate about which reflects changing attitudes in central European archaeology over the past two decades. The spread of a solarcosmological ideology is suggested at the beginning of the fifth millennium, manifested in circular enclosures with astronomical orientations. In the late fifth and early fourth millennium the Neolithic economy and areas of habitation are considerably enlarged in central Europe, suggesting new agricultural techniques. The later fourth and early third millennium was a time of far-reaching innovation with the development of wheeled transport; in contrast to earlier opinions an origin in the Pontic steppe zone seems highly probable. The latest large-scale movement of ideas and/or people considered here is the diffusion of the Corded Ware culture, and with it, a new gender-specific ideology, reflected in its rigid burial customs.
Exploring developed Neolithic societies in central Europe and beyond IN THE FIFTH MILLENNIUM
R. Gleser/D. Hofmann, Contacts, boundaries and innovation in the 5th millennium, 2019
The article follows the methodological approach to define - not a "culture" - but "ceramic styles", then dating this "style groups" by radiometric dates and then map epirossen and Michelsberg ceramics on the level of vessels. This was done for Baden-Württemberg in the South of Germany, showing a rather mixed picture of styles for the horizon MK I, followed by "closed" style regions during horizon MK II. This was interpreted on the level of "function of decorated vessels", as only this part of "material culture" was investigated. The idea is, decorated vessels lost by and by their place and importance for social interactions, but got more a reaffirmative function for group identity. The fifth millennium is characterized by far-flung contacts and a veritable flood of innovations. While its beginning is still strongly reminiscent of a broadly Line-arbandkeramik way of life, at its end we find new, interregionally valid forms of symbolism, representation and ritual behaviour, changes in the settlement system, in architecture and in routine life. Yet, these interregional tendencies are paired with a profusion of increasingly small-scale archaeological cultures, many of them defined through pottery only. This tension between large-scale interaction and more local developments remains ill understood, largely because interregional comparisons are lacking. Contributors in this volume provide up-to-date regional overviews of the main developments in the fifth millennium and discuss, amongst others, in how far ceramically-defined 'cultures' can be seen as spatially coherent social groups with their own way of life and worldview, and how processes of innovation can be understood. Case studies range from the Neolithisation of the Netherlands, hunter-gatherer-farmer fusions in the Polish Lowlands, to the Italian Neolithic. Amongst others, they cover the circulation of stone disc-rings in western Europe, the formation of post-LBK societies in central Europe and the reliability of pottery as an indicator for social transformations.
Památky archeologické, 2023
It has become evident that the term Neolithic needs to be expanded to encompass the historical period during which human societies began, in various ways, to break away from a dependence on the products of natural evolution. This change was without doubt due to climatic oscillations which, over several centuries, disrupted the steady life of Palaeolithic hunters. New findings have shattered the unified notion of what was previously termed the Neolithic into a series of regionally and chronologically specific complexes. The first step is to redefine the terms ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ Neolithic according to the different developments that led to the emergence of pottery.
The beginnings of the Neolithic in central Europe
2014
Since that time, a whole series of models of the process of Neolithisation in europe has been developed. These models, whether one-sided or complex and attempting to detail the transition from a foraging lifestyle to a productive economy, can be divided into three main groups depending on whether local (hunter-gatherer communities) or foreign populations (early farmers) play the decisive role: 1. the first group explains the appearance of the Neolithic in europe through the arrival of colonists from the already Neolithised regions of the Near east and south-east europe (the diffusionist model and the migration model). This view was treated in detail by Childe in his book The Dawn of European Civilisation, published in London in 192 , and was for long the dominant paradigm. 2. the second group of models envisages the beginnings of the productive economy as the uptake of Neolithic ideas by the local forager populations (the acculturation model). 3. the last group accords importance to...
Documenta Praehistorica, 2007
According to traditional views, the main reason for 'demesolithisation' in East Central Europe was the spread of the Neolithic oecumene, particularly from c. 4000 BC. Simultaneously, the disintegrated Late Mesolithic world gradually underwent typological unification, and finally reached the stage that is sometimes described as pre-Neolithic. However, we definitely have to bear in mind that as a matter of fact we deal only with the 'history' of archaeological artefacts that are treated as typical attributes of hunter-gatherers. The analyses of chronological, technological, settlement, economic, and social data referring to foragers of East Central Europe demonstrate that the quantitative decrease and changes of their archaeological attributes in the fifth, fourth, and third millennia were not connected with a profound reorientation of their spatial and ideological existence. It was rather a continuation of previous patterns, even though territories settled by farming societies were steadily growing in size. The final disappearance of Central European hunter-gatherers -but only in a strictly typological dimension -took place in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. IZVLE∞EK -Glede na tradicionalne poglede je bil glavni razlog 'de-mezolitizacije' v vzhodni srednji Evropi ∏iritev neolitske ekumene, predvsem od c. 4000 BC dalje. Isto≠asno je mlaj∏i mezolitski svet postopoma do∫ivel tipolo∏ko zedinjenje in kon≠no dosegel stopnjo, ki je v≠asih opisana kot pred-neolitska. Vendar moramo jasno vedeti, da se dejansko ukvarjamo le z zgodovino arheolo∏kih artefaktov, ki jih obravnavamo kot tipi≠ne atribute lovcev in nabiralcev. Analize kronolo∏kih, tehnolo∏kih, poselitvenih, ekonomskih in socialnih podatkov, ki se nana∏ajo na nabiralce vzhodne srednje Evrope dokazujejo, da kvantitativni upad in spremembe njihovih arheolo∏kih atributov v petem, ≠etrtem in tretjem tiso≠letju niso bili povezani s temeljito, novo usmeritvijo prostorske in ideolo∏ke eksistence. πlo je ve≠inoma za nadaljevanje prej∏njih vzorcev, ≠eprav so se obmo≠ja, ki so jih poselili kmetovalci, stalno pove≠evala. Kon≠no izginotje srednjeevropskih lovcev in nabiralcev -vendar v striktno tipolo∏ki razse∫nosti -se je dogodilo v mlaj∏em neolitiku in v za≠etku bronaste dobe. KEY WORDS -East Central Europe; late hunter-gatherers; Late/Final Mesolithic; para-Neolithic Fig. 1. Territory and sites discussed in the text.
The volume assembles contributions presented at two international conferences dedicated to recent studies on the Neolithic and Eneolithic of Southeast and Eastern Central Europe. Twenty years after the publication of the last comprehensive and broad scale conference on the historical concept, materiality and chronology of the Copper Age the International Conference “The Transition from the Neolithic to the Eneolithic in Central and South-Eastern Europe in the Light of Recent Research” took place in Timişoara, Romania on 10–12 November 2011, focussing on regional overviews over the transition from the Neolithic to the Eneolithic. The meeting brought together new data and new perspectives on the final periods of the Neolithic as well as the transition process to the Eneolithic. In 2013, the editors of the present volume organised the session A32 at the 19th meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) at Plzeň, Czech Republic on “Relative vs absolute chronology of the Neolithic of the Carpathian Basin and South Eastern Europe”. The thematic scope of the EAA session was focussed rather on approaches to adjust and revise traditional relative chronologies using new radiocarbon dates and calibration models (Bayesian statistics). Only a part of the EAA session contributions, however, was submitted. The editors therefore decided to integrate the Plzeň papers into the volume originally planned as the Timişoara proceedings. The present volume, thus, has developed a broader scope – both in terms of chronology (from Early Neolithic to Late Eneolithic) and geography (from Greece to Slovenia and Ukraine). It represents a cross section of ongoing research on the Neolithic and Eneolithic in Southeast and Eastern Central Europe.
Recently, many of the Handbooks issued by top publishers have had a character of articles with fragmented evidence-based theories, mostly paraphrased replications and reproductions. Having Oxford handbook on the Neolithic of Europe online may help an easy access. The general question is whether this book will replace the outdated A. Whittle's books on the Neolithic and whether the handbook is really in the light of the most recent evidence from all Europe. The title of W. Schier is a little bit confusing because if the ambiguous meaning of Eastern Europe in the literature: Eastern Europe as Southeast and Northeast Europe and Eastern Europe as Northeast Europe only. So, the Balkan Neolithic will miss in Schier's chapter. An army of European Neolithic researchers will probably read the handbook with the critical eyes of people who expect the 21st century prehistoric research to become finally a research with publication results not of a few authorities, but of many knowledgeable professionals with strong critical skills of thinking and writing. Other publications by W. Schier can be seen at http://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/praehist/mitarbeiter/Professoren/Schier.html. His academia.edu page is not developed.