New radiocarbon dates for the Neolithic period in Bosnia & Herzegovina (original) (raw)
The Neolithic Transition in Europe at 50 Years
2020
One of the last chapters in the long course of human evolution was the shift from hunting and gathering to the production of food or strategies of subsistence based on farming and the herding of animals. In Southwest Asia, the first steps towards the origins of agriculture began some 12,000 years ago and then spread over most regions of Europe during the span of time from about 10,400 years ago (the start of the so-called PPNB on the island of Cyprus) through around 6,000 years ago. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview on the research that we have done on the question of the Neolithic transition in Europe, which began when Luca CavalliSforza, a leading figure in the field of human population genetics, and I began to work in collaboration at the University of Pavia in November of 1970. In a matter of a few days, we sketched out what would amount to taking a completely new approach to the problem (Ammerman 2003). Below more will be said about our first attempt at measurin...
Anna Degioanni, Estelle Herrscher and Stephan Naji (dir.) -Journey of a committed paleodemographer Farewell to Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel.. Presses universitaires de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France, 2021. OpenEdition Books: Préhistoires de la Méditerranée, 25 March 2022., 2021
Abstract: Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel has reintroduced and renewed the demographic issue in Prehistory, particularly in the analysis of the processes of diffusion of the agro-pastoral economy in the “Old World,” through his deconstruction/reconstruction approach of paleodemography (Bocquet-Appel and Masset 1982, 1996) and his research on the Neolithic/Agricultural Demographic Transition (ADT), carried out on a European (Bocquet-Appel 2002; Bocquet-Appel and Dubouloz 2003, 2004) and intercontinental scale (Bocquet-Appel and Bar-Yosef 2008; Bocquet-Appel 2009). The emphasis on a strong demographic growth linked to establishing a production economy was, therefore, the first stage of Jean-Pierre’s interest in this scientific question (Bocquet-Appel 2008). This research was the seed of his later investigations into the nature and pace of the diffusion of the agricultural system in Europe (LBK), first through 14C radiometric dating analysis, then through the analysis of the systemic conditions of this process (Bocquet-Appel et al. 2009, 2012). The construction of descriptive models articulating the apparent expansion of LBK with its environmental, Richard Moussa « ObReSoc » 2012-2016, UVSQ, UPR2147, Paris, France Jean-François Berger UMR5600 « EVS/IRG », Université Lumière Lyon 2, Bron, France technical, sociological, and cultural components was, therefore, the second expression of his commitment to this highly debated subject. This opened the way to an even more integrative advance, the theoretical modeling and computer simulation of past anthropological processes. Given the good archaeological evidence, the emblematic, self-evident case chosen for this approach wasthediffusionoftheLinearPotteryCulture(LBK)-the prehistoric period which corresponds to the introduction of the agricultural system in central and central-western Europe during the 6th and early 5th millennia before the Common Era (BCE). Since we have been involved in this endeavor from the early 21st c. and have contributed closely to several of these projects between 2002 and 2018, we shall present the essential elements of this multi- agent approach, the simulated products directly relevant to Neolithic archaeology, as well as the limits of this first simulation. Keywords: Continental Europe, NDT (ADT), Neolithic, linearband pottery (LBK), agricultural expansion, multi-agent modeling. Résumé : Par sa démarche de déconstruction/reconstruction de la paléodémographie (2012 1982 , 1996) puis ses recherches sur la Transition Démographique Néolithique/ Agricole (TDN), menées à l’échelle européenne (Bocquet-Appel 2002; Bocquet-Appel and Dubouloz 2003 , 2004) et intercontinentale (Bocquet-Appel and Bar-Yosef 2008; Bocquet-Appel 2009), Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel a réintroduit et renouvelé la question démographique en Préhistoire, notamment dans l’analyse des processus de diffusion de l’économie agro-pastorale dans le « vieux Monde ». La mise en évidence d’une forte croissance démographique liée à l’établissement de cette économie de production fut donc une première élaboration de son intérêt pour cette question scientifique (Bocquet-Appel 2008). Elle portait en germe ses recherches ultérieures sur la nature et le rythme de la diffusion du système agricole en Europe (LBK) par l’analyse des datations radiométriques 14C d’abord, puis celles des conditions systémiques de ce processus (Bocquet- Appel et al. 2009, 2012). La construction de modèles descriptifs articulant l’expansion apparente de la LBK avec ses composantes, environnementales, techniques, sociologiques et culturelles fut donc une seconde expression de son investissement sur ce sujet hautement débattu. Elle ouvrait à une avancée plus intégrative encore, la modélisation théorique et la simulation informatique de processus anthropologiques du Passé. Le cas emblématique choisi pour cette approche — la diffusion de la culture à Céramique Linéaire (LBK) – allait de soi, au vu de la bonne connaissance archéologique sur cette période préhistorique : elle correspond à l’introduction du système agricole en Europe centrale et centre-occidentale au cours du VIe et au tout début du V e millénaires avant l’ère commune (BCE). Pour avoir participé à cette démarche dès l’orée du xxie s. et contribué de très près à plusieurs de ces travaux, entre 2002 et 2018, nous présenterons ici les éléments de base de cette approche multi-agent, les produits simulés intéressant directement l’archéologie néolithique ainsi que les limites de cette première simulation. Mots-clés : Europe continentale, TDN, Néolithique, céramique linéaire (LBK), expansion agricole, modélisation multi-agent.
Late Neolithic Agriculture in Temperate Europe—A Long-Term Experimental Approach
Long-term slash-and-burn experiments, when compared with intensive tillage without manuring, resulted in a huge data set relating to potential crop yields, depending on soil quality, crop type, and agricultural measures. Cultivation without manuring or fallow phases did not produce satisfying yields, and mono-season cropping on freshly cleared and burned plots resulted in rather high yields, comparable to those produced during modern industrial agriculture-at least tenfold the ones estimated for the medieval period. Continuous cultivation on the same plot, using imported wood from adjacent areas as fuel, causes decreasing yields over several years. The high yield of the first harvest of a slash-and-burn agriculture is caused by nutrient input through the ash produced and mobilization from the organic matter of the topsoil, due to high soil temperatures during the burning process and higher topsoil temperatures due to the soil's black surface. The harvested crops are pure, without contamination of any weeds. Considering the amount of work required to fight weeds without burning, the slash-and-burn technique yields much better results than any other tested agricultural approach. Therefore, in dense woodland, without optimal soils and climate, slash-and-burn agriculture seems to be the best, if not the only, feasible method to start agriculture, for example, during the Late Neolithic, when agriculture expanded from the loess belt into landscapes less suitable for agriculture. Extensive and cultivation with manuring is more practical in an already-open landscape and with a denser population, but its efficiency in terms of the ratio of the manpower input to food output, is worse. Slash-and-burn agriculture is not only a phenomenon of temperate European agriculture during the Neolithic, but played a major role in land-use in forested regions worldwide, creating anthromes on a huge spatial scale.