Neolithic Transition

Processes behind the shift from hunting-gathering to food production lifestyle are multifaceted and not yet completely understood. The Mediterranean
coast of NW Africa provides an eclectic transitional pattern, namely, a very hesitant transition to food production. The distribution and abundance of
early Neolithic domesticated species is disparate and region specific. Climate and environmental change have been often considered as an important
influencing factor for this transition. This hypothesis was tested using archeological shells of the rocky intertidal gastropod Phorcus turbinatus recovered
from the Ifri Oudadane site in NE Morocco. The oxygen isotope composition (δ18O) of the shell was used to examine whether the hesitant transition to
food production was linked to a local climate shift in the Mediterranean Maghreb. Intrashell δ18O values suggest a marked temperature increase from >7.6
to ~7.0 cal. ka BP, the time when Neolithic innovations first appear on site. An additional increase in temperature from ~7.0 to <6.8 cal. ka BP matches
with the beginning of the main occupation phase and the doubtless breakthrough of cultivation at Ifri Oudadane. This apparent warming trend, although
considered preliminary, seems to match well with warming tendency observed in several published regional climate proxies. Therefore, a temperature
shift may have played a role in the timing and implementation of food production in the area. Last growth episode δ18O values suggest that shellfish were
harvested throughout most of the year, with noticeable intensification during the cooler half of the year. This preliminary pattern was fairly consistent
throughout the Epipaleolithic and early Neolithic phases, pointing to a probable near year-round site occupation rather than a single season settlement.
Future research on Ifri Oudadane and other NW African archeological records are much needed to assess whether these patterns persist in Morocco
and other Epipaleolithic and early Neolithic settlements in the western Mediterranean Maghreb.

The ‘Archaeology of Social Dynamics‘ unit, hosted in the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-IMF, Barcelona), in collaboration with the Maritime Museum of Barcelona, is organizing the 1st Conference on the EARLY NEOLITHIC of EUROPE (Barcelona, 6-8 November, 2019).
www.ene2019.org

Registration is open. Call for abstracts is also open until May 15, 2019. We positively welcome multidisciplinary approaches, regional syntheses and/or contextualized case studies.

This conference aims to be a meeting of researchers studying the Early Neolithic in Europe and surroundings areas, in relation with the Neolithisation process in the continent. This process followed different rhythms and presented singularities in each geographic area, and was therefore a very complex phenomenon. In order to address this scientific challenge, the conference is organised in nine thematic sessions:

- Neolithic spread and supraregional interactions,
  chaired by Catherine Perlès (Université Paris Nanterre);
- Chronology and modelling,
  chaired by Stephen Shennan (University College London);
- Human–environment interaction,
  chaired by Jean-François Berger (Université Lumière Lyon);
- Population characteristics and dynamics,
  chaired by Mattias Jakobsson (Uppsala Universitet);
- Territory and settlement,
  chaired by Daniela Hofmann (University of Hamburg);
- Subsistence,
  chaired by Amy Bogaard (University of Oxford);
- Technological processes,
  chaired by Annelou van Gijn (Universiteit Leiden);
- Funerary practices,
  chaired by Christian Jeunesse (Université de Strasbourg);
- Symbolism,
  chaired by Goce Naumov (University Goce Delcev).

NEW WEBSITE
Welcome on the website of the IUPPS commission Neolithic Civilizations of the Mediterranean and Europe. The commission "Neolithic Civilizations of the Mediterranean and Europe" aims to federate researchers working on the first agricultural societies of the Mediterranean and European space. The topics studied are very diverse: historiography, emergence, development, dissemination, evolution of Neolithic societies and economies, technological approaches, palaeoenvironmental restitutions and anthropic activities, social organizations, housing structures, funerary modes, productions, ritual and symbolic practices, etc. The commission organizes at least one symposium at each major congress. In the interval between two congresses, it arouses and sponsors symposia with a general or specialized theme concerning the Neolithic cultures of the Mediterranean and Europe. This site aims to quickly disseminate information (discoveries, publications, seminars and symposia, etc.) concerning Neolithic archeology in the Mediterranean and Europe.

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.

This paper investigates the relevance of the notion of taboo from a diachronic perspective and focuses on the Neolithisation in the western part of the North European Plain. While taboo is a very strong cultural notion, the transition to farming by definition means a subsistence change. The notion of taboo was expanded to include three theoretical behavioural options. These are deliberate avoidance (taboo), deliberate incorporation and non-ritual adoption. In my opinion the diachronic taboo model presented here helps us to step away from the more mechanical availability model and focus on the social processes underlying the process of Neolithisation. It makes clear that the small-scale introduction of domestic animals from around 4700–4450  cal  BC did not have any social relevance — at least not visible to the archaeologist. The introduction of cereals in the period 4300–4000 cal BC seems to have been of greater social relevance, resulting in new pottery types. Around 4000 cal BC the perception of domestic
cattle may have changed profoundly, judging from the deposition of cattle horns. The outcome of this process around 4000 cal BC is then a society in which both cereals and domestic cattle have taken centre stage.

Der Übergang von der aneignenden zur produzierenden Wirtschaft, oder vielleicht deutlicher vom Sammeln und Jagen zum Bodenbau, ist weltweit eine der bedeutendsten Umbruchsperioden in der Menschheitsgeschichte. Es ist ein wirtschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Quantensprung: in den meisten Fällen ist mit dem Anbau von Nahrungspflanzen und der Zucht von Haustieren auch Sesshaftigkeit verbunden. Dies, wie auch die nun stetiger und verlässlicher vorhandenen Nahrungsgrundlagen, führen oftmals zu rascher Bevölkerungszunahme. Jene macht wiederum neue politische Organisationsformen und soziale Strukturen notwendig, Hierarchien und Eliten bilden sich heraus: Die Gesellschaften teilen sich auf in mächtige und wohlhabende und eben weniger erfolgreiche Individuen bzw. Gruppen. [...]

In the Neckar valley two different Late Mesolithic traditions can be observed. They adopted succesively neolithic cultural traits from two directions - the Western Mediterranean and the Balkans. The two mesolithic traditions can be observed until the end of earliest LBK.


Im Neckarland grenzten zwei technische Traditionen des Spätmesolithikums aneinander, deren Träger aus unterschiedlichen Richtungen – aus dem westmediterranen und dem balkanischen Bereich –
neolithische Impulse aufnahmen. Deren unterschiedliche Schlagtechnik für Steingeräte trennte auch noch in der ältesten Bandkeramik das Obere Gäu vom mittleren und unteren Neckar. Der Widerspruch zwischen den archäologischen Hinweisen auf Kontinuität und den genetischen Belegen für eine massive Einwanderung aus dem balkanischen Raum zu Beginn der Neolithisierung könnte ein Hinweis darauf sein, dass nicht nur Ideen, sondern auch Personen aus dem Bereich des balkanischen Frühneolithikums bereits um 6.000 BC begannen, nach Mitteleuropa einzusickern, und dort auch
genetisch eine allmähliche Neolithisierung einleiteten. Allerdings setzte sich im Neckarland erst mit
der im Laufe des 54. Jahrhunderts BC erfolgten Integration der autochthonen Gruppen in die Gesellschaft der ab 5.500 BC eingewanderten Bandkeramiker endgültig die balkanische gegen die westmediterrane frühneolithische Tradition durch.

Recent developments of aDNA studies have had a powerful impact on European Prehistoric Archeology, both on practical and theoretical levels. One of its most perceptible effects has been the implicit -and in some cases explicit- rehabilitation of Gustav Kossinna's thought, a trend with ideological and political implications that should not be set aside. Beyond the need for a theoretical rearmament against what could be the foundations for a renovated scientific justification of new forms of racism, we must commit to an inquiry on the ways in which Archaeologists and Geneticist interact, situating what is undoubtedly a powerful scientific tool in the context of a critical archaeological practice, one committed to emancipatory values.
Following this line of thought, we review the Neolithisation of Iberia as a paradigmatic case study. The long-lasting prevalence of interpretations based on the existence of a demic diffusion of some kind or another, grants any genetic data an unavoidable and crucial role in the theoretical debate, very specifically in relation to the discontinuities in genetic patterns between Mesolithic and Early Neolithic populations, and the putative Near Eastern connections of the earliest Neolithic groups. In this contribution we will examine the ways in which Archaeologists are interpreting the growing genetic evidence when building their historical narratives. Vice versa, we will take into account the
ways in which Geneticists use the information provided by Archaeologists in order to historically organize their paleogenetic record.