Neolithic Europe

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Map showing the Neolithic expansions from the 7th to the 5th millennium BC

Europe in ca. 4500-4000 BC

Europe in ca. 4000-3500 BC

Simple map of the major late 4th millennium BC "Old European" cultures. Green is the Funnelbeaker culture (TRB). Blue is the Linear Ceramic culture (LBK). Orange is the Lengyel culture, purple the Vincha culture, red the Cucuteni culture and yellow the western part of the Yamna culture.

Neolithic Europe is the time between roughly from 7000 BC (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) to ca. 1700 BC (the beginning of the Bronze Age in northwest Europe). The Neolithic overlaps the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe as cultural changes moved from the south east to north west at about 1km/year. The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place, its end marked by the introduction of bronze implements: in southeast Europe it is approximately 4000 years (i.e., 7000 BC–3000 BC) while in Northwest Europe it is just under 3000 years (ca. 4500 BC–1700 BC).

[edit] Basic cultural characteristics

Regardless of specific chronology, many European Neolithic groups share basic characteristics, such as living in small-scale, presumably egalitarian, family-based communities, subsisting on domesticated plants and animals supplemented with the collection of wild plant foods and with hunting, and producing hand-made pottery, that is, pottery made without the potter's wheel. There are also many differences, with some Neolithic communities in southeastern Europe living in heavily fortified settlements of 3,000-4,000 people (e.g., Sesklo in Greece) whereas Neolithic groups in England were small (possibly 50-100 people) and highly mobile cattle-herders.

The details of the origin, chronology, social organization, subsistence practices and ideology of the peoples of Neolithic Europe are obtained from archaeology, and not historical records, since these people left none. Since the 1970s, population genetics has provided independent data on the population history of Neolithic Europe, including migration events and genetic relationships with peoples in South Asia. A further independent tool, linguistics, has contributed hypothetical reconstructions of early European languages and family trees with estimates of dating of splits, in particular theories on the relationship between speakers of Indo-European languages and Neolithic peoples. Some archaeologists believe that the expansion of Neolithic peoples from southwest Asia into Europe, marking the eclipse of Mesolithic culture, coincided with the introduction of Indo-European speakers, whereas many linguists prefer to see Indo-European languages introduced during the succeeding Bronze Age. A few see Indo-European languages starting in Paleolithic times.

[edit] Archaeology of the Neolithic

Archeologists believe that food-producing societies first emerged in the Levantine region of southwest Asia at the close of the Ice Age around 12,000 BC, and developed into a number of regionally distinctive cultures by the eighth millennium BC. Remains of food-producing societies in the Aegean have been carbon-dated to around 6500 BC at Knossos, Franchthi Cave, and a number of mainland sites in Thessaly. Neolithic groups appear soon afterwards in the Balkans and south-central Europe. The Neolithic cultures of southeastern Europe (the Balkans, Italy, and the Aegean) show some continuity with groups in southwest Asia and Anatolia (e.g., Çatalhöyük).

Current evidence suggests that Neolithic material culture was introduced to Europe via western Anatolia, and that similarities in cultures of North Africa and the Pontic steppes are due to diffusion out of Europe. All Neolithic sites in Europe contain ceramics, and contain the plants and animals domesticated in Southwest Asia: einkorn, emmer, barley, lentils, pigs, goats, sheep, and cattle. Genetic data suggest that no independent domestication of animals took place in Neolithic Europe, and that all domesticated animals were originally domesticated in Southwest Asia.^[1] The only domesticate not from Southwest Asia was broomcorn millet, domesticated in East Asia.^[2]

Archaeologists seem to agree that the culture of the early Neolithic is relatively homogeneous, compared both to the late Mesolithic and the later Neolithic. The diffusion across Europe, from the Aegean to Britain, took about 2,500 years (6500 BC - 4000 BC). The Baltic region was penetrated a bit later, around 3500 BC, and there was also a delay in settling the Hungarian plain. In general, colonization shows a "saltatory" pattern, as the Neolithic advanced from one patch of fertile alluvial soil to another, bypassing mountainous areas. Analysis of radiocarbon dates show clearly that Mesolithic and Neolithic populations lived side by side for as much as a millennium in many parts of Europe, especially in the Iberian peninsula and along the Atlantic coast.^[3]

[edit] Genetics in the Neolithic

Main article: Genetic history of Europe

DNA analysis of samples from the modern population of Europe has suggested that both the male and female parts of the people during Neolithic times were mainly descendants of that of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. There was small immigration from the Middle East during the Neolithic period, ranging from around 30% in the south-east of Europe to perhaps 1% in the north-west.

The earliest modern humans — Homo sapiens sapiens — to enter Europe did so perhaps around 50,000 years ago in the Paleolithic, during a long interglacial period of particularly mild climate, when Europe was relatively warm, and food was plentiful. Some of the oldest works of art in the world, such as the cave paintings at Lascaux in southern France, are datable to shortly after this migration. The Neanderthals are thought to have already been there for about 150,000 years, but seem to have died out by about 30,000 years ago, presumably out-competed by the modern humans during a period of cold weather. To what extent modern humans interbred with Neanderthals – if at all – is still a matter of debate.^[4] The last ice age plunged Europe into a much colder and harsher environment, and covered much of the north of it with inhospitable glaciers. As the glaciers began to retreat, about 20,000 years ago,^[5] humans migrated northward again. It was this population that was in situ in Mesolithic Europe in the 7th millennium BC when the Neolithic culture first began to enter Europe from Anatolia.

If the Neolithic immigrants to Europe were indeed Indo-European, then populations speaking non-Indo-European languages are obvious candidates for Mesolithic remnants. The Basques of the Pyrenees present the strongest case, since their language is related to none other in the world, and the Basque population has a unique genetic profile.^[6] It has also been suggested that in North-Eastern Europe, Uralic speaking peoples (such as the Finns) represent remnants of Mesolithic populations.^[7] The other current non-Indo-European languages of Europe—Turkish, Maltese, and Hungarian—were introduced in historical times. Some extinct European languages appear to be non-Indo-European (e.g. Etruscan), but it is not known whether these are Mesolithic remnants or the result of later migrations.

[edit] Language in the Neolithic

There are three main theories as to when Indo-European languages arrived in Europe. These have different implications as to the languages spoken in Neolithic Europe.

[edit] Kurgan Hypothesis

Marija Gimbutas refers to the Neolithic cultures as Old Europe.^[8] Archaeologists and ethnographers working within her framework believe that the evidence points to the immigration of speakers of Indo-European languages at the beginning of the Bronze age (the Kurgan hypothesis). For this reason, Gimbutas and her associates regard the terms Neolithic, Old Europe, and Pre-Indo-European as synonymous. Thus in Neolithic Europe a Pre-Indo-European language would have been spoken. This is thought to be evidenced by river and topographic names that do not appear to be Indo-European in origin, and by the existence of extinct non-Indo-European languages as well as Basque.

The hypothesis that Indo-European speakers reached Europe from the Pontic steppes in the Bronze Age is older than Gimbutas' work, and was perhaps first clearly stated by V. Gordon Childe.^[9] The model posits that the Indo-European peoples were warlike, and that they imposed themselves as an elite on the Old European populations, who adopted their language.

[edit] Anatolian Hypothesis

Nevertheless, the Kurgan hypothesis has fallen out of favour with archaeologists who, beginning with Colin Renfrew, pointed out that there isn't a Europe-wide archaeological horizon that corresponds to this putative invasion.^[10] If the cultural imprint was strong enough to replace languages, Renfrew's reasoning goes, then it should have left some trace on material culture as well.

Peter Bellwood^[11] and Colin Renfrew^[12] have more recently developed the Anatolian Hypothesis that major IE language phyla are likely to be associated with the Neolithic Revolution. Their reasoning is first, that the spread of the Neolithic toolkit is more likely to occur through demic diffusion than through cultural diffusion, and second, that a sedentary population relying on domesticated plants and animals will grow much faster than a nomadic, foraging population. Thus, the populations located in the original hearth areas will grow and expand, carrying their language with them.

Bellwood's work^[13] draws together archaeological, linguistic, and genetic studies to make the case that large and widespread language phyla, such as Austronesian or Indo-European, are associated with the first adopters of agriculture. Bellwood maintains that Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic, and Elamo-Dravidian languages all dispersed out of the northern Levant hearth area, suggesting that they stem from a common ancestor — an ancestor Bellwood associates with the Nostratic superfamily.^[14]

One interesting implication of the Renfrew-Bellwood hypothesis is that the spread of the Neolithic resembles a migration, with significant population replacement, rather than the simple adoption of Neolithic culture. This suggests that genetic evidence could be employed to examine the spread of the Neolithic. And indeed the Renfrew-Bellwood hypothesis is consistent with the work of geneticists, ^[15] who investigated genetic distance among world populations, based on classical autosomal traits, such as blood types. These authors note that the most salient pattern of genetic variation within European populations is a gradient with highest levels in Anatolia and lowest levels on the northern periphery of the continent and in mountainous areas. They interpret this gradient as the result of Neolithic migration out of Anatolia, with genetic admixture along the way, until by the time the Neolithic arrives in far northern Europe the original Anatolian gene pool is much diluted.^[16] Subsequently Renfrew has modified his view of the cultural spread to be with demitic diffusion primarily in south-east Europe, with aculturisation primarily in the rest of the area.

[edit] Palaeolithic Continuity Hypothesis

Supporters of the Paleolithic Continuity Theory believe that the Proto-Indo-European language spread with the original entry of modern man into Europe and differentiated because of isolation in refugia during the Last Glacial Maximum. Afterwards these languages spread out during the re-colonisation of Europe some 15,000 years ago. Thus at the start of the Neolithic the various language families were already separate.

[edit] List of cultures and sites

Excavated dwellings at Skara Brae (Orkney, Scotland). Europe's most complete Neolithic village.

• Early Neolithic
  • Starcevo-Criş culture (Starčevo I, Körös, Criş, Central Balkans, 7th to 5th millennia)
  • Dudeşti culture (6th millennium)

• Middle Neolithic
  • Vinča culture (6th to 3rd millennia)
  • Linear Ceramic culture (6th to 5th millennia)
    • Circular ditches
  • Comb Ceramic culture (6th to 3rd millennia)
  • Precucuteni culture
  • Ertebølle culture (5th to 3rd millennia)
  • Cortaillod Culture
  • Hembury culture
  • Windmill Hill culture
  • Pfyn Culture
  • Corded Ware Culture
  • Horgen Culture

• Eneolithic
  • Cucuteni culture (5th millennium)
  • Lengyel culture (5th millennium)
  • A culture in Central Europe produced monumental arrangements of circular ditches between 4800 BC and 4600 BC.
  • Varna culture (5th millennium)
  • Funnelbeaker culture (4th millennium)
  • Beaker culture (3rd to 2nd millennia, early Bronze Age)
    • Stonehenge, Skara Brae

[edit] Megalithic

Some Neolithic cultures listed above are known for constructing megaliths. These occur primarily on the Atlantic coast of Europe, but there are also megaliths on western Mediterranean islands.

• Circa 5000 BC: Constructions in Portugal (Évora). Emergence of the Atlantic Neolithic period, the age of agriculture along the western shores of Europe.
• Circa 4800 BC: Constructions in Brittany (Barnenez) and Poitou (Bougon).
• Circa 4000 BC: Constructions in Brittany (Carnac), Portugal (Lisbon), France (central and southern), Corsica, England and Wales.
• Circa 3700 BC: Constructions in Ireland (Knockiveagh and elsewhere).
• Circa 3600 BC: Constructions in England (Maumbury Rings and Godmanchester), and Malta (Ġgantija and Mnajdra temples).
• Circa 3500 BC: Constructions in Spain (Málaga and Guadiana), Ireland (south-west), France (Arles and the north), Sardinia, Sicily, Malta (and elsewhere in the Mediterranean), Belgium (north-east) and Germany (central and south-west).
• Circa 3400 BC: Constructions in Ireland (Newgrange), Netherlands (north-east), Germany (northern and central) Sweden and Denmark.
• Circa 3200 BC: Constructions in Malta (Ħaġar Qim and Tarxien).
• Circa 3000 BC: Constructions in France (Saumur, Dordogne, Languedoc, Biscay, and the Mediterranean coast), Spain (Los Millares), Sicily, Belgium (Ardennes), and Orkney, as well as the first henges (circular earthworks) in Britain.
• Circa 2800 BC: Climax of the megalithic Funnel-beaker culture in Denmark, and the construction of the henge at Stonehenge.

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Bellwood, Peter. (2001). "Early Agriculturalist Population Diasporas? Farming, Languages, and Genes." Annual Review of Anthropology. 30:181-207.
• Bellwood, Peter. (2004). First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 0-631-20566-7
• Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza. (1994). The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08750-4.
• Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca. (2001). Genes, Peoples, and Languages. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-22873-1.
• Childe, V. Gordon. (1926). The Aryans: A Study of Indo-European Origins. London: Paul, Trench, Trubner.
• Gimbutas, Marija (1991). The Civilization of the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper. ISBN 0-06-250337-5.
• Gimbutas, Marija (1989). The Language of the Goddess. Harper & Row, Publishers. ISBN 0-06-250356-1.
• Gimbutas, Marija (1982). The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: 6500–3500 B.C. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-04655-2.
• Renfrew, Colin. (1987). Archaeology and Language. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-521-38675-6.

[edit] See also

• Germanic substrate hypothesis
• Proto-Indo-European language
• Proto-Indo-Europeans
• Indo-Iranian migration
• Vinca script

[edit] External links

• General table of Neolithic sites in Europe
• Mario Alinei, et al., Paleolithic Continuity Theory of Indo-European Origins
• Balkan pre-history summary
• culture.gouv.fr: Life along the Danube 6500 years ago
• Map of the cultures of Balkans - 4000 BC
• Kathleen Jenks, "Old europe": further links