Neolithic Europe

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Map showing the Neolithic expansions from the 7th to the 5th millennium BC
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Map showing the Neolithic expansions from the 7th to the 5th millennium BC
Europe in ca. 4500-4000 BC
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Europe in ca. 4500-4000 BC
Europe in ca. 4000-3500 BC
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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.
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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 the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe, 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 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); in Northwest Europe it is just under 3000 years (ca. 4500 BC–1700 BC).

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[edit] Basic 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 domestic plants and animals supplemented with the collection of wild plant foods and with hunting, and producing hand-made pottery, that is, 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, in particular theories on the relationship between speakers of Indo-European languages and Neolithic peoples. Many 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.

[edit] Origins

Archeologists believe that food-producing societies first emerged in the Levantine region of southwest Asia at the close of the Ice Age, 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] Language in the Neolithic

Main article: Pre-Indo-European.

Marija Gimbutas refers to these Neolithic cultures as Old Europe.[4] 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.

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.[5] 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. Nevertheless, the Kurgan hypothesis has fallen out of favor with archaeologists who, beginning with Colin Renfrew, pointed out that there isn't a Europe-wide archaeological horizon that corresponds to this putative invasion.[6] 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[7] and Colin Renfrew[8] have more recently developed the hypothesis that major 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[9] 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.[10]

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, [11] 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.[12]

[edit] Mesolithic peoples

The earliest modern humans — Homo sapiens sapiens — to enter Europe did so perhaps around 50,000 years ago, 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, the earliest Homo sapiens to occupy Europe, 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.[13] 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,[14] 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.[15] It has also been suggested that in North-Eastern Europe, Uralic speaking peoples (such as the Finns) represent remnants of Mesolithic populations.[16] The other current non-Indo-European languages of Europe—Turkish, Maltese, and Magyar—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] List of cultures and sites

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


[edit] Notes

  1. ^ (Bellwood 2004: 68-69)
  2. ^ (Bellwood 2004: 74, 118)
  3. ^ (Bellwood 2004: 68-72)
  4. ^ (Gimbutas 1982)
  5. ^ (Childe 1926; Bellwood 2004: 203)
  6. ^ (Renfrew 1987; Bellwood 2004: 204)
  7. ^ (Bellwood 2001, 2004)
  8. ^ (Renfrew 1987)
  9. ^ (Bellwood 2001, 2004)
  10. ^ (Bellwood 2004: 216)
  11. ^ (Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza 1994)
  12. ^ (Cavalli-Sforza 2001: 110)
  13. ^ Mitochondrial DNA studies have so far suggested little or no admixture. Nevertheless, some skeletal evidence is suggestive of interbreeding. See this link.
  14. ^ See this link for climate history.
  15. ^ (Cavalli-Sforza 2001: 120)
  16. ^ (Bellwood 2004: 216-217) See also this link.

[edit] References

  • 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

[edit] External links

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