Talk:Neolithic Europe

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[edit] From Wetman's Talk page

(From Wetman's Talk page: "Could you please provide a bit more explanation for your original statement, "There has been a tradition of reticence among archaeologists about any attempts to recapture the living culture of preliterate peoples who are known only through archaeology. All such connections are speculative, and archaeological speculation leads to controversy" in Old European culture? Although I've edited it in an attempt to make it less general (e.g. substituting 'ethnohistory' for 'living culture'), these two sentences still don't make much sense to me (as an archaeologist), and they seem a bit POV (notwithstanding many archaeologists would disagree with them, as many claim the point of archaeology is to first reconstruct, then explain, social and cultural history). I think I know what you're trying to say (e.g. that the weaving together of mythology and ideology to create a history for an archaeological culture is problematic?), so perhaps we could agree on a reworded verson?--Rattus 16:50, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)"

Wetman responded: "In a classic statement of this reticence, A. Leo Oppenheim provided for his Ancient Mesopotamia a somewhat pessimistic subtitle, Portrait of a Dead Civilization and wrote a prefatory section outlining why a history of Mesopotamian religion cannot be written." I shall add that text, to satisfy those who don't already know this. "Ethnohistory" is simply inflated jargon for a "recreated living culture", but other points are better discussed in public.
Actually I have but a single issue with Rattus's edit: before the immigration of Indo-European peoples vs Rattus' revised before a hypothesized invasion of Bronze Age Indo-European peoples. The "invasion" sets up an unwarranted specific picture; the arrival of Indo-Europeans is not "hypothesized" it is the date, whether Late Neolithic or Bronze Age, that is contended. There is an Old Europe culture, though perhaps before the introduction of farming. The original is preferable. Stet. --Wetman 16:42, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
(1) I meant that the date (Bronze Age) is hypothesized, not the arrival of Indo-Europeans per se; your edit is fine on this.
(2) 4000 BCE is not the accepted date by archaeologists, it is a minority view (see, for example: Gray, R.D. and Atkinson, Q.D. 2003. Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature 426: 435-43). I've changed it back to how it was, which doesn't claim anything other than it is a model.
(3) Oppenheim: he was writing forty years ago and solidly within the tradition of culture history, which basically was a pessimistic period in archaeology, and felt that the reconstruction of 'living cultures' was impossible (which ironically was seen as both the general objective of culture-historical archaeology, but also as an impossible task---in this sense, he is a typical late culture-historian, expressing his pessimism with the approaches that were typical during his academic career). Subsequently archaeology has gone through a couple of significant paradigm shifts (but here isn't the place to go into that), so his statement stands out in this article as very old-fashioned, much in the way that if I used a quote from a 1960s economic text to characterise modern economic theory. In any event, what I have a problem with is that Oppenheim's pessimism doesn't really have anything to do with the article anyway. What we could simply have is a statement in its place that states that the Gimbutas' interpretation of a peaceful matrilineal Neolithic culture prior to an Indo-European Bronze Age was important, but it is now a minority view in archaeology because it simply doesn't fit the archaeological evidence collected in the last 30 years. The fact that she was trying to write a cultural history of Old Europe is moot point and the reluctance of a 1960s culture historian to see this as possible is also a moot point: the real issue is that it is an old hypothesis that can't really be sustained. (Also, a minor point, but I've corrected it anyway: Renfrew's hypothesis sees Indo-European's arriving during the Early, not Late Neolithic).--Rattus 22:35, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
An impoverished rationale for suppressing Oppenheim's position, already characterized as "pessimistic" in the perfectly sensibly balanced text that Rattus has censored. Perhaps rattus will give the article a reference less slender that the single article in Nature that he happens to have read and liked: the best date will be in the most recent authoritative text, the one Rattus relies upon as a "professional." Add your modern POV in a form that suits your own spin, or I shall have to attempt it myself. Your remarks above would scarcely provide a basis. --Wetman 23:30, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Wetman---with respect, you're being a bit irrational (and do I sense a chip on your shoulder over something? -- relax, and let's have a friendly debate). My original request was simply for clarification of a statement that I didn't understand the relevance of to an article about Old Europe. You then seemed to take issue with my indication that there has been a lot of work since Gimbutas on PIE origins in Europe that points to an alternative date, and you're now demanding references... All I wish to highlight is that her work is out of date and not accepted by most contemporary European prehistorians. In terms of her Kurgan hypothesis, there are certainly many IE linguists who still wish to see a Pontic source for IE, but most archaeologists, however, are more comfortable with a Anatolian Neolithic source for the IE entry into Europe simply because that is, on balance, what the archaeological evidence supports. That's the way these things work---a model is proposed, it's evaluated, more data is found that supports or refutes it, and a revised model is constructed. Yes, more recent work is (usually) more valuable than older work, simply becauase the former has built on the latter and has the benefit of new data. My job is to keep abreast of recent work and evaluate its merit in light of what came before. So, if you'd like some suggested reading for the post-Gimbutas re-evaluation of PIE origins in Europe, then you might start with:
Adams, J. and Otte, M. Did Indo-European Languages Spread before Farming? Current Anthropology 40/1: 73-77.
Barbujani, G. et al. 1995. Indo-European origins: a computer-simulation test of five hypotheses. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 96:109-32.
Bellwood, P. 2005. Chapter 10 in First Farmers. London: Blackwell.
Forster, P. and Toth, A. 2003. Toward a phylogentic chronology of ancient Gaulish, Celtic and Indo-European. PNAS 100: 9079-84.
Piazza, A. et al. 1995. Genetics and the origin of European languages. PNAS 92:5836-40.
Renfrew, C. 1987. Archaeology and Language. London: Jonathan Cape.
Renfrew, C. 1999. Time depth, convergence theory, and innovation in Proto-Indo-European. Journal of Indo-European Studies 27:257-93.
Renfrew, C. 2003. 'The emerging synthesis': the archaeogenetics of language/farming dispersals and other spread zones. In P. Bellwood and C. Renfrew (eds.) Examining the Farming/Language Dispersal Hypothesis. pp. 3-16. Cambridge: McDonald Institute.
Note that these aren't necessarily in support of a Neolithic Anatolian origin (in fact, the first considers that it might have been even earlier), and most give the Kurgan hypothesis a good discussion too. (Bellwood 2005 is a good one to start with.) In good faith.---Rattus 02:15, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The term "Old Europe"

The term "Old Europe" is, if I'm not mistaken, specifically assocatied with Gimbutas and her followers. This article can't seem to decide whether it is really about inhabitants of Europe before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans or whether it is specifically about Gimbutas' position -- which was never widely accepted and seems to be moribund now. For example, why does it say: "Ancient Greek writers called the "Old European" pre-Hellenic dwellers in Greece "Pelasgians" or "Leleges"." -- what does it add to use the phrase "Old European" here? The very fact that this article is called "Old European culture" rather than "pre-Indo-European culture in Europe" or some such seems to be POV. --Macrakis 03:51, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi Stavros! I worked with Marija as her research assistant when I was at UCLA. Her methods were sound and her conclusions compelling, though you have to study rather a lot of material in order to get the whole picture. I don't believe her position is moribund, whether or not it has current popularity. The "Old Europe" Marija posits does describe a set of cultural motifs which are found in the archaeological record, and which stands in opposition to the classical Dumézilian IE cultural features. There were people in Europe before the Indo-Europeans, and Marija Gimbutas is the only person who has succeeded in trying to put a face on them.... The Pelasgians and Leleges and Maltese and megalithic tomb-builders didn't all spring up out of nowhere. That they should share cultural elements in common (those Goddesses) is unsurprising. What you say about Marija's "followers" is a bit problematic. She has her students, and she has her groupies. Perhaps the latter obscure the former, but Marija was a great scholar and should not be dismissed. Evertype 11:01, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Evertype. MG has become an icon for crackpot feminists, but that is hardly her own fault (well it may be her own fault, in part, but that doesn't invalidate her serious work). dab (ᛏ) 19:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
I certainly wouldn't want MG's well-accepted work (Kurgan etc.) to be lost in the discussions about her later, not-very-well-accepted work. Yes, there were people in Europe before the IEs. However, the term "Old Europe" -- despite its attractive simplicity -- has not, as far as I know, caught on among pre-historians. Also, her later interpretations of motifs on various artifacts (e.g. triangle = vulva etc.) are not widely accepted. I think [1] or [2] are samples of at least some archaeologists' attitude towards this work. --Macrakis 14:57, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I think I agree with Macrakis - "Pre-Indo-European European culture," or something along those lines, would be more NPOV if the term "Old Europe" is really only associated with one specific scholar. The "Pre-Indo-European" term seems neutral and undeniably accurate, doesn't it? BTW, is this "Old Europe" the one Donald Rumsfeld was complaining about? john k 15:23, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
nope -- as I've pointed out above, "Pre-IE Europe" is (a) a linguistic term and (b) laden with assumptions. I am happy to go with "Neolithic Europe" or something similarly accurate, if "Old Europe" is objectionable (although I have no issues with "Old Europe", the term is perfectly fine apart from the fact that MG coined it). The Pre-IE / Aryan Invasion debate is connected with this, of course, but the title shouldn't already take sides in the debate, as it were. dab (ᛏ) 15:37, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I sometimes find it inaccurate when pre-Indo-European is redirected to Old European culture, as in the other day in the Carian language article when I linked pre-Indo-European: the pre-IE groups discussed (Leleges, etc.) in that article are the pre-IE inhabitants of Anatolia (I do not include Anatolia in Europe). So, some sort of solution needs to be found, IMO. Alexander 007 15:52, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
why not? Gimbutas' "Old Europe" doesn't draw a line at the Bosporus, and parts of Anatolia, and all of the Aegaean, are included. The correct title for this article would be Southeastern Europe and Anatolia in the Neolithic. Neolithic Europe seems like a good compromise, we could also add sectoins on the Agaean, Anatolia, Northern Europe and Britain to the article. dab (ᛏ) 16:14, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
Okay, that could work. I agree that in real life no line can be drawn between Aegean Europe and Anatolia, but the practice is to exclude Anatolia from Europe in terms of geography. Alexander 007 16:16, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
See also Accession of Turkey to the European Union ;o) arguably, western Anatolia was "European" until 1453. dab (ᛏ) 16:40, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
It's probably "those Turks" that make many people (including many geographers, whether they realize it or not) decline to include Anatolia in Europe. Alexander 007 16:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
no no, Anatolia is really "Asia", see Arzawa. The world has shrunk, since those times. I am moving the article now, since we seem to agree; let's see what happens. dab (ᛏ) 16:59, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I came to this article looking for a summary on Neolithic cultures. What I found instead was mostly theories of pre-Indo-European peoples and languages. Inasmuch as the Kurgan hypothesis holds that Indo-European languages were brought to Europe by Bronze Age immigrants, extended discussion of the Kurgan hypothesis and Marija Gimbutas is out of place in an article on Neolithic Europe. About the only Kurgan material that belongs here is a statement that Kurganists reject Renfrew's hypothesis. Similarly, I don't think one could plausibly rename the sections "Pre-Indo-European peoples" and "Pre-Indo-European languages" to "Neolithic peoples" and "Neolithic languages," and if not, these sections don't belong in this article either. I see that this material was moved from an previous article on "Old European culture." I'm not saying the off-topic material should be deleted; rather the article should be divided, with the off-topic material (most of the article) moved to a title like "Theories of pre-Indo-European culture." (In addition to being mis-titled the implicit assumption of most of the article that Neolithic Europe was pre-Indo-European betrays a POV that the Kurgan hypothesis is correct.) --teb728 08:03, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] timeline, geographical complexes

here is a good timeline we should aim at reproducing. dab (ᛏ) 06:51, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comb Ceramic Europe?

The Comb Ceramic Culture (Pit-Comb-Ceramic) of northern and north-eastern Europe marks the onset of neolithic in those areas. Should it be included in this article?Clarifer

I have edited the article's map (Europe in ca. 4000-3500 BC) adding the Comb Ceramic culture to the north-eastern corner. If the version is accepted I will proceed to add the culture to the other map as well. May I upload? Clarifer

[edit] Urbian

I'd like to break out the Urbian material, if that is OK with everyone. It is very specific material and I want to refer to it elsewhere. I'm not diminishing the tentative nature of the reconstruction, only presenting it as a possibility. Paliga is certainly worth that. I'm sure there are others and this move will leave space for them when someone cognizant of them discovers Wikipedia or decides to participate. Under Urbian, we might decide to list Paliga's roots. Moreover, the comments of other scholars on each root would beef it up and make it worth looking at by savants. I'm not going to do it now, however. If you don't agree, just revert. If you don't, I'll assume this course is preferable.Botteville 14:44, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I reserve comment on this hypothesis of Paliga's, but another item that may (or may not) support his theory is Uria, the name of a city in ancient Messapia. Alexander 007 08:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BC

This article was originally created as a BC/AD article and should remain as such according to wikipedia policy. I'm not sure when it changed the dating system the the version didn't mention BCE nor CE. You can discus on my talk page if you like. Thank you, Chooserr

[edit] pre-endo-european statment questionable

" The Basques of the Pyrenees are thought to be a surviving non-Indo-European remnant of a once more widespread Pre-Indo-European culture. Older theories considered the ancient Picts of what is now Scotland also to be Pre-Indo-European. It has also been suggested that in North-Eastern Europe, Uralic speaking peoples preceded Indo-European speakers [1]. "

I believe this statment to be false. Through my studies it seems that the Basques were pre-indo-european as apposed to non-indo-european. For now I have left it, but I am continuing my studies and will try to update this in the future.

(RG 21:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC))

[edit] "Pre-Indo-European" or "Mesolithic"

The article commences by accepting scholarly disagreement as to the identity of the Indo-Europeans--are they the first Neolithic settlers, or are they Bronze Age invaders? The article then goes on to talk about pre-Indo-Europeans without ever making clear which of these two groups the "pre" precedes. Thus, in this passage, are we speaking of Neolithic genetic markers or Mesolithic genetic markers?

"According to some studies, modern European peoples derive about 72% of their genetic code from the Pre-Indo-Europeans, on average. Basques show a remarkable lack of genetic markers from other groups, prompting the conclusion that they are the closest of any present ethnic group to having completely Pre-Indo-European genes. Native speakers of Irish Gaelic and Scots Gaelic from the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland also come very close to the Basque, with a close to 100% "Pre-Indo-European" set of genetic markers. These two groups present useful data points in the study of correlation between genetic and linguistic heritage."

The answer, as those who have read Cavalli-Sforza know, is that the genetic markers are Mesolithic, since they represent the weaker principal components in Cavalli-Sforza's genetic cline maps, and they appear to occupy refugia and less desirable agricultural land. While one can make good inferences about which markers are associated with archeological stages such as the Neolithic (the population increases facilitated by agriculture, and the origin in Anatolia both help in making inferences), one can't make good inferences about which markers are associated with a particular linguistic group such as the Indo-Europeans.

I think that the article should drop most uses of the word "pre-Indo-European" and replace it with "Mesolithic." Anthon.Eff 17:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Moving this here, since it seems more like a commentary on a problem with the article--a problem I hope to correct:
"Labels applying alternately to genetic or linguistic groups are often incorrectly conflated, including with Pre-Indo-European and Indo-European ethnic and linguistic groups. Sometimes, little to no correlation can be found between genetic and linguistic grouping. This is true, to take a non-European example, between the Sino-Tibetan and Hmong-Mien language groups in southern China, where no significant genetic differentiation correlates with the differentiation in language families, indicating ancestry that thoroughly mixed while maintaining separate language communities. On the other hand, Basques show a striking correlation with both genetic and linguistic differentiation from their neighbors, providing a compelling indication of a coherent population group that has remained effectively differentiated since before the Indo-European groups immigrated."

Anthon.Eff 21:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

this is great, but I would like to know more about if verbal communication (i.e. the languages) of the neolithic time was invented during this time, and if not when.

[edit] neolithic language

hi, im a bit confused as to when these languages where invented.


For it, we must consider the HORN theory.

1- The first western european mankind building [3], started 5000 adc, endend 3000 adc.

2- The last people reletad to that work, the Konii [4] and the B(V)as(Konii) Basque people.

AND, their english descendent, the cornovii tribe. This people came from Algarve - Portugal, to Cornwall (That means the shape of Cornwall -CORNO (horn), in Portuguese and in Konii language ). They migrated to Wroxeter, Shropshire, VIROCONIVM CORNOVIORVM, for the romans. VIRO-CONIUM CORNOVIORUM translated: HORN´S VIRILE KONII MEN.

So, the neolithic language appear in europe.

[5]

[edit] Proposed merge

It has been proposed that Pre-Indo-European be merged into Neolithic Europe.

  • Merge the other way. I say that some of the content of Neolithic Europe should be merged into Pre-Indo-European. As I explained at length in the last paragraph under The term "Old Europe" above, most of the content of this article (at that time) was mis-titled. I see there has been improvement since then. Any remaining speculation about pre-Indo-European language and culture should be moved/merged. The content about European Neolithic archaeology should be retained under this title. --teb728 07:50, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Don't merge Surely Neolithic Europe needs no defense as an encyclopedia subject in itself. "Pre-Indo-European", however, is just an aspect of Neolithic Europe, a subject for contentions that is currently under a non-encyclopedic title (a dangling adjectival phrase without a noun): at most it is a sub-article that deserves a very concise summary paragraph at Neolithic Europe with the usual Main article:... heading link. Why doesn't someone simply do this, and see if it's not perfectly sufficient?--Wetman 09:11, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Don't merge Because the Neolithic peoples of Europe may in fact be Indoeuropean, not pre-Indoeuropeans. And Wetman is right, Neolithic Europe is perfectly good title in itself that serves as an opening for the various debates about who these peoples are, when they arrived, and where they came from.--Rattus 03:28, 27 Aug 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mesolithic or Paleolithic people

The text suggests that you can talk about Mesolithic people from something like 20.000 years BP, but the Mesolithic era only started roughly 10.000 years BP, at the end of the ice age. So that whole section is going to confuse the reader who isn't aware of that. Floris V 20:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Please take a look to see if the text is still confusing. --Anthon.Eff 03:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
That makes more sense. Thanks. Floris V 13:39, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

So in a very simplified summary.

Europe was initially inhabited by "pre-Indo- Europeans". Then the proto-Indo-Europeans entered the scene , the extent to which is disputed. The main disagreement lies between

a) Kurgan hypothesis which speculated that the IEs entered in Bronze age, as 'overlords'. This is more supported by linguistic evidence and genetic (Haplo R1a)

vs

b) Anatolian hypothesis stating that they entered earlier (Neolithic), corresponding to new tachniques in agriculture, which better suited to establishing colonies and growing population compared to hunter-gathering. THis is more supported by archeological evidence.

?


The Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a is found in the Pontic steppes and Eastern Europe (plus eastwards into Iran, but not into Western Europe) and may well correspond to a dispersal similar to the hypothesized Kurgan dispersal. But what is the evidence that these peoples were the first speakers of Indo-European? No evidence--Indo-European could well have been in place long before R1a began to spread. Of course, one could also ask: What is the evidence that the Anatolian migrants were the first speakers of Indo-European? And again one must answer: No evidence. But Bellwood and Renfrew have been pretty convincing--from Cavalli-Sforza's work we can see that the main genetic gradient in Europe (not just one marker on the Y chromosome, but over 50 autosomal markers) runs from high frequencies in Anatolia to lower frequencies in the North and West; from the ethnographic evidence we can see that demic diffusion of agriculturalists is much more likely than diffusion of agricultural technology; and from similar patterns surrounding other agricultural hearth areas we can see that major language phyla are indeed likely to stem from the ursprache of the original population to develop agriculture. --Anthon.Eff 04:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Focus on Language

This is just an observation; the focus of this article (and of many of the comments on this talk page too) seems to dwell too much on language.

But this is a much broader subject than that, there is already discussion of the spread of the Cultures, albeit with a rather language oriented theme, but it could also benefit from some information on geography and how that influenced the spread. Also the linguistic discussions will always be, by definition, informed guesswork. Whereas there are 'hard' archaeological records that get far less mention here; technologies & construction techniques, toolkits, burial rites, the ceramic record, etc. It could also benefit from a discussion of the archaeological record itself, it's completeness (or lack thereof) and how our understanding of this has changed over the years. EasyTarget 12:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Megaliths

One of most wide-known activities of Western-European neolithic people was building megalithic constructions (dolmens, menhirs, henges etc.). This should be reflected here. Raoul NK (talk) 09:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)