WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS: CHILDHOOD MORTALITY AND BURIAL PRACTICE IN LATE NEOLITHIC ATLANTIC EUROPE

Towards the end of the fifth millennium BC, a new funerary tradition developed in Iberia and elsewhere in Atlantic Europe involving the use of megalithic tombs and natural or artificially constructed caves for the collective burial of the dead. Ancestor worship has been the most common theoretical framework used to explain this Neolithic burial tradition, despite demographic information which indicates that these burials house the remains of a significant percentage of children and adolescents. Using data from Late Neolithic (3500–2500 BC) tombs in south‐western Iberia as a departure point, in this paper we suggest that by reconsidering the impact that childhood mortality had upon burial and grave visitation practices in Neolithic communities, archaeologists can gain valuable phenomenological information which will allow for a more robust, multivocal interpretative approach.     

Life on a Pixel: Challenges in the Development of Digital Methods Within an “Interpretive” Landscape Archaeology Framework

This paper provides a personal account of the challenges of developing digital methods within an interpretive landscape archaeology framework. It reviews current criticisms leveled against the use of model-based tools, e.g., GIS-based, within this framework. Currently, the absence of, or distance between, methods and theory is considered to be an important limitation when adopting such orientation. This gap is largely due to the particular nature of the theoretical sources informing this framework. This paper suggests the need for middle ground/bridging concepts, i.e., concepts that enable the instantiation within concrete archaeological contexts of various aspects discussed within an interpretative framework, as a way to shorten this gap. It also highlights the importance of the nature of representations when applying digital methods and their key role when producing new archaeological information. Finally, it attempts to elevate the role that model-based methods and simulations can play within an interpretive landscape framework, and to insist on the development of new middle ground solutions (methods and concepts) when existing tools do not meet our theoretical challenges.     

DOMESTICITY BY DEFAULT. RITUAL, RITUALIZATION AND CAVE-USE IN THE NEOLITHIC AEGEAN

Summary.   Neolithic caves in the Aegean are conventionally understood in domestic terms, principally as temporary homes for farmers or pastoralists. This paper challenges the theoretical and empirical foundations of this orthodoxy and develops an alternative model grounded in an understanding of Neolithic ritual and how through ritualization the everyday is referenced and transformed. This model is explored with reference to the corpus of well-published cave-sites. Although further testing remains a priority, facilitated by the development of new ways of studying cave assemblages, ritual explanations are considered to provide a more credible explanation for Neolithic cave-use in all its aspects, from the selection of caves as locales for activity to the complexity and diversity of their material records. In this way the Aegean may be seen to fit within a broader pattern of ritual cave-use in the Mediterranean during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic.     

Polylinear incursions and autochthonous adaptations: Neolithisation and sustainable sedentarisation of the Arabian Peninsula

This contribution’s broad and in parts essayistic approach to Arabia’s Neolithic is less a discussion of findings than an explicit advocacy for future holistic research strategies. Based on the contribution’s meta-theoretical inputs, it suggests two sets of theses to be tested by the hitherto gained fragmentary information and future research on Arabia’s Neolithic. It aims to encourage an “emancipation” of Arabia’s early to mid-Holocene research from conceptions developed outside its regions, and to identify the Neolithic elements and developments of the Arabian lands by distinguishing incursions from primarily autochthonous and/or autonomous adaptations in their own right. It is suggested that productive lifeways are considered to be the only crucial parameter to testify a Neolithic status. In our view this is the case, provokingly enough, for the productive foraging management of natural resources which attests surplus and pre-planning strategies and contacts with established Neolithic socio-economies. Polylinear incursions and autochthonous adaptations are discussed as the two poles between which early to mid-Holocene developments in Arabia took place. A set of basic and a set of trajectory hypotheses on Arabia’s neolithisation and finally sustainable sedentarisation (reliance on oases economies) is presented, offered as a possible framework for future multi-/ transdisciplinary research.     

Beyond Boundaries: Nature,Culture and a Holistic Approach to Domestication in the Levant

The main objective of this paper is to suggest an alternative approach for the investigation of domestication in the Levant. First, basic data regarding domestication in the Levant are presented. Then the various traditional approaches towards domestication in the prehistoric Levant, labeled (1) environmental, (2) social and anthropological, and (3) cognitive, are briefly reviewed. This discussion forms the basis for a proposal of a “holistic approach,” in which domestication is regarded as a long-term, multidimensional and multirelational phenomenon, including many elements—such as plants, animals, humans, material culture and ancestors—with increasing human manipulation of these various constituents. After a presentation of the theoretical framework, a growth metaphor is used to reconstruct the process of domestication (ca. 20,000–6500 B.P.) as a number of phases: (1) germination in the Kebaran; (2) development in the Early Natufian; (3) retreat/dormancy in the Late/Final Natufian; (4) growth in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A; (5) florescence in the Early- and Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B: (6) further development in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B; (7) dispersal in the Final Pre-Pottery Neolithic B and the Pottery Neolithic. In each of these phases, relations between the various elements are dealt with, special attention being paid to symbolical relations, as evidenced by “art” and ritual.     

Governing Institutional Complexity: The Ecology of Games Framework

This paper provides an overview of our adaptation of Norton Long's concept of the “ecology of games” into a theoretical framework for analyzing institutional complexity. I discuss the basic concepts of the framework, discuss hypotheses related to fundamental questions in governance and policy, and outline some basic analytical approaches. The conclusion assesses the future prospects of the ecology of games framework, including future research needs for theoretical and empirical development.     

The Urban Quandary and the ‘Mega-Site’ from the Çatalhöyük Perspective

This paper considers the phenomenon of urbanism and the ‘mega-site’ from the perspective of the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia. At 13 hectares, with 18 levels of Neolithic occupation spanning 1100 years, and peaking at around 8000 inhabitants, Çatalhöyük is considered to be an important source of evidence regarding the transition from settled villages to urban agglomeration. While parallels can be identified between spatio-temporally separated sites, we argue that traditional models of urbanism disregard divergent long-term trajectories. Thus, a comparative look at different types of sites has the potential to provide new insights into broader questions concerning highly populated permanent settlements in the prehistoric period and contemporary concepts of urbanism, providing a useful alternative to diffusionist or grand narratives. Here, we consider social and ritual practice, settlement layout and space, and social organization as they relate to the urban qualities of this prehistoric town and within the Middle Eastern Neolithic context.     

The Living and The Dead,Memory and Transition: Bayesian Modelling of Mesolithic and Neolithic Deposits from Vlasac,the Danube Gorges

The paper applies Bayesian statistical modelling to radiocarbon dates obtained for a stratigraphic sequence comprising occupation features and superimposed burials from the Late Mesolithic (c.7400–6200 cal BC) to the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition (c.6200–5900 cal BC), from Vlasac in the Danube Gorges region of the north‐central Balkans. This sequence, investigated in the course of excavations at the site in 2006–9, yielded stratigraphic evidence of the transformation of local forager populations as a result of contact with Neolithic communities. Our paper provides a reliable chronological framework for changes from Late Mesolithic burial rites to new, Neolithic types of ornamental beads at the top of the sequence. The use of the same burial location and continuities in burial rites over a considerable period of time raise significant questions about the role of tradition and the potential for enduring practices in prehistoric societies.     

Fortifications and Enclosures in European Prehistory: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

This article reviews recent research into the archaeological interpretation and investigation of fortifications and enclosures during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Europe. Recent methodological, technological, and cultural developments have expanded our understanding of the temporal, spatial, and formal variability of these features on the landscape. Interpretations of this variability also have varied with different theoretical trends in the discipline. We advocate a cross-cultural approach that focuses on the occurrence of enclosures and fortifications over the long term at the continental scale. Such a macroscalar approach complements interpretive frameworks at the regional and microregional scales. The geographic and temporal distribution of these features indicates that social institutions associated with principles of segmentation and substitutability became formalized and tethered to the landscape during the Neolithic.     

Coşkuntepe: An Early Neolithic Quern Production Site in NW Turkey

Abstract

Co?kuntepe, an Early Neolithic site in the coastal Troad region of NW Turkey, has evidence for quern making dating to around 6000 calibrated radiocarbon years B.C. The surface debris at the site consists largely of tested blocks of stone, discarded and broken rough-outs, percussion flakes, and used and broken hammerstones. The implications of this early production system are discussed within the broader framework of the Aegean Neolithic. The results of this analysis demonstrate that the Neolithic inhabitants of Co?kuntepe adapted themselves to a rugged, hilly coastal environment by including quern production in their domestic economy to supplement the subsistence base of the village. It seems that the abundance of geologic deposits suitable for making querns provided an opportunity for the inhabitants of this coastal site to pursue a productive non-agricultural strategy.     

The Cultural Project: Formal Chronological Modelling of the Early and Middle Neolithic Sequence in Lower Alsace

Starting from questions about the nature of cultural diversity, this paper examines the pace and tempo of change and the relative importance of continuity and discontinuity. To unravel the cultural project of the past, we apply chronological modelling of radiocarbon dates within a Bayesian statistical framework, to interrogate the Neolithic cultural sequence in Lower Alsace, in the upper Rhine valley, in broad terms from the later sixth to the end of the fifth millennium cal BC. Detailed formal estimates are provided for the long succession of cultural groups, from the early Neolithic Linear Pottery culture (LBK) to the Bischheim Occidental du Rhin Supérieur (BORS) groups at the end of the Middle Neolithic, using seriation and typology of pottery as the starting point in modelling. The rate of ceramic change, as well as frequent shifts in the nature, location and density of settlements, are documented in detail, down to lifetime and generational timescales. This reveals a Neolithic world in Lower Alsace busy with comings and goings, tinkerings and adjustments, and relocations and realignments. A significant hiatus is identified between the end of the LBK and the start of the Hinkelstein group, in the early part of the fifth millennium cal BC. On the basis of modelling of existing dates for other parts of the Rhineland, this appears to be a wider phenomenon, and possible explanations are discussed; full reoccupation of the landscape is only seen in the Grossgartach phase. Radical shifts are also proposed at the end of the Middle Neolithic.     

SHA'AR HAGOLAN AND NEW INSIGHTS ON NEAR EASTERN PROTO-HISTORIC URBAN CONCEPTS

Summary.   The new results from the Pottery Neolithic site of Sha'ar Hagolan in Israel, dated to 6400–6000 BC (calibrated), reveal advanced notions of settlement planning, including the introduction of courtyard houses, a street system and infrastructure such as the construction of a water well. It is suggested, on the basis of the Near Eastern archaeological evidence from the eighth to sixth millennia BC, that early signs of urban concepts may be found at this stage. These signs show the development of 'functionally hierarchical' concepts reflected in domestic architecture and settlement planning. At least from the cognitive point of view, these concepts may be on the direct trajectory towards the full-blown urban centres of the fourth and third millennia BC in the Near East.     

MICRODENTICULATES OF THE FUNNEL BEAKER CULTURE: LITHIC ATTRIBUTE ANALYSIS,USE‐WEAR ANALYSIS,AND CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS

In a study published in 1994, Helle Juel Jensen observed that microdenticulates are tools whose function is difficult to assess. She calls the use of the tools “an unresolved functional puzzle”. This study proceeds from that conclusion. Based on attribute and use‐wear analyses together with contextual studies the results show that microdenticulates are complex tools, in which other parts of the flake besides the denticulated edge were used. The result also show that other flint objects from the flint asemblage were used for the same operations as the microdenticulates. The work comprised a conceptual action in which the production, use, and deposition of the material were all parts of the same process. The task was given in advance. The work probably consisted of preparing or treating plant fibres in some way in order to make thread, rope, bast, or the like. The result shows that seemingly simple tools like microdenticulates were a part of the materiality of the south Scandinavian Funnel Beaker complex. The work conducted using the microdenticultates and the tool box associated with them was associated with concepts shared by people over large areas (present day south Sweden and Denmark) over hundreds of years (from Early Neolithic to Middle Neolithic AI).     

Architectural Discourse and Social Transformation During the Early Neolithic of Southeast Anatolia

Within the Near Eastern research canon, the transition to more sedentary lifestyles during the Neolithic is often framed as an economic necessity, linked to plant and animal domestication, climatic change and population stress. In such a framework, an increasingly complex social structure, arising in response to the increasingly complex relations of agricultural production, is presumed. For example, some researchers would argue that feasting-based rituals became an arena of social control and an increasingly complex society began to emerge around ritual leadership and monumental ritual architecture. Yet the research projects conducted at many Near Eastern sites indicate neither that sedentism can be directly linked to the requirements of agriculture, nor that the presence of monumental architecture can be successfully associated with social control based on unequal redistribution of agricultural surplus. While ritual activity appears to be central during the Neolithic, two important questions remain to be explored: (1) what exactly did the rituals control, given that the societies under consideration are commonly perceived to have an ‘egalitarian’ ethos?; and (2) what happened to the ritual control in the second half of the PPNB, when ritual architecture completely disappears from the archaeological record at a time of increased reliance on agriculture? Through a critical review of the use of terms like ‘sedentism’, ‘egalitarianism’ and ‘ritual’, I argue that the architecture of the Early Neolithic is related to the management of social relationships through symbolic place-making activities. Based on a comparative review of burial activity, building continuity and the use of symbolic imagery, I examine the symbolic construction of some of the earliest examples of long-term occupational focus in southeast Anatolia, such as Hallan Çemi, Demirköy, Körtik Tepe, Hasankeyf Höyük, Gusir Höyük, Göbekli Tepe, Çayönü and Neval? Çori, in an attempt to understand the social factors behind the emergence and demise of Early Neolithic monumental architecture. The evidence from the above-mentioned sites suggests that Early Neolithic place-making reflects community formation at a variety of scales, at the center of which lay the continuous reinvention of kinship concepts. While some sites, with concentrations of burials, may have become the locus for construction of more intimate local place-based networks, other sites, such as Göbekli Tepe, may have integrated the extended networks. Arguably, the formation of large scale networks during the PPNA posed a threat to local groups. Thus, a focus on local group formation and close control of social exchanges may have begun during the early PPNB, and the places such as Göbekli Tepe may have fallen out of use during this process. In the context of the symbolism and figurine evidence, I further argue that sex and gender may have become important issues, both in the formation of place-communities during the late PPNA—early PPNB, and in the emergence of autonomous households during the later PPNB.     

Early farming in hordaland,western Norway. Problems and approaches in archaeology and pollen analysis

This article discusses the evidence of farming settlements in Neolithic times in the county of Hordaland, in western Norway, and possible ways for future research to establish the introduction of a farming economy, with its cultural and ecological implications.

Using distribution maps, Bakka demonstrates how the people of the mainly hunting and fishing sub‐Neolithic dwelling‐place culture of the Middle Neolithic period preferred a coastal area of habitation, while the find groups of Neolithic artifacts are generally to be found in those areas more suitable for farming. This change of habitat is interpreted as evidence of a general change in economic structure, with a greatly increased emphasis on agriculture.

Kaland discusses the Sub‐Boreal history of vegetation in Hordaland as revealed by pollen analysis. The earliest phase of agriculture in the pollen diagrams is dated in relation to the pollenanalytical leading horizons, the shore‐line displacement, radiocarbon measurements and the archaeological chronology. He puts forward the working hypothesis that in the sub‐Neolithic culture of the Middle Neolithic period some animal husbandry may have been practised in zone VIII b as a supplementary means of livelihood, and that this was followed by a phase of cereal growing in zone VIII c. The Late Neolithic culture appears to be responsible for this more intensive mixed farming, and this corresponds to the archaeological evidence of the introduction of cereal cultivation, which demands the better‐soils of the later farming land.     

What if none of the Building Stones at Stonehenge Came from Wiltshire?

The sarsen and bluestone stones at Stonehenge (Wiltshire, UK) have played a significant role in the development of twentieth‐century ideas about Neolithic and early Bronze Age social structure. Sarsen and bluestone are not, however, the only rock types used at Stonehenge. The varied stones present at the monument include previously under‐studied material, such as the normally unseen, and largely forgotten, packing stones for Stonehenge's famous settings. By reflecting on more recently developed theoretical frameworks to interpret this variety, this paper exposes the possibility that an alternative to the dominant discourse, in which Stonehenge represents the culmination of Neolithic social evolution, is possible.     

The Age of Clay: The Social Dynamics of House Destruction

This study provides some fresh insight into Neolithic domestic architecture through the analysis of architectural technology and the control over the practice of house construction and destruction. Examined on a regional or local level, architecture of the Neolithic is often presented as a fairly homogenous social practice over the large area of Southeast Europe. In viewing the Neolithic houses as homogenous and uncontroversial material culture, archaeologists have overlooked not only the possible variation and multimeaning of the Neolithic houses but also their striking and extensive means of destruction. The role of house conflagration, a practice that lasted during the entire Neolithic of Southeast Europe, has not been addressed in archaeological investigations. Indeed the phenomenon of burned houses has been treated as a series of lucky accidents during the Neolithic, which are primarily responsible for the preservation of Neolithic sites. Contrary this view, I argue that it is unlikely that the houses were burned as a result of a series of accidents or for any structural and technological reasons but rather that they were destroyed by deliberate burning and most likely for reasons of a symbolic nature. The causes for the practice of house firing and house abandonment as observed through the architectural evidence at the site of Opovo are believed to have been related to the need for house replacement and securing its postutilitarian visibility in order to show social and material continuity of the Neolithic society. In my view, a struggle for social and material continuity might have been a leading mobilizing force in creating and maintaining social practices and beliefs in the Neolithic society.     

The Neolithic Transition in the Iberian Peninsula: Data Analysis and Modeling

We apply GIS techniques to analyze a carefully selected database of 93 Early Neolithic sites in the Iberian Peninsula. This allows us to study the spatial dynamics of the Neolithic transition in Iberia. We study how the Neolithic was introduced into the peninsula in order to test the hypothesis that the Neolithic was introduced almost simultaneously from two sources: one at the northeast (via the Mediterranean coast) and another one at the south (possibly from Northern Africa). We also analyze how the expansion of the Neolithic transition took place within the Iberian Peninsula and measure local rates of spread in order to identify regions with fast and slow rates (such as the slowdown at the Cantabrian coast). In addition, we attempt to reproduce the main results obtained from the GIS analysis by applying reaction–dispersal models to the expansion of the Neolithic transition in the Iberian Peninsula. We conclude that a model with two sources is a reasonable assumption that agrees better with the archaeological data available at present than a model with a single source.     

Neolithic rock art in context: Landscape history and the transition to agriculture in Mediterranean Spain

Rock art is one of the most salient features of Neolithic societies in eastern Spain and an explicit form of landscape history. This paper summarizes current debates of Mediterranean rock art chronology and interpretation and explores the contextual differences in two areas of Neolithic settlement with rock art: the Canyoles Valley (Valencia) and the Alcoi Basin (Alicante). Large-scale survey of the Canyoles Valley resulted in a clearer understanding of agricultural land use during the Neolithic that contrasts with evidence from the Alcoi Basin. By analyzing Neolithic rock art in its archaeological context, we discuss the significance and limitations of rock art analysis for understanding and characterizing landscape histories and the transition to agriculture in the region.