A Variation on a Basic Theme: The Transition to Farming in Southern Central Europe

This paper attempts to summarize the past years of research on the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Central Europe and to review recent discussions about the origin and spread of the Early Neolithic. Particular emphasis is given to the debate about migration or diffusion. A combined migrationist/diffusionist model is presented, arguing for an emergence of a farming economy among hunter-gatherer populations in Transdanubia and the subsequent spread of this economy through migration. The new settlers interacted with local Mesolithic groups and adopted and incorporated local material culture and sometimes even aspects of local Mesolithic economy, a process which continued throughout the Early Neolithic. With time, population increase, subsequent competition for resources, and climatic instability led to a destabilization of traditional Early Neolithic society and finally to the outbreak of severe intercommunity violence. The only escape from mutual extinction was a rearrangement of subsistence and social and political structures, possibly with contributions from surviving Terminal Mesolithic groups.     

Imperial Expansion, Ethnic Change, and Ceramic Traditions in The Southern Chad Basin: A Terminal Nineteenth-Century Pottery Assemblage from Dikwa, Borno State, Nigeria

In the course of an archaeological project in the southern Chad Basin of Nigeria, excavations were conducted at several deeply stratified mound sites that date from the Late Neolithic to the Late Iron Age. As a way to complement the ceramic sequence obtained so far and to link it with today's pottery tradition, a small excavation was conducted at a site that dates to the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century A.D. A pottery assemblage was discovered that shows obvious links to today's tradition but notable breaks with those of the nineteenth century and earlier. This break in decoration style and technique is interpreted as an archaeologically visible expression of changing ethnic identity. This ethnic change and the associated spread of the ceramic tradition can be linked with the expansion of the sphere of power of the Kanem-Borno Empire into the area south of Lake Chad after the sixteenth century A.D.     

Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Investigations Along the Southern Fringes of Lake Chad, 1993–1996

Archaeological and ethnohistorical investigations were conducted in the area around the town of Ngala in Borno State, Nigeria, situated immediately south of Lake Chad. Four mounds were excavated. Comparison with data from excavations and ethnohistorical studies provided a fairly complete picture of the settlement and cultural history of that most environmentally peculiar region. It is now evident that Late Neolithic settlers established themselves around 1000 CalBC in permanent hamlets with year-round occupation and a subsistence based not only on gathering, hunting and fishing but also on cattle herding and probably the cultivation of domesticated Pennisteum. Certainly, cultivation is attested after the onset of the Early Iron Age around 500 CalBC. Although from then on we see a steady development toward further complexity with the establishment of compact villages during the middle of the first millennium CalAD and the foundation of local principalities during the fourteenth century AD it was not before the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries AD, that the mode of subsistence and the political and societal structure typical for the area today was fully developed. By then, the wider region came under control of the Borno Empire, a situation which lasted up to the early colonial days at the onset of the twentieth century. Des recherches archéologiques et ethnohistoriques ont été conduites dans les environs de la ville de Ngala (état du Borno, Nigeria) située immédiatement au sud du lac Tchad. Quatre tertres d'habitat ont été fouillés. La comparaison des matériaux excavés avec ceux des fouilles antérieures, complétée par des analyses ethnohistoriques, a permis de reconstituer de manière assez complète l'évolution du peuplement et la succession des cultures dans cette zone qui se distingue par des conditions environnementales particulières. Il est clair aujourd'hui que les colons du Néolithique récent se sont installés, vers 1000 CalBC, dans des hameaux permanents occupés toute l'année, et que leur subsistance n'était pas uniquement basée sur la chasse, la collecte et la pêche, mais probablement aussi sur l'élevage et la culture du Pennisteum domestique. Certainement l'agriculture est attestée au début de l'Age du fer Ancien, vers 500 CalBC. A partir de ce moment, on observe certes une évolution régulière et soutenue vers plus de complexité, avec l'apparition de gros villages dans le courant du premier millénaire CalAD, et la fondation, au quatorzième siècle, de principautés locales, mais ce n'est pas avant les quinzième et seizième siècles que le mode de subsistance et la structure socio-politique qui caractérisent cette région aujourd'hui se sont véritablement mis en place. A partir de ce moment, la zone à laquelle appartient notre domaine d'étude a été intégrée dans l'empire du Bornou, une situation qui s'est maintenue jusqu'au début de la période coloniale, à l'aube du vingtième siècle.     

A simulation of the Neolithic transition in Western Eurasia

Farming and herding were introduced to Europe from the Near East and Anatolia; there are, however, considerable arguments about the mechanisms of this transition. Were it the people who moved and either outplaced or admixed with the indigenous hunter-gatherer groups? Or was it material and information that moved—the Neolithic Package—consisting of domesticated plants and animals and the knowledge of their use? The latter process is commonly referred to as cultural diffusion and the former as demic diffusion. Despite continuous and partly combined efforts by archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists, palaeontologists and geneticists, a final resolution of the debate has not yet been reached. In the present contribution we interpret results from the Global Land Use and technological Evolution Simulator (GLUES). This mathematical model simulates regional sociocultural development embedded in the geoenvironmental context during the Holocene. We demonstrate that the model is able to realistically hindcast the expansion speed and the inhomogeneous space-time evolution of the transition to agropastoralism in western Eurasia. In contrast to models that do not resolve endogenous sociocultural dynamics, our model describes and explains how and why the Neolithic advanced in stages. We uncouple the mechanisms of migration and information exchange and also of migration and the spread of agropastoralism. We find that (1) an indigenous form of agropastoralism could well have arisen in certain Mediterranean landscapes but not in northern and central Europe, where it depended on imported technology and material; (2) both demic diffusion by migration and cultural diffusion by trade may explain the western European transition equally well; (3) migrating farmers apparently contribute less than local adopters to the establishment of agropastoralism. Our study thus underlines the importance of adoption of introduced technologies and economies by resident foragers.