The earlier neolithic in Central Europe: a study of the linear pottery cultures and their relationships with the contemporary cultures of South-East Europe

SCOPE OF THE THESIS: The scope of the thesis in geographical terms is concerned with the region east of the Rhine as far as the Dniester basin;it discusses the earliest agricultural settlements as far north as the lower Rhine,and the middle courses of the Elbe,Oder and Vistula rivers,and,for comparative purposes,as far south as central Greece and south -west Anatolia.The study is concentrated,however,in the basin of the river Danube and its tributaries which flow from the Alps and the Carpathians. Chronological,;,the thesis begins with the earliest development of agriculture in the Near East and ends with the beginning of metallurgy in the Carpathian area,that is from approximately 7500 b.c. to 3500 b.c.; however,the study is concerned especially with the earliest agricultural communities of south -east and central Europe, and the immediate subsequent development of these, so that chronologically it is concentrated in the period 4500 - 3800 b.c.TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION: The river Danube rises in the western Alps,i , the region of south -west Germany known as Wurtternburg;it flows eastwards through a relatively narrow valley until the "Vienna Gates ", when it is joined by the large river Morava which flows from the western Carpathians;in its middle course, the Danube, and its tributary the Tisza, have made an important lowland basin separating the Alps from the Carpathian :ountains.The middle course of the river is separated from the lower course by the narrow gorge ruade by the hard underlying rocks at the "Iron Gates ".Still flowing eastwards, the Danube separates the eastern Carpathians from the Balkan. range of mountains of Bulgaria and YuL;oslavia,and flows through a marshy delta into the Black Sea.The underlying deposits for much of the length of the Danube valley and that of its tributaries consist of wind -blown loess, deposited under periglacial conditions during the late glacial and immediate post - glacial period;leess deposits also occur in the basins of the large rivers, such as the Brut,Dniester, and southern Bug, which flow from the northern edge of the Carpathians to an 7: 11lack Sea,aud in the upper basins of the riversouch as the Elbe,Oder and Vistula,which flow from the northern edge of the Carpathians to the Baltic and the North Sea.(Butzer, 1965, fig.80). vi Loess deposits do not occur south of the Danube basia;except for one or two large r. ivers 3 such as the Maritsa and Struma in south Bulgaria, aa±d the Vardar in south Yugoslavia, and the narrow coastal plain of the Aegean coast, most of south -east _urope(the Balkan peninsular)consists of high bare dry -ountains,The middle Danube valley, which is the part referred to the most frequently in this study, consists of a wide loess plain west of its right bank known as the Pannonian Plain or Little Hungarian Plain,and a larger loess plain east of its tributary the Tisza, known as the Great Hungarian Plain (Alfòld);between the Tisza and the Danube, there is an alluvial area which was hardly settled in the period with which this study is concerned.THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT IN CENTRAL EUROPE: In Europe, east cf the Alps, during the period 5000 - 3000 b.c., that is in the Atlantic climatic period(pollen zone VIT a), it is possible to distinguish two basic ecological regions with differing climates,geology, and vegetation.The two regions are divided roughly by the Danube below its bend at Osijek in north Yugoslavia:the central European, north of the Danube, having a temperate, humid climate;the south -east Turopean, south of the Danube, having a sub -tropical, Mediterranean ?humid to sub- humid climate;a transitional regional in between. The loess lowlands form one of the conspicuous characteristics of the geology of the central European temperate region whereas loess is markedly absent in south -east Europe.Soaaae of the central European loess is still covered with the rich, fertile, basic chernozem soil;during the Atlantic climatic period, when the climate was rather wetter than modern times, and the forest covering was largely preserved, the distribution of chernozem soil must have been very much greater,as is indicated on many prehistoric sites of the area.'xcept for the narrow coastal belt of sub -tropical woodland of the Mediterranean coast, and the high mountain flora, the natural vegetation of Europe is deciduous and mixed forest;but, because of the differing climatic and geological background, the density and dominant species of vegetation vary with each region.On the loess lands of temperate central Europe although during the Atlantic climatic Periód the climate was warmer and wetter than at present, vii the soil was very permeable, and, in sore' of the drier basins, such as the Great Hungarian P1aii(Alföld) and the Bohemian- Moravian plain,the loess soils would have supported open oak woodland ;in the moister loess basins, however, the natural vegetation would have been thicker oak woodland grading to forest. (Butzer, 1965,446 -447).The difference between the two .ecological regions, especially the Mediterranean woodland and the temperate woodland of the drier loess basins, would not have been so great as to discourage or impede colonisation from one region to the other ;rather the contrary,in fact:the temperate woodlands must have seemed to colonists from the Mediterranean region to be a natural continuation of their native woodlands,with rich soil underneath.The difference,as Butzer remarks, is "im degree rather than in kind; especially with increasing latitude.(Butzer, 1965, 449).The winters of temperate Europe,even in the Atlantic cli matic period,were definitely colder than those further south,the summers were wtter,and the hours of sunshine per annum were less.Thus, some form of conscious or unconscious adaptation and response to the natural environment of temperate Europe was inevitable for colonists whose economy and material culture had been developed in a more southern natural region.HISTORY OF RESEARCH IN THE PROBLEMS OF THE EARLY PREHISTORY OF CENTRAL AND SOUTH-EAST EUROPE: The first and only prehistory specifically of the Danube valley was written by V.Gordon Childe in 19291this consisted of a synthesis of the material found in the regions described above, and their interpretation in human terms, or, as the Americans prefer it,in terms of human dynardics.Such a synthesis has not been attempted since,even though the mass of material and hypotheses which accompany it must have increased a hundredfold since then.(Childe,1929).The various "Chronologies" of Vladimir Milojcié do synthesise the material of this region to a certain extent, and chronologically correlate the material of each area;but they could hardly be called prehistory, since very few aspects of the material culture,besides pottery and other tangible features, are referred to, and there is very little interpretation of the material in human terma.(Milojcic, 1949 a.;1959 e, 68 -84).Although there have been monographs published concerning specific cultures, such as the Starcevo and Vinca cultures, these have all been based on a detailed analysis of one region rather than a detailed analysis of the material of all regions of the culture.(e.g.Garaganin, M.,1951 ;Garaganin D.,1954). east Europe.Before these problems and their significance can be understood, however, it is necessary to provide the background in an analysis of the Linear Pottery culture itself.For the sake of complete*ess,it has been thought more satisfactory to include the Linear Pottery cultures of all regions and phases in this analysis,so that the problems.may be seen in the true perspective of their relative position in the earlier prehistory of central and south east Europe.The first two parts of the'study describe the features of the material culture of the Linear Pottery cultures as a whole 's in their `suropean setting,and especially in relation to their prototypes in south -east Europe and their adaptation in temperate central Europe.The third part brings together all these features, and arranges then historically with reference to the internal development of the Linear Pottery cultures in time and space,and their relationships with each other and with neighbouring cultures ;this part maybe said to describe the dynamics of the Linear Pottery populations.ery populations. The fourth part represents the original purpose of the thesis,for which, in effect, the first three parts are the preparatory basis ;this is to analyse the long -term effect of the Linear Pottery cultures on the subsequent developments of the later neolithic and even copper -using cultures of southeast Europe.The last two parts are obviously based on specific material from a large number of sites ;it would clearly be unnecessarily laborious, len_gthy,and of little value to describe this material in detail: ;the text consists of putting forward the main trends in development and content of the material culture ;the actual source of evidence is- expressed in chart form and catalogues at the end of each chapter,and by illustrations and distribution maps at the . end of the text

Who's the Real Socialist Here? The socio-politics of archaeology in Europe

This paper is a critical analysis of my own research and that of my U.S., and European colleagues who go to Southeast Europe to do their research. It analyses the nature of their collaboration with the local Balkan archaeologists. It looks at the effect on this collaboration  of the post-2nd World War Socialism/Communism. The aim of this paper is to help make more effective the collaboration between archaeologists coming from different political and philosophical backgrounds

Pivoting and Jumping through the Fabric of Çatalhöyük to an Imagined World of People, with Faces, Histories, Voices and Stories to Tell

This chapter is part of an ongoing process in the construction of a recombinant history about Neolithic Anatolia and Southeast Europe called Dead Women Do Tell Tales (DWdTT). It is an extraordinarily complex tangle of fragments about the archaeological construction of Neolithic households, based in the records of the excavations themselves and their published interpretation and interpretive vignettes from my creative imagination. It addresses the question of how to turn this tangle of related fragments into a narrative that is both “landscaped” and “gendered”; and how to make this a narrative that is both engaging for professionals and draws our broader audiences into the glow of engaged curiosity that encourages them to participate in the enterprise of constructing gendered landscapes of the past. The response to these questions is my first step in the design of a serious game based in archaeological research