Long barrow monuments, which emerge during the Earlier Neolithic, mark a new conception of land, society and cosmology - ideological changes that accompanied the major economic changes heralded by ...the transformation of hunter-gatherer society to farmers. This research project primarily focuses on the mortuary features found underneath earthen barrows, and synthesises and reassesses the evidence from Britain and the northern Funnel Beaker Complex (TRB) in Denmark and northern Germany. Data has been systematically gathered from 159 British, 56 Danish and 47 German sites. Although some structures, such as split-post-arrangements show striking similarities throughout the distribution areas, the differences in the treatment of the dead are more prominent than the architectural commonalities. While collective and successive burials within one mortuary feature are seen as the norm in the British Isles, TRB sites are focused on single inhumation with separate successive mortuary structures. This thesis argues that TRB mortuary constructions reflected indigenous burial traditions, whereas the British Isles have seen more influences from continental Europe. It argues that, while there was a pan-regional set of cosmological beliefs that stretched throughout northern Europe and manifests in long barrow building, individual mortuary structures also exhibit a range of varied traits related to local concerns about relations with and between the dead. These individual communities were defined by their own agenda according to their specific religious and cosmological ideologies, and the acts of building and using mortuary structures reflected the variability of the treatment of the dead. The traditional oral knowledge, which was vital for the survival of prehistoric communities, could have been curated through 'Big Man' like individuals or groups who organised large scale monumental structures such as long barrows. These sites were the locales for the transfer of knowledge and reinforcement of cosmological ideologies through social interactions between the living and the dead.
The transition in north-west Europe from the hunter–gatherer societies of the Late Mesolithic to the pioneer farming societies of the early Neolithic is not well understood, either culturally or ...palaeoecologically. In Britain the final transition was rapid but it is unclear whether novel Neolithic attributes were introduced by immigrants who supplanted the native hunter–gatherers, or whether the latest Mesolithic foragers gradually adopted elements of the Neolithic economic package. In this study, relatively coarse- (10 mm interval) and fine-resolution (2 mm), multi-proxy palaeoecological data including pollen, charcoal and NPPs including fungi, have been used to investigate two phases of vegetation disturbance of (a) distinctly Late Mesolithic and (b) early Neolithic age, at an upland site in northern England in a region with both a Neolithic and a Late Mesolithic archaeological presence. We identify and define the palaeoecological characteristics of these two disturbance phases, about a millennium apart, in order to investigate whether differing land-use techniques can be identified and categorised as of either foraging or early farming cultures. The Late Mesolithic phase is defined by the repetitive application of fire to the woodland to encourage a mosaic of productive vegetation regeneration patches, consistent with the promotion of Corylus and to aid hunting. In this phase, weed species including Plantago lanceolata, Rumex and Chenopodiaceae are frequent, taxa which are normally associated with the first farmers. The early Neolithic phase, including an Ulmus decline, has characteristics consistent with ‘forest farming’, possibly mainly for domestic livestock, with an inferred succession of tree girdling, fire-prepared cultivation, and coppice-woodland management. Such fine-resolution, potentially diagnostic land-use signatures may in future be used to recognise the cultural complexion of otherwise enigmatic woodland disturbance phases during the centuries of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition.
•We compare Late Mesolithic and early Neolithic palaeoecology from the same peat site.•Fine resolution pollen, non-pollen palynomorph and AMS radiocarbon analyses are used.•Differences in ground flora, event duration and lasting impacts can be distinguished.•Assuming human origin, this suggests changed cultural activity in the early Neolithic.•There is continuing evidence for the use of fire and the presence of grazing animals.
This paper investigates the long-run influence of the Neolithic Revolution on contemporary cultural norms as reflected in the dimension of collectivism–individualism. We present a theory of ...agricultural origins of cultural divergence, where we claim that the advent of farming in a core region was characterized by collectivist values and eventually triggered the out-migration of individualistic farmers towards more and more peripheral areas. This migration pattern caused the initial cultural divergence, which remained persistent over generations. Using detailed data on the date of adoption of Neolithic agriculture among Western regions and countries, the empirical findings show that the regions which adopted agriculture early also value obedience more and feel less in control of their lives. The findings add to the literature by suggesting the possibility of extremely long-lasting norms and beliefs influencing today's socioeconomic outcomes.
The expansion of the Neolithic transition in Europe took place gradually from the Near East across the whole continent. At Northern Europe, observations show a slowdown in the speed of the Neolithic ...front in comparison to other regions of the continent. It has been suggested that the presence of high population densities of hunter-gatherers at the North could have been the main cause for this slowdown. This proposal has recently been described by a mathematical model that takes into account: (i) the resistance opposed by the Mesolithic populations to the advance of Neolithic populations in their territory, and (ii) a limitation on the population growth dynamics due to the competition for space and resources. But these two effects are not equally responsible for the slowdown of the spread. Indeed, here we show that the limitation on the population growth dynamics seems to have been the main cause of the delay of the expansion of farming in Northern Europe.
► Mesolithic populations limited the Neolithic population growth. ► Competence for space and resources is the main cause for the Neolithic slowdown. ► Dispersal restrictions alone cannot explain the Neolithic slowdown.
Specialized pastoralists inhabited south-central Kenya approximately 3300 BP to 1200 BP, before the entrance of iron-using agriculturalists. The social and ecological context in which these pastoral ...groups were managing herds differs from anything documented historically in the region. Detailed zooarchaeological analyses of slaughter patterns and dental hypoplasias, in conjunction with stable isotope data, reveal subtle differences in herd management strategies at three pastoralist sites in Kenya's Central Rift Valley and Loita Plains. Isotopic data show that early pastoralists did not herd livestock seasonally to higher altitudes. The relatively low mobility of early herders allows for the examination of differences in livestock management by herders in different ecologies. We show that frequencies of hypoplasias in cattle are relatively low compared to caprines, and that cattle also have lower frequencies of severe hypoplasias. Hypoplasia data also show that livestock in the Central Rift Valley experienced more stress than those in the Loita-Mara plains. Environmental differences between the Central Rift Valley and Loita-Mara Plains likely influenced herd management strategies, as herders in the plains adjusted slaughter patterns to cope with suboptimal grazing conditions.
New archaeobotanical finds from Baradla Cave Mervel, Máté
Dissertationes archaeologicae ex Instituto Archaeologico Universitatis de Rolando Eötvös Nominatae.,
03/2024, Volume:
3, Issue:
11
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The Baradla Cave is located in the Aggtelek Karst Region in Northern Hungary; it is one of the oldest known prehistoric sites in the country. The first excavations there in 1876–1877 are considered a ...milestone in Hungarian archaeology, and the research involved the first archaeobotanical analyses in Hungary. Although the cave was used in many periods with varied intensity, the vast majority of the artefacts are dated to the Middle Neolithic, while the Late Bronze Age represents a smaller but still significant portion of the archaeological record. The latest rescue excavation was carried out in 2019 in the Róka-ág Róka branch of the cave by a team from the Institute of Archaeological Sciences of the Eötvös Loránd University. This paper presents the preliminary results obtained from the archaeobotanical analyses of the macro-remains recovered from the soil samples collected during this excavation. The charred remains were badly preserved, but it was possible to identify, among other seeds, emmer, barley, pea, and lentil. The uncertain dating of the samples further complicated the interpretation of the archaeobotanical finds.
Although archaeological findings show the synchronous collapses of major well-documented Chinese Neolithic cultures around 4000 cal. yr BP, the driving mechanism for the phenomenon is still unclear ...and debatable. Spatial climatic features in China spanning this time period suggest a generally cold-dry setting. This is evidenced by 130 well-dated geological records at 97 sites located in climatically and topographically diverse regions, with occurrences of some extreme hydrological events like severe floods in the Chinese Loess Plateau, and in basins of the lower Yellow River and the middle-to-lower Yangtze River. The weakening of the Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) since the mid-Holocene would have made Neolithic subsistence living unfavourable by decreasing the warmth and wetness in arid and semi-arid regions. However, it might not have been the sole factor that destroyed the Neolithic cultures in the vast territories of China ca. 4000 cal. yr BP. Environmental alterations in the major cultural territories of China reacted in response to precipitation anomalies caused by high variability of the ASM and the westerlies, which were modulated by centennial- to inter-annual- scale driving factors such as solar insolation, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and El Niño-Southern Oscillations (ENSO). This most likely accounted for the nearly synchronous Chinese Neolithic cultural collapses.
PDF
