Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-swr86 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T12:24:06.708Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Colonization and Succession: The Earlier Neolithic of Central Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

N.J. Starling
N.J. Starling*
Affiliation:
91 Fordwych Road, London NW2 3TL
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Models of population and resource pressure to explain developments such as technological innovation, increasing cultural complexity and competition and warfare, have been commonly used in studies of the earlier neolithic (Bandkeramik and early TRB) of Central Europe, in the fifth and fourth millennia bc. The usefulness of such models is questioned for this period, with reference in particular to Central Germany. After initial colonization, there was no simple pattern of continuous settlement expansion; rather, initially widespread settlement developed generally into a more aggregated pattern, with a contraction of the settlement area and virtually no internal or external expansion of settlement. Models of environmental change or resource exhaustion to explain these developments are also challenged, and emphasis placed on social and subsistence changes which provided the impetus for the dynamics of the settlement pattern. Changes in settlement, with the emergence of larger villages and enclosures, culminating in the appearance of major enclosure sites and a break in settlement continuity in the early TRB, are linked with other developments; the regionalization of culture, changes in material culture and burial types, and social organization. The origins of the settlement and social patterns in this period can be seen, not in the changes forced by external factors, but in the internal developments of the neolithic groups themselves.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , December 1985 , pp. 41 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ammerman, A. J. and Cavalli-Sforza, L., 1973. ‘A population model for the diffusion of early farming in Europe’, in Renfrew, C. (ed.), The Explanation of Culture Change, 345–57. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Ammerman, A. J. and Cavalli-Sforza, L., 1979. ‘The wave of advance model for the spread of agriculture in Europe’, in Renfrew, C. and Cooke, K. L. (eds), Transformations: Mathematical Approaches to Culture Change, 275–93. Academic Press, New York and London.Google Scholar
Behrens, H., 1973. Die Jungsteinzeit im Mittelelbe-Saale-Gebiet. Berlin.Google Scholar
Birdsell, J. B., 1957. ‘Some population problems involving Pleistocene man’, Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative Biology 22, 47–69.Google Scholar
Bogucki, P., 1984. ‘Ceramic Sieves of the Linear Pottery Culture and their economic implications’, Oxford J. Archaeol. 3, 15–30.Google Scholar
Boserup, E., 1965. The Conditions of Agricultural Growth. London.Google Scholar
Butschkow, H., 1935. ‘Die bandkeramische Stilarten Mitteldeutschlands’, Jahresschr. mitteld. Vorgesch. 23.Google Scholar
Chapman, R., 1982. ‘The emergence of formal disposal areas and the ‘problem’ of the megalithic tombs in prehistoric Europe’, in Chapman, R., Kinnes, I. and Randsborg, K. (eds), The Archaeology of Death, 71–82. University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Clarke, D. L., 1976. Mesolithic Europe: the Economic Basis. Duckworth, London.Google Scholar
Ebdon, D., 1977. Statistics in Geography. Blackwell, Oxford.Google Scholar
Harding, A. F. (ed.), 1981. Climatic Change in Later Prehistory. University Press, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., 1979. ‘Economic and social stress and material culture patterning’, American Antiquity 44, 446–54.Google Scholar
Hodder, I., 1982. ‘Sequences of structural change in the Dutch neolithic’, in Hodder, I. (ed.), Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, 162–78. University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, E., 1963. Die Kultur der Bandkeramik in Sachsen I: Keramik. Berlin.Google Scholar
Howell, J. M., 1983. Settlement and Economy in Neolithic Northern France. British Archaeological Reports International Series 157, Oxford.Google Scholar
Ilett, M., 1983. ‘The Early Neolithic of North-Eastern France’, in Scarre, C. (ed.) 1983, 6–33.Google Scholar
Jochim, M., 1976. Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence and Settlement. Academic Press, New York and London.Google Scholar
Kalicz, N. and Makkay, J., 1977. Die Linienbandkeramik in der grosse ungarische Tiefebene. Budapest.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, D., 1975. ‘Waldverbreitung und fruhneolithische Siedlungsraüme im Saalegebiet’, in Preuss, J. (ed.), Symbolae Praehistoricae. Berlin.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, D., 1976. Wirtschaft und Kultur der Stichbandkeramiker im Saalegebiet. Berlin.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, D., 1981. ‘Neue Funde der ältesten Linienbandkeramik von Eilsleben, Kr. Wanzleben’, Arbeit und Forschungsberichte zur sächsische Bodendenkmalpflege, Beiheft 16, 129–43.Google Scholar
Klopfleisch, F., 1883. Vorgeschichtliche Altertümer der Provinz Sachsen I.Google Scholar
Kruk, J., 1980. The Neolithic Settlement of Southern Poland. British Archaeological Reports International Series 93, Oxford.Google Scholar
Kuper, R., 1979. Der Rössener Siedlungsplatz Inden I. Dissertation, University of Cologne.Google Scholar
Lichardus, J., 1972. ‘Zur Entstehung der Bandkeramik’, Germania 50, 1–15.Google Scholar
Lichardus, J., 1976. Rössen-Gatersleben-Baalberg. Bonn.Google Scholar
Lüning, J., 1982a. ‘Forschungen zur bandkeramischen Besiedlung der Aldenhovener Platte im Rheinland’, in Siedlungen der Kultur mit Linearkeramik im Europa. Nitra.Google Scholar
Lüning, J., 1981b. ‘Siedlung und Siedlungslandschaft in bandkeramischer und Rössener Zeit’, Offa 39, 9–33.Google Scholar
Müller, H.-H., 1964. Die Haustiere der mitteldeutsche Bandkeramiker. Berlin.Google Scholar
Quitta, H., 1969. ‘Zur Deutung bandkeramischer Siedlungsfunde aus Auen und Grundwassernahen Standorten’, Studien zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte.Google Scholar
Rulf, J., 1979. ‘The relative density of the Neolithic and early Eneolithic settlement of Bohemia’, Archeologické Rozhledy 31, 176–91.Google Scholar
Scarre, C. (ed.), 1983. Ancient France. University Press, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Schlüter, O. and August, O., 1957. Atlas des Saale und mittleren Elbegebietes. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G., 1981. ‘Plough and Pastoralism: Aspects of the Secondary Products Revolution’, in Hodder, I., Isaac, G. and Hammond, N. (eds), Pattern of the Past: Studies in Honour of David Clarke, 261–305. University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G., 1982. ‘The development of Neolithic and Copper Age settlement on the Great Hungarian Plain. Part 1: The regional setting’, Oxford J. Archaeol. 1, 287–316.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G., 1983a. ‘The development of Neolithic and Copper Age settlement on the Great Hungarian Plain. Part 2: Site survey and settlement dynamics’, Oxford J. Archaeol. 2, 13–42.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G., 1983b. ‘The secondary exploitation of animals in the Old World’, World Archaeology 15, 90–104.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G., 1984. ‘Social Evolution: Europe in the Later Neolithic and Copper Ages’, in Bintliff, J. (ed.), Social Evolution, 123–34. University Press, Bradford.Google Scholar
Sielmann, B., 1972. ‘Die frühneolithische Besiedlung Mitteleuropas’, Fundamenta Va, 1–65.Google Scholar
Starling, N. J., 1983a. Studies in the Neolithic Settlement of Central Germany. D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Starling, N. J., 1983b. ‘Neolithic settlement patterns in Central Germany’, Oxford J. Archaeol. 2, 1–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starling, N. J., 1985. ‘Social change in the Later Neolithic of Central Europe’, Antiquity 59, 30–38.Google Scholar
Starling, N. J., forthcoming. ‘The development of the chernozems of Central Germany’, J. Archaeol. Sci. Google Scholar
Whittle, A. W. R., 1977. ‘Earlier Neolithic enclosures in North-West Europe’, Proc. Prehist. Soc., 43, 329–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar