Neolithic Age Europe

Date: 8000-3500 b.c.e. in southeastern and 3200-1500 b.c.e. in northern Europe

Locale: Continental Europe and the British Isles

Neolithic Age Europe

The Neolithic (New Stone) Age represents the last period of dependence on stone tools before they were replaced by metal implements. This took place in a different way in each locale and was often a subtle transformation of predecessor Mesolithic peoples who in some cases coexisted at “frontiers” and most likely traded with their farming neighbors.

History

The Neolithic Age occurred earliest in southeastern and latest in northwestern Europe, and the transition was most likely somewhat different in each region. In southeastern Europe, the Neolithic transition may have started about 8000 b.c.e., although more probably in most places around 6500 b.c.e. and was most likely derived from Neolithic communities in southwest Asia. Early sites reflect a mobile lifestyle with annual reoccupation of central sites, and buildings and structures slowly became more permanent. By 6000 b.c.e., Neolithic communities extended to the Hungarian plain and northeast to the Carpathians. By 5500 to 4000 b.c.e., smaller sites coalesced into larger tells and in some cases expanded into new zones. Whether this was caused by growing populations or acculturation of Mesolithic peoples is not clear. Copper working and gold working were introduced and developed. From 4000 to 3500 b.c.e., tells were abandoned, and the settlements that followed tended to be smaller and dispersed, often situated on defendable hills.

In the central and west Mediterranean, the Neolithic dates to 6000-7000 b.c.e. with the appearance of ditched enclosures in Italy, but again the transformation was slow and gradual. People were mobile and slowly incorporated sheep and cereals. Before 5000 b.c.e., Impressed ware pottery was broadly distributed, and afterward, settlements increased in coastal and inland regions.

The Linear Pottery culture (Linearbandkeramik or LBK) was the first evidence of the Neolithic in central and western Europe (5500 to 5000 b.c.e.) in regions corresponding largely to loess soils or the southern extent of the sandy and clay soils of the north European plain. Some sites are in fertile valleys in lowlands near water and often include woodlands. Settlements appear to be continuously occupied, with timber long houses, intensive gardens, and husbandry, particularly cattle. The Linear Pottery culture seems to have rapidly replaced the indigenous foraging lifestyle, and these peoples may represent colonization by folks from the south or Hungarian plains or may include extensive mixture with the indigenous foraging inhabitants. From 5500 to 4000 b.c.e., settlement was extended to the limits of the loess soils and also fertile soils in Poland. Regional differentiation also occurred, leading to the Rössen and Lengyel cultures.

By 4000 b.c.e., the Neolithic Age spread to much of central and western Europe, including southern Scandinavia, Britain, and Ireland, and appears to be an extension of central European traditions. These northern cultures are regionally differentiated, such as the Beaker people in northern Europe and southern Scandinavia. From 4000 to 2500 b.c.e., systematically laid-out nucleated hamlets and villages, often encircled by fences or palisades, were frequently located near lakes or on the edges of marshes of the Alpine region of Germany, Switzerland, and France. Hunting and fishing supplemented domesticated animals and cereals. The Globular Amphora culture, recognized primarily by its burials, appeared after or alongside the Beaker culture. Later, in Poland and Bohemia, the most likely more mobile Corded Ware culture appeared.

Agriculture and animal husbandry

Neolithic peoples grew wheats (emmer, einkorn, bread, and club), barleys (two- and six-row), legumes (lentils and chickpeas), and sometimes oats and millet. They also collected wild fruits and nuts, hunted wild game, and herded sheep, goats, cows, and pigs. Linear Pottery peoples practiced hoe agriculture in permanent or rotating fields in clearings near their houses. There is later evidence for the use of animals pulling ploughs in the Baden or Pécel culture (c. 4000-3000 b.c.e.) in southeastern Europe and in the middle Neolithic Beaker culture in northern Europe. Animals were also used for wool.

Economy and trade

Neolithic people initially exploited both wild food and domesticates. Dependence on husbandry and cereals increased such that a more stable rural, agrarian existence resulted in some regions. Coastal peoples also fished by net and boat and collected shellfish and land snails.

They traded few pots but many luxury items, including Baltic amber, obsidian, and flint from various mines, copper from the Balkans, gold from perhaps Bulgaria, and the Mediterranean mussel, Spondylus gaederopus (used in jewelry). Cattle may have been traded in the late Neolithic Age.

Religion and ritual

Suggestive of religious ritual are structures within settlements on the lower Danube that may represent shrines. At sites in Bulgaria, there are clay plaques carved with rectilinear motifs. In northern Europe, burials near monumental enclosures might indicate ancestor worship.

Death and burial

In early southeastern Europe, burials were rare, occurring in pits in settlements, outside houses, with or often without grave goods. Later people were buried individually between houses or in unoccupied parts of settlements and later, in cemeteries. As for grave goods, male hunting equipment was the most common, along with other evidence of the deceased’s status and prestige. Central and western European Neolithic sites exhibit scattered burials in graves or reused pits near houses, and there are also small or large cemeteries that increase in frequency to the north and west. Flexed inhumations are common, although infrequently there are extended burials and cremations. In some cases, there is evidence for flesh removal procedures.

Later, in southern Scandinavia, there are dolmens and earthen barrows in which many grave goods are included with individual inhumations. Long mounds contained either wooden or stone chambers that are either tent-shaped or rectangular, with well-prepared floors. There was often evidence of firing of the wooden chambers.

Community monuments

Two types of monuments coincide with the first domesticates in northern Europe. Many types of enclosures seem to have been the foci of community activity. Circular monuments—whether passage graves, henges, or stone circles—may have provided open arenas for public gatherings. Other monuments were mounds or cairns with the remains of the dead. These structures often exhibit more effort and technology than was put into domestic dwellings. By contrast, the most elaborate architecture in central Europe involved massive long houses used as living quarters.

Settlements and social structure

Settlement mounds in southeastern Europe included an orderly arrangement of houses, shared activities, and nearby burials. In northeastern Bulgaria, sites were organized within borders defined by palisades and ditches and houses tightly packed in the interior. These “villages” were continuously occupied for centuries. In Britain, domestic structures were scarce, and causeway-accessed enclosures and monuments such as henges may also have served as the foci for social interactions.

Linear Pottery culture was characterized by wooden long houses, labor-intensive to build, of tripartite modular form suggesting different foci for families or activities. Construction and orientation were usually consistent, which implies that tradition and meaning were associated with these structures, which perhaps experienced continued use by extended families. Initially there were farmsteads or hamlets and later villages representing larger social units. Enclosures of unknown function, not always associated with settlements, may have been used by larger gatherings.

War and weapons

During the late fourth and early third millennia b.c.e., central European Neolithic sites were more commonly found on defendable hilltops, and elaborate battle-axes appear in tombs. Simpler battle-axes are associated with Lengyel culture.

Visual arts

The Neolithic Age can be partially characterized by flint and stone axes elaborately worked relative to the choice of raw materials and manufacturing techniques, the carving of amber into beads and pendants, and the manufacture of pottery in a variety of styles. Figurines were common, particularly in southeastern Europe.

Calendars

Henges share significant astronomical orientations reminiscent of primitive observatories. For example, early phases of Stonehenge may be calendric.

Women’s life

The associated grave goods indicate a division of labor, but reconstruction of activities from grave goods is difficult. In Scandinavia, graves of men are associated with weapons and graves of women with jewelry and also small, polished working axes.

Current views

Initially, the Neolithic Age referred to a chronological phase and a technological innovation, the polished stone ax. Pottery became another marker. Investigators in the 1970’s and 1980’s defined the Neolithic as a shift to agriculture, a stable mixed farming strategy. This new economic system spread across Europe as peoples colonized or acculturated. This migration model has been replaced by in situ transitions to new sets of social relations, ideas, and interactions with others that took place in different ways and at different times, depending on the settings.

Bibliography

Bradley, Richard. The Significance of Monuments. London: Routledge, 1998.

Darvill, Timothy, and Julian Thomas, eds. Neolithic Houses in Northwest Europe and Beyond, Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 1. Oxbow Monograph 57. Oxford, England: Oxbow Books, 1996.

Hodder, Ian. The Domestication of Europe: Structure and Contingency in Neolithic Societies. Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1990.

Thomas, Julian. Understanding the Neolithic. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 1999.

Tilley, Christopher Y. An Ethnography of the Neolithic: Early Prehistoric Societies in Southern Scandinavia. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Whittle, Alasdair. Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.