Between the Danube and the Deep Blue Sea: Zooarchaeological Meta-Analysis Reveals Variability in the Spread and Development of Neolithic Farming across the Western Balkans

David Orton,Marc Vander Linden,Jane Gaastra

doi:10.5334/oq.28

Abstract

The first spread of farming practices into Europe in the Neolithic period involves two distinct ‘streams’, respectively around the Mediterranean littoral and along the Danube corridor to central Europe. In this paper we explore variation in Neolithic animal use practices within and between these streams, focusing on the first region in which they are clearly distinct (and yet still in close proximity): the western Balkans. We employ rigorous and reproducible meta-analysis of all available zooarchaeological data from the region to test hypotheses (a) that each stream featured a coherent ‘package’ of herding and hunting practices in the earliest Neolithic, and (b) that these subsequently diverged in response to local conditions and changing cultural preferences. The results partially uphold these hypotheses, while underlining that Neolithisation was a complex and varied process. A coherent, stable, caprine-based ‘package’ is seen in the coastal stream, albeit with some diversification linked to expansion northwards and inland. Accounting for a severe, systematic bias in bone recovery methodology between streams, we show that sheep and goats also played a major role across the continental stream in the earliest Neolithic (c.6100–5800 BC). This was followed by a geographically staggered transition over c.500 years to an economy focused on cattle, with significant levels of hunting in some areas – a pattern we interpret in terms of gradual adaptation to local conditions, perhaps mediated by varying degrees of cultural conservatism. Subsequent westward expansion carried with it elements of this new pattern, which persisted through the middle and late Neolithic.

Highlights

The spread of Neolithic farming practices across Europe from Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean during the 7th to 5th millennia BC has long been understood to involve two ‘streams’: one westward around the Mediterranean littoral; the other north through the Balkans to the Pannonian Plain and on to central Europe following river corridors, principally the Danube (e.g. Bocquet-Appel et al 2009)
Important as the latter question clearly is, in this paper we focus less upon the on who and more upon the what in this process: how coherent were the sets of farming practices transmitted across Europe, and how amenable to subsequent adaptation and innovation? While the concept of a single monolithic Neolithic ‘package’ has been widely discredited (e.g. Thomas 2003, Çilingiroğlu 2005), the various practices traditionally associated with the Neolithic do very often appear to have spread together, and in many cases certain technologies are likely to have been functionally dependent upon each other
While early Neolithic faunal assemblages from the Adriatic zone reveal a highly coherent caprine-dominated, low-hunting pattern consistent with the idea of a uniform incoming ‘Neolithic package’, their continental contemporaries are characterised by considerable diversity from the outset of the Neolithic, at least to the limit of available chronological resolution

Summary

Introduction

The spread of Neolithic farming practices across Europe from Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean during the 7th to 5th millennia BC has long been understood to involve two ‘streams’: one westward around the Mediterranean littoral; the other north through the Balkans to the Pannonian Plain and on to central Europe following river corridors, principally the Danube (e.g. Bocquet-Appel et al 2009). Bocquet-Appel et al 2009) These have been referred to as ‘maritime’ and ‘continental’ streams respectively – a shorthand that we shall follow here. Each of these is defined by its own suite of pottery forms – in the earliest instance the maritime impressed-ware (Impresso) and continental StarčevoKörös-Criş (SKC) groups. These distinct ceramic complexes developed and diversified through time in the spread of both streams: the former developing into Cardial ware; the latter eventually giving rise to the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) phenomenon that subsequently spread from the Plain across the majority of central and eastern Europe. To the south of the Danube-Aegean watershed, by contrast, the Anzabegovo-Vršnik culture of Macedonia is characterised by small but a pparently more permanent sites featuring rectilinear architecture (Naumov 2013)

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Discussion

Conclusion