Combining geometric morphometrics and redundancy analysis to analyse Neolithic architecture – A case study on southwest German longhouses 5000-4500 BCE

Abstract

Longhouses represent the typical architecture of early farming societies of Central Europe. For almost 1000 years, these buildings with earthfast posts remain the typical form of construction (c. 5500–4500 BCE). In the course of this time, a number of architectural elements nevertheless changed. In the first half of the 5th millennium BCE, the variety of architectural construction methods increased. The typology of the ground plan and further architectural elements are hence a crucial basis for dating buildings of this time period. And this is also of great importance because individual house plans cannot be dated using finds from accompanying pits. This article examines previous categorisations for house layouts of the southwest German Middle Neolithic (5000-4500 BCE) on the basis of multivariate methods including geometric morphometrics, principal component analysis, and redundancy analysis. The results show a significant connection between the shape of the outline and a rough chronological classification as well as various constructional characteristics. Our analysis shows that the Middle Neolithic longhouse does not exhibit a continuous change in the shape from “ship-shaped” to “trapezoidal”. Rather, for the older stage, exclusively ship-shaped outlines are typical while for the younger stage a diversification took place. This transformation can be placed in a broader cultural context since diversification processes have also been observed for settlement patterns and agricultural practice during this period.