Abstract
Using a database of early farming sites in Scandinavia, we estimate that the spread rate of the Neolithic was in the range 0.44–0.66 km yr−1. This is substantially slower (by about 50%) than the rate in continental Europe. We interpret this result in the framework of a new mathematical model that includes horizontal cultural transmission (acculturation), vertical cultural transmission (interbreeding) and demic diffusion (reproduction and dispersal of farmers). To parametrize the model, we estimate reproduction rates of early farmers using archaeological data (sum-calibrated probabilities for the dates of early Neolithic Scandinavian sites) and use them in a wave-of-advance model for the first time. Comparing the model with the archaeological data, we find that the percentage of the spread rate due to cultural diffusion is below 50% (except for very extreme parameter values, and even for them it is below 54%). This strongly suggests that the spread of the Neolithic in Scandinavia was driven mainly by demic diffusion. This conclusion, obtained from archaeological data, agrees qualitatively with the implications of ancient genetic data, but the latter are yet too few in Scandinavia to produce any quantitative percentage for the spread rate due to cultural diffusion. We also find that, on average, fewer than eight hunter–gatherers were incorporated in the Neolithic communities by each group of 10 pioneering farmers, via horizontal and/or vertical cultural transmission.
Highlights
In Europe, agriculture and stockbreeding arrived from the Near East and replaced previous economic and social systems based on hunting and gathering (Mesolithic)
Comparing the model with the archaeological data, we find that the percentage of the spread rate due to cultural diffusion is below 50%
We have obtained a quantitative estimation of the spread rate of the Neolithic in Scandinavia
Summary
In Europe, agriculture and stockbreeding (i.e. the Neolithic) arrived from the Near East and replaced previous economic and social systems based on hunting and gathering (Mesolithic). In other words, knowing, for example, the fraction a1 of the genetic Anatolian component of Scandinavian early farmers does not make it possible to know the effects ( percentages) of demic and cultural diffusion on the Neolithic spread rate in Scandinavia. We think that, with appropriate modifications, our equations could be useful in other disciplines where front propagation with interaction is important, including linguistics (language competition), ecology (predator–prey interactions and ecological competition), medicine (the spread of diseases and epidemics) and the physical sciences (impurities and/or porosity effects on chemical and combustion front propagation) Another novelty of the present paper is that we apply, for the first time, estimations of growth (or reproductive) rates obtained from archaeological (rather than ethnographic [5]) data to a wave-of-advance model, which in our opinion is a relevant methodological advance over previous work [5]
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