Measuring the Rate of Spread of Early Farming in Europe

Abstract

A large body of information on early farming in Europe and the Near East has accumulated during the last twenty years of prehistoric research. The economies of most early farming settlements in Europe are characterised by the use of various domesticated species (wheat, barley, sheep, cattle and pig) combined with the exploitation of wild plants and animals. The view generally held sees early farming of the type practised in Europe as having originated in the Near East (Ucko & Dimbleby I969). Thence it appears to have spread first to Greece and the Balkans and subsequently over the rest of Europe (Clark 1965; Neustupny 1968). The extension of early farming across Europe is a subject of interest to a number of disciplines ranging from prehistory and palaeoecology to genetics. In this article, we concentrate on one aspect of the question: the measurement of the rate of spread or diffusion. A previous attempt to measure 'neolithic diffusion rates' was made by Edmonson (I96I). This pioneer study is unsatisfactory in a number of ways: notably in the method of measurement and in the assumption that what was being measured was a rate of cultural or stimulus diffusion.