“New Kids on the Block?” Reappraising Pottery Styles, aDNA, and Chronology from Western Iberia Early Neolithic

Mariana Diniz

doi:10.1515/opar-2020-0209

Abstract

Abstract Western Iberia Early Neolithic has been described as an ultimate and very altered form of the Mediterranean Neolithisation process. Despite its Atlantic position, this territory – corresponding mainly to Central/Southern Portugal – is, in its physical and cultural geography, a Mediterranean landscape deeply connected to a historical process arriving from beyond the Strait of Gibraltar. The presence of cardial pottery led archaeologists to ascribe Portuguese Early Neolithic to a Mediterranean impressed Pottery cultural area, and according to demic diffusion models, small pioneer groups carrying the Neolithic package originated there. Recently, the archaeological record for the Western Mediterranean Neolithisation is becoming more complex and longer lasting cardial dominance over the seas has been disputed. Previous Neolithic groups seafaring the Mediterranean coasts with Impressa style pottery could have reached Iberian Peninsula by 5600–5400 cal BC, proving that by the mid-sixth millennium, different cultural entities were moving in the Western Mediterranean regardless of their genetic features. The main goal of this study is to disclose this cultural diversity in Western Iberia using a robust chronological database and debating how different proxies, like pottery styles and ancient DNA (aDNA), reveal it in Western Iberia. While recognising the Mediterranean input to Western Iberia groups, mapping the variability and the significance of different decoration techniques, such as cardial, false acacia leaf, impressed stripes, and using the aDNA to identify continuities/changes in ancient populations are here as tools to understand when, who, and how new kids came to the block. To do so, different disciplinary boundaries are crossed, and some transdisciplinary critical aspects are also commented.

Highlights

Western Iberia Early Neolithic has been described as an ultimate and very altered form of the Mediterranean Neolithisation process
Core items, such as agriculture and sedentary lifestyles, seem very elusive in the Western Iberia record (Arnaud, 1982) and cardial pottery – the nec plus ultra among Mediterranean influences – was rare and not typologically similar to the one found at other Iberian coastal areas (Bernabeu Auban, 2011; Carvalho, 2008; Diniz, 2007), exception made for some solitary and decontextualised vessels (Martins, Neves, & Cardoso, 2010, Figure 7) and some extraordinary funerary wares (Diniz, 2009)
This cultural divergence was perceived mainly at a regional scale and by local archaeologists, the cardial culture was charted as a homogenous entity sea spreading from the Ligurian Strait to Western Iberia in less than 500 years

Summary

The Big Picture

The origin of the Neolithic way of life has been a core issue to European prehistory since the late nineteenth century. These, still scarce, direct data on economic patterns are lacking for many sites, since climacteric features and geological environments are not favourable to organic preservation in Western Iberia This natural background is responsible for the role still played by material cultural – sometimes as the only element – to infer social entities and identities of Early Neolithic groups, which means that some specific artefacts – mainly pottery styles – are here considered to reflect different cultural groups. Similarities and divergences between groups can be partially related to different environmental backgrounds, latitude, altitude, and distance from the coastline cannot explain changes in pottery decorative styles or lithic armatures typology detected in those areas

Moving Closer

Moving Inside

Findings

Time After Time