New research on Neolithic circular enclosures

Abstract

Today, Neolithic circular enclosures are generally regarded as evidence of the first monumental architecture in Europe. They are undoubtedly a topical subject in Neolithic research and also attract great interest from a broader audience. This has not always been the case. Just over 40 years ago, the few examples known then, mainly from Bavaria and Bohemia, were regarded as exotic and of no particular importance for the cultural-historical assessment of early farming societies in Europe. Thanks to aerial archaeology, the number of known sites increased rapidly in the 1970s and 1980s in Bavaria and Lower Austria. This has also been the case, since the 1990s, in East Germany and other countries of the former Eastern Bloc when political change made systematic prospecting flights possible. In addition, the development of geophysical prospection methods provided new insights into the structure and landscapes into which the enclosures were embedded. Finally, the increasing number of rescue excavations and large-scale scientific excavations have contributed to a better understanding of such sites as a characteristic component of Middle Neolithic societies in Central Europe.