Environmental archaeologies of Neolithisation: Europe

The origins and spread of Neolithic life-ways represent a pivotal change in human ecology and society. Communities transformed their relationships with the world around them, shifting away from reliance upon hunted and collected wild resources, to the management and domestication of plants and animals, alongside a pattern of increasing sedentism. These processes were played out at differing temporal and spatial scales; from the life-cycle of a single organism of a population on the path to domestication, to the dissemination of ‘new’ farming economies around the world. The varied fields within environmental archaeology are providing an increasingly detailed understanding of the agencies, processes and pathways in these transformations. These include work in the established fields of geoarchaeology, zooarchaeology and archaeobotany (Bendrey et al. 2013). In recent decades advances in archaeological science have opened up exciting and fruitful new avenues of research. Techniques such as stable isotope analysis, for example, are allowing understanding of life histories of individual animals and their interactions with their environments (Balasse et al. 2012). On a broader scale, genetic studies and geometric morphometrics give greater understanding of changes at the population level and can inform on the diffusion of farming economies (Larson et al. 2007; Krause-Kyora et al. 2013). It is the inter-disciplinary applications of environmental archaeology that are significantly contributing to our understanding of processes of Neolithisation.

The papers brought together in this volume were presented at the Association for Environmental Archaeology, Autumn Conference 2012, held at the University of Reading, UK. This meeting brought together a rich and diverse set of papers on the applications of environmental archaeology to the study of the origins and development of Neolithic life-ways, from the core areas of the origins of the Neolithic in the Near East out to more distant parts of the Old World where the transition to the first farmers happened millennia later. The papers are to be published across two volumes: this first volume contains papers on Europe, while a second subsequent volume will contain those papers on Asia and Africa.

Consideration of the nature and context of the origins and spread of Neolithic life-ways addresses a range of aspects of relevance to the modern world. These changes, beginning in the Near East at the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, can be seen as the initial development of the behaviour sets that enabled human societies to modify species and ecosystems for food production and security (Smith and Zeder in press). Sustainability and security of food production were both crucial aspects as climates changed, but also as humans modified their environments. As McClure (in press) has argued, research into early farming can offer baselines for understanding later biodiversity, geomorphological change and the creation of new biota, and such studies of human impact on past environments and animal and plant communities are of great importance in understanding the speed, intensity and scope of such changes today. Indeed, the constraining role of environments on prehistoric animal husbandry can be seen to be of great importance as farming economies spread throughout Europe (Manning et al. 2013) and beyond (Bendrey 2011). Such ‘long view’ consideration of domestic animal ecology also holds modern world significance as changing ecological conditions pose challenges to pastoralist communities, forcing adaptations to livestock systems (Thornton et al. 2009).

The early domestication of some of our now common domestic plants (e.g. the cereals wheat and barley) and animals (e.g. sheep, goat, pig and cattle) occurred in multiple centres of the Fertile Crescent in the Near East and probably developed as a gradual process over millennia (Zeder 2011). The evidence for the dissemination of farming beyond this core area into Europe points to the dissemination of these domesticates via two main routes, the Mediterranean and northwards through Central Europe, starting in south-east Europe in the 7th millennium BC, and reaching the opposite, north-west, corner of Europe by the 4th millennium BC (Tresset and Vigne 2011). This volume presents a series of case studies from across this geographical and temporal range, starting from south-east Europe around 6000 BC to north-west Europe some three millennia later.

Stable isotope analysis, as a proxy for diet and environment, is used to great effect by Zavodny et al. to explore the separate trajectories of species-specific animal management strategies in the Neolithic of south-east Europe. They focus on stable isotope analysis of bone collagen from early domestic sheep, goat, cattle and pig from five open-air village sites spanning most of the Neolithic period in Dalmatia, Croatia (6000–4700 cal BC). Zavodny et al. demonstrate that isotopic values remain stable for cattle, sheep and goat across this time period, indicating that husbandry of these animals remained essentially the same through the Neolithic; however, changes in values for pigs indicate changes in associated management practices through time, and may be a result of different foddering practices as the Neolithic period progressed.

Moving west to northern Italy, Branch et al. present a detailed regional consideration of the Neolithisation of Liguria. This paper integrates the existing archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data from the region to evaluate the timing of social, economic and environmental changes throughout the Neolithic. This enables the authors to draw conclusions on the speed of Neolithisation, and also propose different trajectories for this process in the west and east of their region likely involving different degrees of colonizing farmers and acculturation of indigenous Mesolithic populations. Through this approach Branch et al. assess human impact on the environment through time, via cereal cultivation, pastoralism and woodland management, and also the climatic context and possible influences on these developments.

For Iberia, Bernabeu et al. examine the correlation between climatic events, economic strategy and regional variability in the Neolithic transition. Reviewing a suite of 313 radiocarbon dates, the authors identify responses to the 8·2 and 7·1 ka global climatic events, demonstrating that a direct causal relationship is not supported by the varied evidence from these regions and that more complex dynamics played a key role in patterns of change.

Valente and Carvalho undertake a critical review of the zooarchaeological record of Neolithic and Chalcolithic southern Portugal. This diachronic review brings together a wealth of data on published sites and assemblages. It provides a picture of the complex economic and ecological trajectories of the different regions of the study area of Portugal through time. In Iberia we also come across possible evidence for an animal domestication event outside of the Near East – that of local horses. This evidence is still uncertain, and as Valente and Carvalho argue must be the focus of future research.

By integrating evidence from faunal and charred plant macroremains at the Early Neolithic site of La Draga (Banyoles, Spain), Antolín et al. consider the intensity of farming strategies practiced by the first Neolithic communities in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula. Their combined datasets allow the authors to draw several conclusions regarding farming practices at La Draga and support an intensive mixed farming model, involving mixed herding strategies, the exploitation of diverse animal products (e.g. meat, milk, labour) and the cultivation of potentially permanent, small fields.

Turning to northern Europe, Serjeantson's paper examines the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in southern Britain through the archaeozoological record. Based on a detailed review of animal remains from Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites in southern Britain published by English Heritage (Serjeantson 2011), the paper argues that the animal remains indicate that there is no evidence for continuity from the Mesolithic period, with wild animals constituting ∼5% of mammal remains across the Early Neolithic sites (with one exception, which has a mix of wild and domestic animals more suggestive of a transitional assemblage). Serjeantson argues that the evidence points to the diffusion of Neolithic lifeways into Britain in a context of colonisation, as opposed to gradual acculturation of local hunters; that the skills needed for, and way of life of, herding are too different from hunting to make a rapid acculturation of Mesolithic hunters a feasible interpretation from the archaeological evidence.

Focussing on the Lower Thames Valley evidence (southern Britain), Batchelor et al. apply a multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental approach to the decline in elm woodland across the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition. Examining new data from Horton Kirby Paper Mill and Old Seager Distillery, in conjunction with a range of sites, the authors propose a classification system for examining the multi-causal factors of Neolithic elm decline. The roles of human interference, climate change, paludification and disease are weighed in conjunction with the evidence, highlighting the need for further investigation of dryland–wetland interface locations.

Robinson's paper reviews the evidence for Neolithic woodland clearance in the British Isles in light of the Vera Hypothesis (Vera 2000). Robinson argues that much of the temporary and episodic nature of Neolithic agriculture can be explained by people exploiting the clearances generated through ‘Vera Cycles’ as a result of herding domestic animals within woodland. Multiple lines of evidence are considered in this comprehensive study, which provides a new model for early agriculture and implies that ‘Vera Cycles’ are not merely a feature of modern woodlands but were present 5–6000 years ago.

The contributions presented in this volume highlight the significant applications of environmental archaeological techniques to knowledge of past human ecology and Neolithisation in Europe in particular. They deal with the complex processes at play in the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture and animal husbandry, and the evolution of these farming practices. Papers deal with the ecology and integration of animal and plant components of farming systems (e.g. Antolín et al.; Zavodny et al.) and the interaction with and effects of human settlement and farming on their environments (e.g. Branch et al.; Batchelor et al.; Robinson). We see differences played out within the different regions of Europe, for example interpretations of the social context of the transition to farming differ in relation to the involvement of colonizing farmers and the acculturation of indigenous hunter–gatherers (e.g. Serjeantson 2011; Branch et al.). The regional datasets and chronologies presented allow advanced understanding of the development and elaboration of Neolithisation (e.g. Bernabeu et al.; Valente and Carvahlo). These papers presented are significant not just in the broader themes that they examine, but also the specific light that individual case studies can shed on regional narratives. This volume thereby demonstrates the importance of integrated multi-disciplinary approaches, as together the various methods employed by the different authors to examine these themes provide a more nuanced and robust understanding of the processes of Neolithisation in Europe.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all those involved in the running of the conference, especially Dr Jean-Denis Vigne for giving the key-note paper on the theme of ‘New insights from Cyprus on the beginning of animal domestication and on the neolithisation in the Near East’ and Michaël Thevenin for presenting a photographic exhibition on ‘Current Kurdish Transhumance in the north of the ancient Fertile Crescent’ (http://www.transhumance-kurde.com), both of whom enabled the conference to be launched in a successful and memorable way. We would also like to thank the authors and all those involved in the production of the publications, especially the reviewers for their hard work. The conference organisers were supported by the AHRC funded Central Zagros Archaeological Project (AHRC Project Reference: AH/H034315/2; http://www.czap.org). Our thanks go to co-organiser Dr Wendy Matthews and the research students and staff from the University of Reading.