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Colonization and Succession: The Earlier Neolithic of CentralEurope

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

N.J. Starling
N.J. Starling*
Affiliation:
91 Fordwych Road, London NW2 3TL
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Abstract

Models of population and resource pressure to explain developments such astechnological innovation, increasing cultural complexity and competition andwarfare, have been commonly used in studies of the earlier neolithic (Bandkeramik and early TRB) of Central Europe, in thefifth and fourth millennia bc. The usefulness of such models is questionedfor this period, with reference in particular to Central Germany. Afterinitial colonization, there was no simple pattern of continuous settlementexpansion; rather, initially widespread settlement developed generally intoa more aggregated pattern, with a contraction of the settlement area andvirtually no internal or external expansion of settlement. Models ofenvironmental change or resource exhaustion to explain these developmentsare also challenged, and emphasis placed on social and subsistence changeswhich provided the impetus for the dynamics of the settlement pattern.Changes in settlement, with the emergence of larger villages and enclosures,culminating in the appearance of major enclosure sites and a break insettlement continuity in the early TRB, are linked with other developments;the regionalization of culture, changes in material culture and burialtypes, and social organization. The origins of the settlement and socialpatterns in this period can be seen, not in the changes forced by externalfactors, but in the internal developments of the neolithic groupsthemselves.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , December 1985 , pp. 41 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1985

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References

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