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Version 5.05
The Earliest Bandkeramik
By
Maximilian O. Baldia
(Copy Right © 2000 - August 7,
2008. All rights reserved)
The purpose of this text is to provide a general overview
of the culture and is intended as a resource for students and teachers of
European Archaeology.
Location
The genesis of the first full-fledged farmers of Central Europe
is sought in Transdanubia, western Hungary, and adjacent regions of
the Danube Basin (Map, Map). This
leads to the notion of a Danubian culture complex. These Danubian farmers existed between about
5700/5500 – 5000 cal BC (Chronological
Table).
They are known primarily by the German term “Linearbandkeramik” or “Linienbandkeramik”
abbreviated (LBK). Literally translated this means Linear Band
Ceramics or Linear Band Pottery (often incorrectly termed Linear
Pottery). The name stems from the characteristic design of linear bands gracing the
early pottery. The culture is now usually referred to simply as Bandkeramik.
The Bandkeramik was first recognized by the German archaeologist F.
Klopfleisch in 1884.
The Bandkeramik’s origins are sought in Hungary, where
there are two variants: the western or Transdanubian
Bandkeramik in western Hungary
and adjacent regions, and the eastern variant, found along the Tisza River and its tributaries in the Great
Hungarian Plain (Aldföld) of eastern Hungary (Map). This Alföldi Vonaldíszes Kerámica
(AVK) or Alföld Linear (Decorated) Pottery theoretically
developed at the same time as the western Bandkeramik, here termed LBK.
Ultimately, the LBK overtook the AVK, spreading agriculture mostly along the
loess soil region
from the Seine Bay on the North
Sea in France
in the west to Ukraine,
and from the south of the Hungarian border to the Odra (Oder)
Delta close to the Baltic Sea in Poland.
The general chronology of one of the LBK is well
established due to numerous C14 dates. Dates for the AVK are more
limited and the widely reported Hungarian chronology would technically place it
into the Later Bandkeramik. However,
most of the regional Bandkeramik groups are defined through pottery
styles (typologies). For example, up to twelve phases have been defined in the Czech Republic.
Others simply divide the culture into the Earliest, Early, and Later
Bandkeramik. Even this classification is not fully congruent with available
C14 dates. For this reason, I have divided the culture merely into
the Early Bandkeramik (5700/5500 – 5400/5300 cal BC), and a Later Bandkeramik (5300 –
5000 cal BC) on theoretical.
The LBK and the AVK is discussed under the Earliest Bandkeramik as well
as the later Later Bandkeramik. (In
stead of Earliest Bandkeramik, the term Early Bandkeramik may be
more appropriate, since I suspect that the beginning of the Bandkeramik is nor
yet properly documented due to the archaeological techniques applied to its
research.)
The Bandkeramik
farmers used domesticated
plants, including emmer and einkorn wheat, barley (more in
the east than in the west), peas, flax, and poppy. Millet and lentil are
identified (Jochim 2000:186). According to Bogucki (1995a) cattle predominate, but sheep
and goat were also kept. Very few pigs and wild animals
appear in the archaeological record. However, in Hungary and Austria sheep
(sheep/goat?) predominate in early sites.
Most of the species were first domesticated in the Near East and are
closely related to the origin of farming in Europe.
However, there are interesting exceptions. Among them is broomcorn millet (Panicum
miliaceum), which appears early in the southeastern Europe,
and is already present the Körös culture [Starčevo -Körös-Criş
(Starcevo-Koros-Cris)] of southeast Hungary. Yet, broomcorn millet was
supposedly first domesticated in China or Central
Asia, not the Near East.
Evolution
The Farming
Expansion Hiatus and the Origin of the Danubian Farmers
The origin of the Danubinan farmers is closely tied to the
beginning of farming in Europe. The Bandkeramik
is believed to evolve from the Starčevo
-Körös-Criş (Starcevo-Koros-Cris) and Vinča cultures,
which brought farming to the northern edge of the Balkan
Peninsula. It has long been argued that their farming originated in the Fertile Crescent,
spreading into Europe via Greece and the
Mediterranean coast. Peter Bogucki (1995a,
1997,
2000) views this spread as a kind of Diaspora, occurring between 8,000 and
5,000 years ago. He sees this phenomenon as two processes: “the migration and
dispersal of farmers and the adoption of crops and livestock by indigenous
foragers.” In keeping with the model of a Diaspora, the pottery technology
and the agricultural economy are traditionally viewed as a package that arrived
in the Balkans from the Near East.
In Hungary,
it is stipulated that the expansion of the agricultural complex halted at the
edge of the Starčevo -Körös-Criş
(Starcevo-Koros-Cris) culture’s northern and western frontier
in the Carpathian
Basin
for up to a 1000 years. The northern frontier is thought to coincide with the
limits of the Mediterranean climate zone, which covers parts of Hungary, as
well as former Yugoslavia,
Italy,
southern France,
and Spain.
Beyond this area, not all Near Eastern cultigens may have grown readily. This
is especially the case beyond the southeastern Carpathian Basin
and the Alps. Yet, it is precisely the region,
in which much of the LBK unfolded. Therefore, a hiatus in the expansion of
agriculture into the supposedly wooded north and west has been proposed. To
supplant the Mesolithic way of life in these areas, the combination of
domesticates and perhaps the farming techniques themselves may have had to
undergo changes. Perhaps these changes are reflected the LBK’s use of
domesticated poppy, thought to be derived from the wild stands along the
Mediterranean coast of Italy,
Southern France
and Spain.
Similarly, the reported emphasis
on cattle breeding over sheep and goats and the likely considerable use of domesticated flax from the Near East, may have developed during the hiatus.
Issues
Unfortunately, it is difficult to demonstrate a hiatus
based on C14 dates, which do not always correlate with the pottery
typology. Nonetheless, the first evidence of agriculturists in southeast Hungary must
date to 6100 – 6000 cal BC, if not earlier
(see also The Origin of Agriculture, The Hungarian Mesolithic/Neolithic
Transition, Starčevo-Körös-Criş
[Starcevo-Koros-Cris]. This would mean a 300 to 500 year hiatus.
In addition, new claims suggest that domesticates preceded
the LBK in the west. For example, much has been made of a single domesticated flax seed (Lineum usitatissum),
along with cereal pollen (Triticum sp.) from coring samples near Zürich, Switzerland
(e.g. Price 2000), and certain weeds that are associated only flax fields.
Claims of pollen for domesticated plants, predating the projected arrival of
the LBK in the Middle Rhein (Rhine) River, could add weight to this still
scanty evidence (e.g. Price at al. 2001).
Similarly, the traditional notion that the pottery
indicates a clear link with the Near East has
come under scrutiny. Analysis of the earliest painted pottery from the Near East and Southeast Europe
(e.g. Schubert 1999)
indicates there is no direct link. Only the triangle motive of the Thessalian Sesklo
ornamentation could be based in the Anatolian bull-motive. For this reason, it seems
that pottery style, house architecture, and the economy, may best be considered
separately.
One is forced to conclude that in the areas crucial to the
understanding of the spread of the first agricultural societies in Europe archaeological methods and theories are not always
able to produce the kind of detailed information necessary to answer crucial
questions (cf. Tringham 2000). Some of these difficulties were already apparent
for Starčevo during the
excavation of the type-site (Ehrich 1977). The process of Europe’s
neolithization is still difficult to delineate although the expansion is still
thought to occur via two broadly definable movements. The spread of agriculture
and farming was a more complex process than initially thought by researchers,
such as Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza (1971, 1973, 1984) and Renfrew (1987; cf.
Price 2000a, Tringham 2000).
The Mesolithic –
Neolithic Transition
The current literature is replete with speculation that
the LBK and AVK are the result of some kind of interaction between an
autochthonous Mesolithic population and the bearers of the agricultural
economy.
For eastern Hungary, the Mesolithic – Neolithic transition is
seen as an acculturation between the foragers and Starčevo-Körös-Criş
populations and nearby Mesolithic foragers.
It is argued that this led to the formation the AVK around 5330 cal BC,
perhaps via the intermediate Körös-Szatmár group, which developed on the
northern fringes of Körös.
The LBK is suggested to develop from Late Starčevo -Körös-Criş roots
and/or Serbian Vinča influences in Transdanubia (Hungarian: Dunántúl;
literally: across the Danube) (Map 3, Map 4). Here too the Hungarian archaeologist Eszter
Banffy hypothesizes that Late Mesolithic forager groups controlled lithic
resources on the northernmost limit of the late Starčevo culture.
The interaction may have caused the formation of the oldest Transdanubian LBK.
The stone tools from the oldest Austrian LBK site of Brunn
am Gebirgefrom point in the same direction. The tools were mostly
trapezoids flaked primarily from locally available radeolite.
In other areas of Central
Euope, such as the Czech
Republic, contacts are
still being investigated. In the Czech lowlands the Mesolithic sites are
deflated and cannot provide stratigraphic evidence to resolve the question.
However, the stratigraphy of caves in northern Bohemia is interpreted as suggesting a
hiatus between Mesolithic and LBK (J. Svoboda, V. Cílek and L. Jarošova 1998;
J. Svoboda, personal communication July 2000).
Dating: The
Early/Earliest LBK Pottery (ca. 5600/5500 – 5300 cal BC)
The LBK has been divided into various regional phases,
based on pottery typology. However, “even the approximate ordering of C14
dates into an Middle or Late Bandkeramik is hardly possible.”
Perhaps, the most interesting discrepancy is that most of the oldest dates come
from Germany
and pertain to the LBK, while the AVK of eastern Hungary is said to start around
5330 cal BC. Even the preferred LBK start date of 5500 cal BC in Germany
does not fully bridge this gap.
It is maintained that the earliest LBK pottery occurs in Hungary around
5700 cal. BC (Price et al. 2001). Among the so called Earliest Bandkeramik
sites is Brunn
am Gebirgefrom Site II, on the outskirts of Vienna, Austria.
The LBK pottery here is characterized primarily by roughly made ceramics
tempered with organic material. This pottery has no linear band decoration.
Instead, there are slightly projecting bumps. The material belongs to Tichý’s
Phase I. Magnetic dating on a baking oven suggests a date of 5500±200 BC. The oldest
Austrian radiocarbon dates for this period indicate that the Earliest
LBK probably started not much earlier than 5500 cal BC., which is also the
preferred dating in Germany.
However, several of the earliest dates, especially from Germany, can be
interpreted as starting between 5750-5650 cal BC.
The Earliest LBK pottery from the Czech Republic
is named after a burial at Marovský
Plumlov, Moravia.
The dates are reported to range from 5700-5500 cal BC (Podborský, et al.
1993:73). The style also occurs in Western Hungary,
Bohemia, the
upper Danube, the Neckar River,
the State of Hesse
and Central Germany. The Plumlov pottery gives
rise to the Ackvy style developed in Moravia
and adjacent regions and the Flomborn style in Germany. Among the oldest northern
LBK is Eitzum Kr. Wolfenbüttel (e.g. Schwabedissen 1979:207), where three
calibrated dates range from 5400-5250 B.C.
In Netherland, on the east side of the Maas River,
an LBK enclave seems to appear suddenly
around 5250/5200 BC (Modderman 1964:11 Fig. 12, 1985:90 Fig. 29). Technically,
this falls into the Later LBK. It lasted
until 4900 BC (ibid. 1985:31-36). However, 5000 BC is the more
accepted date, due to tree ring dates from one of the LBK wells. This LBK, near the Maas River,
occupied an area that seems to have been settled by another population, which
created Limburg pottery. The
Limburg Group, which may have been familiar with agriculture, coexisted,
interacted and supposedly outlasted the LBK (ibid. p. 117-118). It is sometimes
grouped with the somewhat enigmatic La Hoguette culture, which some, but not all
archaeologists, assume to be older than the LBK. However, Limburg
pottery appears only during the later part of the LBK. This may point to a more
complicated cultural development than the traditional Danubian
Neolithization Model suggests (Baldia
1995, Gabriel 1977).
The Later Bandkeramik
evolved into regional groups, which often developed into cultures in their own
right, but retaining much of the LBK, including the custom of building
longhouses and clay-built ovens.
Houses
The carriers of the LBK pottery built long-houses
that cannot be derived from the house architecture of Southeastern
Europe and the Near East (e.g. Lichter 1993). The houses were usually clustered in small groups. The
walls between the widely spaced timbers were constructed in a wicker-like
structure of branches covered with clay. This is often referred to as waddle
and daub architecture. The houses show a division into three (functionally?)
different sections.
Ovens
The cooking ovens were out side
the houses. They were relatively standardized, elaborate dome-shaped
constructions of loess,
dug into the side of a pit. They have been found in the Early LBK as well as
the Later LBK and are reported from Austria and the Czech Republic,
as exemplified at Vedrovice and Tĕšetice-Kyjovice.
Moravia.
Burials
LBK burials consist primarily of flexed interments, with
skeletons resting most often on their left side in burial pits. Regular
cemeteries have been excavated. In Bavaria
they range in time from the earliest (early) to the latest LBK.
They include the sites of Aiterhofen-Ödmühle
(159 inhumations, 69 cremations), Sengkofen (28 inhumations), Mangolding (13
inhumations) and Dillingen-Steinheim (27 inhumations). The greatest amount of
grave goods is found in the earliest phase. Overall they occur in 48-63% of the
graves. Men have grave goods more often than women and also received the
greater share of the goods. They include food, weapons, tools, jewelry, and red
ocher (?). Women only receive jewelry.
Roughly 1/3 of the buried population are children.
The analysis of 250 child burials in Germany and
adjacent countries indicates one year or younger children are rarely interred.
Small children may have received a special, small bowl with wholes, to insure a
solid grip. Most grave goods occur with 8 – 10 year olds, the least with
children 12 – 14 years old. Children close to adulthood received especially
“rich” furnishings.
Graves and groups of
graves are sometimes located in villages, such as Těšetice-Kyjovice,
Czech Republic. In the
German state of Baden-Württemberg 84
individuals were buried 82 instances in LBK settlement context (villages, pit
systems, long ditches, grave pits and even in one house, as well as an enclosed
site). Most of the data come
from the early and middle phases of the LBK. Results indicate that females
predominate, especially among the child burials. In fact, there is a
disproportionately large number of children, primarily of age 7-14. Neonates
(newborn), infants, older mature and old individuals are found as rarely in the
settlements as in cemeteries,
suggesting that a significant portion of the population was not buried in the
settlements or the cemeteries. In many cases grave goods are about ¼ as common
as in cemeteries. However, disease and injury are similar to that of cemetery
burials, with the exception of Cribra orbitalia (Orbital osteoporosis)
due to metabolic or hereditary anemia. This could suggest that socially more
important individuals were buried in cemeteries.
Stone Tools
It is stipulated that the chipped stone tool technology of
the LBK is derived from the autochthonous Mesolithic population, while the
ground stone tool technology is undoubtedly a new introduction. The raw
materials for stone tools indicates a wide ranging exchange system that
probably shows different exchange networks in different regions (e.g. Heide 2001). Eszter Bánffy believes that relict groups of hunter-gatherers controlled the prehistoric
flint mine at Szentgal, Northern Transdanubia
(Northwest Hungary), supplying red radiolarite
for chipped stone tools to late Starčevo and early LBK settlements. She
hypothesizes that this interaction may be involved in the formation of the
Earliest LBK.
Enclosures
Numerous enclosure
are documented for the LBK. Some, such as the enclosure
at Eisleben in Central Germany, reportedly
occur near the beginning of the LBK.
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Please send comments or questions to Max
Baldia.
