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The Mesolithic – Neolithic Transition in Central Europe
By
Maximilian O. Baldia
(Copy Right © July 17, 2003 - July 17, 2003. All rights reserved)
Under Constuction!
Introduction
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.
The Mesolithic – Neolithic Transition
In Hungary, the Mesolithic – Neolithic transition is seen as an acculturation resulting from the interaction between an autochthonous Mesolithic population and the non-local bearers of the agricultural economy. Acculturation supposedly occurred between the Starčevo -Körös-Criş (Starcevo-Koros-Cris populations along the Tisza River and Mesolithic sites located to the north or north west. [1] Indeed, a few Mesolithic sites are found to the north/west of the Köros site distribution. One such small area of high density of Mesolithic sites is near the confluence of the Zagyva and Tarna Rivers of northern Hungary.[2]
It is argued that climate or the autochthonous Mesolithic population of hunter-gatherers (or both) halted the expansion of farming in eastern and southernmost Hungary, until farming techniques adapted to the Central European conditions.[3] Kalicz and Makkay (1977) proposed that the Szatmár group developed from Körös, giving rise to the Bandkeramik. The eastern Hungarian Bankeramik is said to have no direct affinities with Körös. Nevertheless, this eastern Bandkeramik, known as the Alföldi Vonaldíszes Kerámica (AVK) or Alföld Linear Pottery, occupies the old Körös territory in the south, but also extends much farther north along the Upper Tisza and its tributaries (Map), into the former Mesolithic territory.
Table
1. Mesolithic
C14 dates from Jászberény I, Jászság, Hungary.[4]
|
Jászberény I (Deb-1666) :
8030±250BP (Level C, mollusk shell) |
|
68.2% probability
7350BC (68.2%) 6600BC 95.4%
probability 7600BC (95.4%) 6400BC |
|
Jászberény I (Deb-246) :
7350±80BP (Soil carbonates from occupation layer) |
|
68.2% probability 6340BC ( 6.9%) 6310BC 6260BC (61.3%) 6070BC 95.4% probability 6390BC (95.4%) 6020BC |
|
Jászberény I (Deb-3155) :
7154±62BP (Soil carbonates from occupation layer) |
|
68.2% probability
6160BC ( 1.6%) 6140BC 6080BC
(54.5%) 5980BC
5950BC (12.1%) 5920BC 95.4%
probability
6210BC ( 1.1%) 6190BC
6180BC ( 6.7%) 6130BC
6110BC (87.7%) 5880BC |
Unfortunately, the chronology of the Mesolithic at Jászság in northern Hungary is delineated by only three C14 dates from Jászberény I (Table 1, Plot of Table 1). They date the Mesolithic only indirectly. Still, the dates suggest coexistence with the Earliest North Balkan Neolithic/Early Körös.
Eszter Banffy, who works in Transdanubia, the western part of the Carpathian Basin, also argues for possible traces of the Late Mesolithic forager groups who might have formed a barrier to late Starčevo culture in the north. These foragers could have fostered the formation of the oldest Transdanubian Bandkeramik (LBK). Banffy believes that the hunter-gatherers controlled the prehistoric flint mine at Szentgal, Northern Transdanubia, supplying red radiolarite for chipped stone tools to late Starčevo and early LBK settlements.
References and Credits
Baldia,
M. O.
2003 Breaking
Unnatural Barriers: Comparative Archaeology, Climate, and Culture Change in
Central and Northern Europe (6000 - 2000 BC). Paper presented in the
Session “Comparative Archeology and Paleoclimatology: Sociocultural
Responses to a Changing World” under the Theme “Past Human Environments
in Modern Contexts” at the Fifth World Archaeology Congress, Monday, June
23, 2003, Washington DC, USA. (Publication in prep.)
Kalicz, Nádor and János Makkay
1977 Die
Linienbandkeramik in der Großen Ungarischen Tiefebene. Akadémiai Kiadó,
Budapest.
Kertész,
Róbert and Janós Makkay (Eds.)
2001 From the Mesoliothic to the Neolithic.
Proceedings of the International Archaeological Conference held in the
Damjanich Museum of Szolnok, Spetember 22 – 27, 1996. Archaeolingua, Main
Series 11, 2001, Budapest.
Kertész,
Róbert, Pál Sümegi, Miklós Kozák, Mihály Braun, Enikő Félegyházi, Ede
Hertelandi
1994 Archeological and Paleoecological Study
of an Early Holocene Settlement in the Jászág Area (Jászberény I). Acta
Geographica 32:5-49, Debrecen.
Otte M. and P.
Noiret
2001 Le Mésolithique du Bassin Pannonien et
la formation du Rubané. L'Anthropologie 105, 2001:409-419.
Price, T. Douglas (Ed.)
2000 Europe's First Farmers. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, UK; New York.
Sherratt, Andrew
1997 Economy and society in prehistoric Europe: Changing perspectives. Princeton, N.J. Princeton University Press, 1997.
Schubert, Holger
1999 Die bemalte Keramik des Frühneolithikums in Südosteuropa,
Italien und Westanatolien. Internationale Archäologie 47. Verlag Marie Leidorf 1999. Rahden/Westf.
Sümegi, Pál
and Róbert Kertész
2001 Paleogeographyc Characteristics of
the Carpathian Basin: an Ecologicalk Trap During the Early Neolithic? In
Róbert Kertész and Janós Makkay (Eds.), From the Mesoliothic to the
Neolithic. Proceedings of the International Archaeological Conference held
in the Damjanich Museum of Szolnok, Spetember 22 – 27, 1996. Archaeolingua,
Main Series 11:405-415, 2001, Budapest.
Sümegi, Pál,
Róbert Kertész, and Ede Hertelendi.
2002 Environmental Change and Human
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In Erzsébet Jerem and Katalin T. Biró (Eds.) Archaeometry 98: Proceedings of
the 31st Symposium, Budapest, April 26-May 3 1998. BAR international series
1043; Archaeolingua, Central European series 1:171-177. Archaeopress, Oxford,
2002.
Svoboda, J., V. Cílek, L. Jarošova
1998 Zum
Mesolithikum in den Sandsteingebieten Nordböhmens. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt, 25/3:357-372.
Whittle, Alasdair, Zalai-Gaál István, and Pál Sümegi
1999? Körös culture
environment, settlement and subsistence. Preliminary report on the second
season of an interdisciplinary project at Ecsegfalva, County Békés, Hungary.
(http://www.cf.ac.uk/hisar/archaeology/reports/koros/,
accessed July 1, 2003.)
Zohary, Daniel and Maria Hopf
1993/00 Domestication of plants in the Old World: The origin and spread of cultivated plants in West Asia, Europe, and the Nile Valley. Second Edition. Oxford University Press. New York.
Please send comments or questions to Max Baldia.