Neolithic and Copper Age settlement dynamics in the Western Carpathian Basin and Eastern Alps

Abstract

The paper tackles the spatio-temporal patterns of Neolithic and Copper Age settlement dynamics in the Western Carpathian Basin and Eastern Alps with spatially explicit use of radiocarbon dates. It focuses on the spatial process of spread, movement, aggregation and segregation in the time frame between 8500 and 5000 cal BP. The distribution of Neolithic and Copper Age sites in the study area is clustered and patchy. The first Neolithic settlements appear as isolated islands or enclaves which then slowly expand to fill neighbouring regions. After 6300 cal BP the study area experienced a significant reduction in the extent of settlement systems, associated with the Late Neolithic to Copper Age transition.

Sine Qua Non: Inferring Kodjadermen-Gumelnița-Karanovo Vi Population Dynamics From Aggregated Probability Distributions of Radiocarbon Dates

“…We divided the study area into grid cells and hexagon cell shapes were chosen, given their 51 Sine Qua Non 467 shape being the closest to a circle and the easy to use in a tessellation. Their minimal edge effects as well as the identical neighboring cells and having the same distance between centers for all the neighbors, make them particularly suitable for our analysis (see also Vrhovnik 2019).…”

“…Some of these studies have also been focused on understanding the population dispersals and change during the Neolithic of Southeastern Europe, although mostly on the early Neolithic of the region (Porc ˇic ´and Nikolic ´2016; Blagojevic ét al. 2017;Harper 2019;Vrhovnik 2019;Vander Linden and Silva 2021).…”