The Establishment of Agrarian Communities on the North European Plain [and Comments and Reply]

Neolithic hunter-gatherers at Šventoji in Lithuania

“…Subsistence data suggest that adoption of farming by local foragers was a gradual process during the Middle and Late Neolithic. Similar trends for adoption of farming were observed in the North European Plain and Scandinavia (Bogucki 1987;Dolukhanov 1978;Zvelebil 1986a;Zvelebil & Dolukhanov 1991;Zvelebil & Rowley-Conwy 1986). This contrasts with central Europe where farming was introduced by non-local groups from southeastern Europe (Childe 1957;Clark 1952;Milisauskas & Kruk 1989;Vencl 1986).…”

Strontium isotope analysis of Neolithic and Copper Age populations on the Great Hungarian Plain

“…Subsistence strategy is another aspect of Neolithic and Copper Age lifestyle that could be clarified with new lines of research. The extent of reliance on domesticated versus local wild species remains unclear, as well as when the shift to utilizing secondary animal products first occurred (Bogucki, 1987;Bö kö nyi, 1974;Greenfield, 1988;Sherratt, 1981Sherratt, , 1983. A majority of the evidence for the 'secondary products revolution' has relied on indirect sources such as ceramic vessels and iconography.…”

Dating the introduction of cereal cultivation to the British Isles: early palaeoecological evidence from the Isle of Man

“…The nature and timing of the introduction of agriculture during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition is one of the most important questions in European prehistory, involving fundamental changes in human-animal and human-vegetation relationships and the development of new social and land-use systems (Bogucki, 1987). Radiocarbon dating of latest Mesolithic and earliest Neolithic archaeological sites in many parts of northwest Europe has shown significant temporal overlaps, in extreme cases of several hundred years (Zvelebil andRowleyConwy, 1984, 1986;Price and Gebauer, 1992;Persson, 1999).…”