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Full Description
The processes involved in the transformation of society from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic farmers were complex. They involved changes not only in subsistence but also in how people thought about themselves and their worlds, from their pasts to their animals.
Two sets of protagonists have often been lined up in the long-running debates about these processes: on the one hand incoming farmers and on the other indigenous hunter-gatherers. Both have found advocates as the dominant force in the transitions to a new way of life. North-west Europe presents a very rich data set for this fundamental change, and recent research has both extended and deepened our knowledge of regional sequences, from the sixth to the fourth millennia cal BC. One of the most striking results is the evident diversity from northern Spain to southern Scandinavia. No one region is quite like another; hunter-gatherers and early farmers alike were also varied and the old labels of Mesolithic and Neolithic are increasingly inadequate to capture the diversity of human agency and belief.
Surveys of the most recent evidence presented here also strongly suggest a diversity of transformations. Some cases of colonisation on the one hand, and indigenous adoption on the other, can still be argued but many situations now seem to involve complex fusions and mixtures. This wide-ranging set of papers by leading specialists offers a comprehensive and authoritative overview of this fundamental transition.
Contents
Introduction: transitions and transformations ; From Mesolithic to Neolithic modes of thought ; From Mesolithic to Early Neolithic in the western Mediterranean ; Neighbours but diverse: social change in north-west Iberia during the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic (5500-4000 cal BC) ; Beyond the models: 'Neolithisation' in Central Europe ; Beyond 'migration' versus 'acculturation': new models for the spread of agriculture ; Mobility, specialisation and community diversity in the Linearbandkeramik: isotopic evidence from the skeletons ; Exploiting molecular and isotopic signals at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition ; Neolithic cattle domestication as seen from ancient DNA ; Substitution of species, techniques and symbols at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in western Europe ; The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Paris Basin: a review ; Neolithic fragrances : Mesolithic-Neolithic interactions in western France ; Changing places: monuments and the Neolithic transition in western France ; The neolithisation of the Scheldt basin in western Belgium ; The gradual transition to farming in the Lower Rhine Basin ; Mesolithic myths ; The Neolithic sensory revolution: monumentality and the experience of landscape ; Houses, bodies and tombs ; Neolithic farming in Britain and central Europe: contrast or continuity? ; The temporality of transformation: dating the early development of the southern British Neolithic ; The Thames Valley in the late fifth and early fourth millennium cal BC: the appearance of domestication and the evidence for change ; Mesolithic-Neolithic transitions in Britain: from essence to inhabitation ; From Picardie to Pickering and Pencraig Hill? New information on the 'Carinated Bowl Neolithic' in northern Britain ; From midden to megalith? The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in western Britain ; The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in western Scotland: a review and new evidence from Tiree ; Parallel worlds or multi-stranded identities? Considering the process of 'going over' in Ireland and the Irish Sea zone ; From fish and seal to sheep and cattle: new research into the process of neolithisation in northern Germany ; Mistrust traditions, consider innovations? The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in southern Scandinavia ; Going over: people and their times
