Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T03:07:56.168Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Neolithic transition in Europe: the radiocarbon record revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Marina Gkiasta ,
Thembi Russell ,
Stephen Shennan  and
James Steele
Marina Gkiasta
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, England.
Thembi Russell
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, England.
Stephen Shennan
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, England.
James Steele
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, England.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Understanding the introduction of farming and the adoption of Neolithic culture continues to be a major research objective in Europe. The authors make use of a new database of radiocarbon dates from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites to map the transition. While the overall effect is still a diffusion into Europe from the south-east, detailed spatial analysis reveals fascinating local variations: in some places change was rapid, and one population replaced another, in others it was gradual and owed to incoming ideas rather than people.

Keywords

Origns of agricultureNeolithicgeneticsEurope
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 77 , Issue 295 , March 2003 , pp. 45 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ammerman, A. J. & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L.. 1971 Measuring the rate of spread of early farming in Europe. Man n.s. 6: 674–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ammerman, A. J. & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L.. 1984. The Neolithic Transition and the Genetics of Populations in Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aoki, K., Shida, M. & Shigesada, N.. 1996. Travelling wave solutions for the spread of farmers into a region occupied by hunter-gatherers. Theoretical Population Biology 50: 1–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Arias, P. 1999. The origins of the Neolithic along the Atlantic coast of continental Europe: A survey. Journal of World Prehistory 13: 403–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barbujani, G. & Bertorelle, G.. 2001. Genetics and the population history of Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 98: 22–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barbujani, G., Sokal, R. R. & Oden, N. L.. 1995. Indo-European Origins—a Computer-Simulation Test of 5 Hypotheses.– American Journal of Physical Anthropology 96: 109–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belfer-Cohen, A. 1991. The Natufian in the Levant. Annual Review of Anthropology 20: 167–186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentley, A., Chikhi, L. & Price, T. D.. 2003. Comparing broad scale genetic and local scale isotopic evidence for the spread of agriculture into Europe. Antiquity 77:CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentley, R. A., Price, T. D., Lüning, J., Gronenborn, D., Wahl, J. & Fullagar, P. D.. 2002 Human migration in early Neolithic Europe. Current Anthropology 43(5), in press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bogucki, P, & Grygiel, R.. 1993. The 1st Farmers of Central-Europe—a Survey Article. Journal of Field Archaeology 20: 399–426.Google Scholar
Chikhi, L., Nichols, R., Barbujani, G. & Beaumont, M. A.. 2002. Y genetic data support the Neolithic diffusion model. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 99: 11008–11013.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Clark, J. G. D. 1965. Radiocarbon dating and the expansion of farming culture from the Near East over Europe. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 31: 57–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Draper, N. R. 1992. Straight line regression when both variables are subject to error. Technical Report No. 890, Dept of Statistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI.Google Scholar
Fix, A. G. 1996. Gene frequency clines in Europe: Demic diffusion or natural selection? Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2:625–643.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fix, A. G. 1997. Gene frequency clines produced by kin-structured founder effects. Human Biology 69: 663–673.Google ScholarPubMed
Fotheringham, A. S., Brunsdon, C. & Charlton, M. E.. 2000. Quantitative Geography. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Fotheringham, A. S., Brunsdon, C. & Charlton, M. E.. 2001 Geographically Weighted Regression. http://www.ncl.ac.uk/geography/GWR Google Scholar
Glass, C., Steele, & Wheatley, D.. 1999 Modelling spatial range expansion across a heterogeneous cost surface. In Procs. CAA 97, Birmingham. BAR Int Series 750: 67–72. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Gob, A. 1990. Chronologie du Mésolithique en Europe. Atlas des Dates 14C. Liège: C.I.PL.Google Scholar
Gronenborn, D. 1999. A variation on a basic theme: The transition to farming in Southern Central Europe. Journal of World Prehistory 13: 123–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jochim, M. 2000. The origins of agriculture in south-central Europe. In Price, TD (ed.) Europe’s First Farmers, pp. 183–196. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, T. D., Bentley, R. A., Lüning, J., Gronenborn, D. & Wahl, J.. 2001. Prehistoric human migration in the Linearbandkeramik of Central Europe. Antiquity 75: 593–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsey, C. B. (1999) OxCal Program v.3.b2. http://www.rlaha.ox.ac.uk/oxcal/oxcal.htm Google Scholar
Rendine, S., Piazza, A. & Cavalli-Sforza, L. L.. 1986. Simulation and separation by principal components of multiple demic expansions in Europe. American Naturalist 128: 681–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, M., Corte Real, H., Forster, P., Macaulay, V., Wilkinson Herbots, H., Demaine, A., Papiha, S., Hedges, R., Bandelt, H. J. & Sykes, B.. 1996. Paleolithic and Neolithic lineages in the European mitochondrial gene pool. American Journal of Human Genetics 59: 185–203.Google ScholarPubMed
Richards, M. B., Macaulay, V. A., Bandelt, H. J. & Sykes, B. C.. 1998 Phylogeography of mitochondrial DNA in western Europe. Annals of Human Genetics 62:241—260.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richards, M., Macaulay, V., Hickey, E. et al. 2000. Tracing European founder lineages in the near eastern mtDNA pool. American Journal of Human Genetics 67: 1251–1276.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richards, M.P & Hedges, R. E. M.. 1999 A Neolithic revolution? New evidence of diet on the British Neolithic. Antiquity 73: 891–897.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosser, Z. H., Zerjal, T., Hurles, M. E. et al. 2000. Y-chromosomal diversity in Europe is clinal and influenced primarily by geography, rather than by language. American Journal of Human Genetics 67: (6) 1526–1543.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Russell, T. & Steele, J.. (in press) Visualising the Neolithic transition in Europe. Proceedings of the Fourth C14 and Archaeology Conference, Oxford. Oxford: Oxbow Books Google Scholar
Semino, O. et al. 2000. The genetic legacy of palaeolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Europe: a Y chromosome perspective. Science 290: 1155–1159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simoni, L., Calafell, F., Pettener, D., Bertranpetit, J. & Barbujani, G.. 2000. Geographic patterns of mtDNA diversity in Europe. American Journal of Human Genetics 66: 262–278.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sokal, R. R., Oden, N. L. & Thomson, B. A.. 1999. A problem with synthetic maps. Human Biology 71: 1–13.Google ScholarPubMed
Sykes, B. 1999. The molecular genetics of European ancestry. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B—Biological Sciences– 354:131–138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Woodman, P. 2000. Getting back to basics: transitions to farming in Ireland and Britain.. In Price, TD (ed.) Europe’s First Farmers, pp. 219–259. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zvelebil, M. & Dolukhanov, P.. 1991. The Transition to Farming in Eastern and Northern Europe. Journal of World Prehistory 5: 233–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zvelebil, M. 1996. The agricultural frontier and the transition to farming in the Circum-Baltic region. In Harris, DR (ed.) The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, pp. 323–345. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M. & Lillie, M.. 2000. Transition to agriculture in eastern Europe. In Price, TD (ed.) Europe’s First Farmers, pp. 57–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar