Something Out of the Ordinary? Something Out of the Ordinary? Interpreting Diversity in the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik and Beyond Edited by Luc Amkreutz, Fabian Haack, Daniela Hofmann and Ivo van Wijk Something Out of the Ordinary? Interpreting Diversity in the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik and Beyond Edited by Luc Amkreutz, Fabian Haack, Daniela Hofmann and Ivo van Wijk This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Luc Amkreutz, Fabian Haack, Daniela Hofmann, Ivo van Wijk and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8604-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8604-8 TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ........................................................................................................ ix Abbreviated List of Figures ........................................................................ xi Abbreviated List of Tables ...................................................................... xvii Contributors .............................................................................................. xix Introduction Chapter One ................................................................................................. 3 Introduction: Diversity and Uniformity in LBK Studies Daniela Hofmann, Luc Amkreutz, Fabian Haack and Ivo van Wijk Architecture and Daily Life Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 33 House and Household in the LBK Lech Czerniak Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 65 The Neolithic Longhouse Phenomenon at the Hrdlovka Site, Czech Republic: Meanings, Inhabitants, and Successors Jaromír Beneš, Michaela Divišová and Václav Vondrovský Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 89 Capturing Diversity in Neolithic Diets Penny Bickle Material Culture Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 123 Flint, Obsidian, and Radiolarite in Lithic Inventories of the LBK Culture in Lesser Poland Jarosław Wilczyński vi Table of Contents Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 141 Interpreting Flint Working Diversity in the Dutch Linearbandkeramik (LBK) Marjorie E. Th. de Grooth Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 159 The End of Diversity? Pottery Technology at the LBK–Blicquy/ Villeneuve-Saint-Germain Transition in Hesbaye, Belgium Barbara Van Doosselaere, Laurence Burnez-Lanotte, Louise Gomart and Alexandre Livingstone Smith Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 191 The Changing Role of La Hoguette Pottery in an LBK Context Daniela Hofmann Burial Evidence and Ritual Deposition Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 227 The LBK Ritual–Burial Complex from Nezvis'ko, Western Ukraine Maciej Dębiec Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 247 Diversity in Ritual Practice at the End of the LBK Andrea Zeeb-Lanz and Fabian Haack Regional Networks Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 283 From Distribution Maps to “Ethnic” Diversity within the Southern Bavarian LBK Joachim Pechtl Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 313 Aspects of LBK Regionality in the Moselle Area: The Luxembourg Case Study Anne Hauzeur Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 331 This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land: A Dutch View on LBK Settlement Patterning Ivo van Wijk Something Out of the Ordinary? vii Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 357 It’s Better to Burn Out than to Fade Away: A Comparative Perspective on the Diversity in LBK Endings in the Rhine–Meuse Region Luc Amkreutz Broadening the Scope Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 401 Through the Looking-Glass, and what the Archaeologist Found There: Variability in the Bell Beaker Phenomenon from a LBK Point of View (or the Other Way Around?) Marc Vander Linden Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 427 Uniformity and Diversity in the Later Neolithic of the Middle East Alexandra Fletcher Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 455 Uniformity and Diversity in Mississippian Polity Formation Robin Beck Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 481 Lapita and the Linearbandkeramik: What Can a Comparative Approach Tell Us about Either? Matthew Spriggs Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 505 A Possible Political Structure for the Linearbandkeramik? John Barrett PREFACE ALASDAIR WHITTLE As the late, legendary American baseball player, Yogi Berra, put it, “when you come to a fork in the road, take it”. In the context of LBK studies, it was Pieter Modderman who put up the first really clear road sign signalling the avenue of exploring diversity. For quite a while, the LBK research community seemed slow to react, perhaps unsure which fork to go down. But for some time now the traffic has been flowing in the right direction and this volume underlines that welcome trend in a very timely and helpful way. LBK research presents a number of distinctive challenges. While the archaeological evidence for LBK communities is so widespread and so easily recognizable, its very abundance, still increasing, makes it hard for any one specialist to make sense of it all. There is then the danger of seeing the LBK as “fractal”, as the same thing over and over again. There is the temptation to apply single, big models—one size fits all—as we have seen over the years with the Hofplatzmodell (or single homestead or yard model), and to some extent with the notion of patrilocality, and may be witnessing again now in the form of the house societies model. There is also the risk that specialists in any given place will be content simply to unravel local or regional situations, and leave it at that. I think that all these tendencies should be resisted, because to give in to them is to throw away some of the most interesting dimensions of the LBK, which include what is shared across vast areas and how, and what is not and why. Was there ever a total LBK world which any one person of the time could grasp? Perhaps not, but familiar-looking—even if not identical— buildings, gardens, crops, animals, pots, and stone tools must have been encountered by anyone travelling widely in the later sixth millennium cal BC, and people away from home might well have known how to fit in at the gatherings and funerals of others; it may all have also sounded familiar, depending on issues of language and dialect. So it is the relationship between shared practice and widely held beliefs and values on the one hand, and local and other ways of doing things on the other, that seems to me to really matter. This set of new papers, which seek to unpick x Preface diversity and variability, from an impressive range of perspectives, is therefore important. Writing a preface is a bit like being the compère of a music hall act: enthuse the audience, tell a joke or two, and build up anticipation, but don’t get involved with the performance. In the case of this LBK variety show, as I read the papers, I wanted to respond to and engage with each single contribution. I am sure other readers will react in the same way. —Cardiff, 27.10.2015 ABBREVIATED LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1 Schematic representation of the relation between analytical scale and perception of diversity. Fig. 2.1 Distribution of LBK sites in the upper Vistula basin. Fig. 2.2 Location of the LBK settlements at Targowisko, comm. Kłaj. Fig. 2.3 Targowisko, site 12-13. Plans of houses 8–11. Fig. 2.4 Targowisko, site 12-13. General plan of village with division into “wards” and settlement phases. Fig. 2.5 Two different arrangements of house locations in Late Neolithic villages in Anatolia. A – plan of Çatalhöyük level VIB as excavated in the 1960s; B – plan of Ilıpınar VI. Fig. 2.6 Examples of LBK longhouses in Lesser Poland. Fig. 3.1 Map of the Hrdlovka site. Fig. 3.2 Prevailing orientation of house longitudinal axes in LBK and postLBK Europe. Fig. 3.3 Orientation of house axes at Hrdlovka. Fig. 3.4 Results of phosphate analysis around Hrdlovka house no. 44. Fig. 3.5 House no. 3 and its internal structure. Fig. 3.6 Grinding stone deposition in Hrdlovka house no. 8. Fig. 4.1 Map of LBK distribution, with the sites mentioned in the text. Fig. 4.2 Burial 94, Vendenheim, Lower Alsace, with left shoulder and upper leg of pig, polished stone adzes, and further lithic tools. Fig. 4.3 Maxilla from an older adult female buried at Polgár–Ferenci hát with carious lesion on left second molar. Fig. 4.4 Carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios (‰) of humans from the Rutzing cemetery, Upper Austria. Fig. 4.5 The distribution of below-ground ovens at Stephansposching. Fig. 5.1 Location of the LBK sites mentioned in the text. Fig. 5.2 LBK artefacts made on raw materials other than local Jurassic flint. Fig. 6.1 Study area with LBK settlements and flint extraction points. xii Abbreviated List of Figures Fig. 6.2 Blade cores made of Banholt flint, with refitted preparation flakes and rejuvenation tablets, Beek-Kerkeveld. Fig. 6.3 Selected LBK Ib raw material assemblages. Fig. 6.4 Selected LBK II raw material assemblages. Fig. 6.5 Maastricht-Klinkers: raw material from LBK II features containing at least 15 artefacts. Fig. 7.1 A: Fine and coarse LBK wares and Limburg pottery from Cuirylès-Chaudardes “Les Fontinettes”; B: BQ/VSG sherds from Vaux-etBorset “Gibour” and “A la Croix Marie-Jeanne”. Fig. 7.2 Map of the Vaux-et-Borset site. Fig. 7.3 A: Radiography of a body sherd revealing the presence of coils; B: Subcircular flattened areas on the body of the vessel as a result of beating operations. Fig. 7.4 Overview of the features characteristic of fashioning method 1. A: Radiostructures observed on a base sherd; B: Macrotraces observed on inner surfaces of a lower body sherd; C: Macrostructures on a crosssection of an upper body sherd. Fig. 7.5 Overview of the features characteristic of fashioning method 2. A: Radiostructures observed on lower body and base sherds; B: Macrostructures on fresh cross-sections of upper and lower body sherds. Fig.7.6 Overview of the features characteristic of fashioning method 3. A: Radiostructures observed on a complete vessel; B: Macrostructures on a cross-section. Fig. 7.7 Spatial distribution of fashioning methods. Fig. 7.8 Frequency of the morphological classes associated with the identified fashioning methods. Fig. 8.1 Map showing the distribution of the main Neolithic cultures around 5100 cal BC and the La Hoguette and Limburg groups, with location of main sites mentioned in the text. Fig. 8.2 The La Hoguette pot from Choisey. Fig. 8.3 Distribution of La Hoguette sherds around houses in A) Fröbelweg and B) Bruchenbrücken. Fig. 8.4 Schematic structure of Later LBK pottery decoration. Fig. 8.5 Comparison of historical trajectories of La Hoguette and LBK wares, showing permeability and mutual influencing of pottery traditions. Fig. 9.1 Nezvis'ko, Western Ukraine. Location of site and stratigraphy. Something Out of the Ordinary? xiii Fig. 9.2 Plan of the grave at Nezvis’ko. Fig. 9.3 Vessels, shoe-last adze, and bone tools from the Nezvis’ko grave. Fig. 9.4 The ritual–burial complex at Nezvis’ko. Fig. 9.5 Artefacts from zone 4 in Nezvis'ko. Fig. 9.6 The zones of the Nezvis’ko complex. Fig. 10.1 Map showing the sites mentioned in the text. Fig. 10.2 Skeletal remains of the 34 individuals in the mass grave of Talheim near Heilbronn (Baden-Württemberg, Germany). Fig. 10.3 A typical concentration (K 9) of human bone fragments, pottery sherds, and other material at Herxheim near Landau (RhinelandPalatinate, Germany). Fig. 10.4 Reconstructed vessels of the Palatinate style from Herxheim near Landau (Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany). Fig. 10.5 Entrance of the “Jungfernhöhle” cave near Tiefenellern (Bavaria, Germany). Fig. 11.1 Geographic units and distribution of LBK settlements in southern Bavaria. Fig. 11.2 Distribution of comb impressions and barbed wire decorations on Later LBK pottery in southern Bavaria. Fig. 11.3 Percentage of Arnhofen and Ortenburg chert in inventories of LBK settlements from phases II–IV in southern Bavaria. Fig. 11.4 Distribution of below-ground ovens in southern Bavarian LBK settlements. Fig. 11.5 Mean orientation of houses in southern Bavarian LBK settlements of phases II–IV. Fig. 11.6 Distribution of monumental architecture in form of extremely long houses (> 33 m) and enclosures in southern Bavarian LBK settlements of phases II–IV. Fig. 11.7 Important sites and ethnic territories in phases II–IV of the southern Bavarian LBK. Fig. 12.1 Map showing the stylistic groups of the North-West LBK and excavated LBK settlements in the Moselle basin in Luxembourg. Fig. 12.2 Types of house plan with the presence or absence of a wall trench. Fig. 12.3 North-West LBK flint tool assemblages, comparing the main typological categories. Fig. 12.4 North-West LBK arrowheads types. Fig. 12.5 Selected ceramics from Luxembourg LBK IId. xiv Abbreviated List of Figures Fig. 12.6 Examples of pottery showing the rake-like and sun-like motifs. Fig. 12.7 In between two worlds: examples of the distribution of the rakelike (A) and the sun-like (B) patterns. Fig. 13.1 Schematic overview of the different Meuse river terrace floors. Fig. 13.2 Reconstruction of the terrace landscape in the southern Netherlands. Fig. 13.3 Schematic cross-section of a dry valley. Fig. 13.4 LBK habitation during Modderman phases 1b–2d. Fig. 13.5 Settlement dynamics in the Graetheide area. Fig. 13.6 LIDAR image of the physical landscape around Caberg and the LBK settlements. Fig. 13.7 The physical and cultural landscape of the southern Netherlands. Fig. 14.1 Map of the wider research area. Fig. 14.2 Relative correlation of sequences in the Rhineland, Meuse area, and Belgian area in relation to the Paris Basin and the Rhine-Main area. Fig. 14.3 Fragments of “exotic” pottery with “warts” from the large pit 1h at Maastricht-Klinkers. Fig. 15.1 The distribution of European Bell Beaker groups. Fig. 15.2 A Veluvian bell beaker from the site of Ede-Ginkelse heide. Fig 16.1 Map showing sites named in the text and the geographic area where Halaf material culture has been found. Fig 16.2 Fine painted ceramics with fabric colours are characteristic of Halaf material culture. Fig 16.3 Plan of levels TT-7-10 at Arpachiyah showing circular dwellings known as tholoi. Fig 16.4 Marble stamp-seal from Arpachiyah. Fig 16.5 Painted pottery female figurine from Chagar Bazar, north Syria. Fig. 16.6 Reconstructed view of a painted vessel of a type frequently found in the Ditch pottery assemblage, showing a building with birds. Fig 16.7 Photograph showing relative positions of the Red Terrace and Death Pit during excavation. Fig. 17.1 Map of eastern United States showing the locations of Cahokia and Moundville. Fig. 17.2 Plan view of the Cahokia site. Fig. 17.3 Plan view of the Moundville site. Something Out of the Ordinary? xv Fig. 18.1 Distribution of the Lapita cultural complex. Fig. 18.2 A dentate-stamped Lapita pot from Teouma, Efate Island, Vanuatu. Fig. 18.3 Incised Lapita “domestic” ware from Teouma. Fig. 18.4 Dentate-stamped flat-bottomed dish with anthropomorphic head designs from Teouma. Fig. 18.5 Skull of an adult female inside a Lapita pot, Teouma. Fig. 18.6 The distribution of obsidian in the western Pacific and Island Southeast Asia c. 1000 BCE. ABBREVIATED LIST OF TABLES Tab. 4.1 Marciniak’s suggested schema for human–animal relationships, food and depositional practices in the LBK. Tab. 5.1 Raw material composition of LBK inventories from Lesser Poland. Tab. 5.2 General structure of LBK inventories from Lesser Poland. Tab. 6.1 The sites studied for the Odyssee project Tab. 7.1 Frequency of morphological parts associated with each fashioning method. Tab. 7.2 Frequency of fashioning methods by archaeological feature. Tab. 7.3 Frequency of fashioning methods according to morphological class. Tab. 11.1 Chronological scheme for southern Bavaria and its relation to adjacent regions. Tab. 11.2 Combination table of regionally typical features. Tab. 12.1 Scraper length at selected sites and regions in the western LBK. CONTRIBUTORS Luc W.S.W. Amkreutz Curator Prehistory, National Museum of Antiquities Papengracht 30 P.O. box 121114 2301 EC Leiden The Netherlands l.amkreutz@rmo.nl John C. Barrett Department of Archaeology University of Sheffield Northgate House West Street Sheffield S1 4ET UK j.barrett@sheffield.ac.uk Robin A. Beck Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology University of Michigan 1109 Geddes Ave. Ann Arbor, MI 48103 USA rabeck@umich.edu Jaromír Beneš Institute of Archaeology Faculty of Philosophy University of South Bohemia Branišovská 31a 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic benes.jaromir@gmail.com Penny Bickle Department of Archaeology University of York The King's Manor York YO1 7EP UK penny.bickle@york.ac.uk Laurence Burnez-Lanotte LIATEC Department of Art History and Archaeology University of Namur Rue de Bruxelles 61 5000 Namur Belgium Lech Czerniak Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Uniwersytet Gdański ul. Bielańska 5 80-851 Gdańsk Poland lech.czerniak@ug.edu.pl Maciej Dębiec Uniwersytet Rzeszowski Instytut Archeologii ul. Moniuszki 10 35-015 Rzeszów Poland debiecmaciej@gmail.com xx Contributors Michaela Divišová Institute of Archaeology Faculty of Philosophy University of South Bohemia Branišovská 31a 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic mdivisova@seznam.cz Marjorie E. Th. De Grooth Independent Researcher Bad Münstereifel Germany grooth@t-online.de Louise Gomart Trajectoires UMR8215 University Paris 1/CNRS 21 Allée de l' Université 92000 Nanterre France Fabian Haack Archäologisches Landesmuseum Baden-Württemberg Benediktinerplatz 5 78467 Konstanz Germany haack@konstanz.alm-bw.de Anne Hauzeur National Centre of Archaeological Research Section Prehistory 241, rue de Luxembourg 8077 Bertrange Great-Duchy of Luxembourg ahauzeur@yahoo.fr Daniela Hofmann Universität Hamburg Archäologisches Institut Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Flügel West 20146 Hamburg Germany daniela.hofmann@unihamburg.de Alexandra Fletcher The British Museum Great Russell Street London WC1B 3DG UK afletcher@britishmuseum.org Alexandre Livingstone Smith Department of Archaeology Royal Museum of Central Africa Leuvensesteenweg 13 3080 Tervuren Belgium Joachim Pechtl kelten römer museum manching Im Erlet 2 85077 Manching Germany joachim.pechtl@museummanching.de Something Out of the Ordinary? Matthew Spriggs The Australian National University School of Archaeology and Anthropology Sir Roland Wilson Building Canberra, ACT 2601 Australia Matthew.Spriggs@anu.edu.au Barbara Van Doosselaere LIATEC Department of Art History and Archaeology University of Namur Rue de Bruxelles 61 5000 Namur Belgium barbara.vandoosselaere@gmail.com Ivo van Wijk Archaeological Research Leiden Einsteinweg 2 2300 RA Leiden The Netherlands I.vanWijk@archol.nl Marc Vander Linden Institute of Archaeology University College London 31-34 Gordon Square London WC1H 0PY UK marc.linden@ucl.ac.uk xxi Václav Vondrovský Institute of Archaeology Faculty of Philosophy University of South Bohemia Branišovská 31a 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic vaclav.vondrovsky@gmail.com Jarosław Wilczyński Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals Polish Academy of Sciences Sławkowska 17 31-016 Kraków Poland jaslov@wp.pl Andrea Zeeb-Lanz Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz Direktion Landesarchäologie, Außenstelle Speyer Kl. Pfaffengasse 10 67346 Speyer Germany andrea.zeeb-lanz@gdke.rlp.de INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: DIVERSITY AND UNIFORMITY IN LBK STUDIES DANIELA HOFMANN, LUC AMKREUTZ, FABIAN HAACK AND IVO VAN WIJK The Linearbandkeramik, as the first farming culture over a vast area between the Ukraine and the Paris Basin, and between Hungary and the North European Plain, has long fascinated researchers. Its quick spread from a core region in Hungary and Austria, its enormous geographical reach and the similarity of its material culture traits, from pottery and stone tools to houses, the basics of an agropastoralist economy and burials, have made it something like a brand: a phenomenon with a high recognition value and with a large impact on people’s lives in the past. Yet like with any brand, the way the LBK has been viewed and interpreted is constantly under revision. One core issue has been the relation between the large-scale material culture similarity and the role of regional and local differences which increasingly came to light. The relative explanatory weight accorded to these opposed poles of uniformity and diversity has shifted repeatedly, but so far no satisfactory resolution has emerged. Is there, in the face of increasingly fine-grained patterns of divergence at ever smaller scales, even such a thing as a “LBK culture”? Or is a focus on diversity just an obsession with detail which distracts us from the important parts of the bigger picture? This is the debate to which the present volume seeks to contribute. In this introduction, we begin by outlining, in necessarily broad brush strokes, the changing fortunes of “diversity” as an explanatory concept in the LBK. We then draw out some of the connecting themes which crosscut the papers presented here and especially reflect on how the inclusion of additional case studies beyond the LBK, which grapple with a similar tension between diversity and uniformity, can inform further research on the Early Neolithic of central Europe, but also more generally on the archaeological entities we term “cultures”. 4 Chapter One Diversity Identification of the LBK as a unified culture was a step-by-step process. The culture as such was already defined in the late nineteenth century and the term Bandkeramik coined by Klopfleisch in 1883. In the following decades of the twentieth century, scholars in different countries and regions identified their finds (often originally referred to by terms such as Spiralmäanderkeramik, Omalien and so on) as being part of this cultural unit. Once the LBK had thus coalesced, and once its chronological relationship in the European culture sequence had been finally established as lying early in the Neolithic sequence, one of its main virtues was the ease with which it could be accommodated into the prevailing culturehistorical models of that time. The contrast between it and the preceding, mobile Mesolithic way of life seemed overwhelming, and so there was little reason to doubt its spread by a form of population movement, initially connected to the exigencies of slash and burn cultivation. This was indeed a “people”, an ethnic unit carrying with it not just a few items of material culture, but an entirely new way of life. In Childe’s memorable quote, this was “a Neolithic population whose whole culture down to the finest details remains identical from the Drave to the Baltic and from the Dniestr to the Meuse” (Childe 1976, 105). With the post-war period and the beginning of large-scale fieldwork projects in several European countries—perhaps most notably the longrunning excavations in the French Aisne valley (Ilett 2012; Ilett et al. 1982), on the Aldenhovener Platte of the German Rhineland (e.g. Stehli 1994) and in adjacent Dutch Limburg (Modderman 1970), and at Bylany in the Czech Republic (e.g. Pavlů 2000; Soudský 1962)—the wealth of information on the LBK increased exponentially. It became—and still is— impossible for a single researcher to keep abreast of the new and ever more detailed information generated everywhere. This increasing mass of detail led to diversity at two different levels. On the one hand, as part of the general development of prehistory as a discipline, regional and national research foci began to differ to an extent. On the other hand, and perhaps not entirely unrelated, regional and chronological diversity in the archaeological material began to move centre-stage. The definition of the Earliest LBK by Quitta (1960) and Tichý (1961) is one such example and opposed an early horizon of flat-based, generally thicker and organically tempered wares with simpler decoration to a later phase with more inorganically tempered, round-based vessels which could be very finely made and elaborately decorated. It also became clear that the spatial extent of this earliest LBK phase was reduced and that in turn Introduction: Diversity and Uniformity in LBK Studies 5 material culture was comparatively more uniform than later on (Cladders and Stäuble 2003). It is only from the succeeding Flomborn/Ačkovy phase that the Rhine is decisively crossed, and the LBK reaches as far as the eastern Paris Basin, with a further westward spread later on (Billard et al. 2014, 333–338; Ilett 2012, 69). From Flomborn onwards, regional diversity increases apace and becomes particularly pronounced towards the end of the LBK, when a variety of regional decorative styles and techniques (e.g. comb impressions) are in use (e.g. Jeunesse 1995; MeierArendt 1972; Pechtl 2015; Strien 2000, 66–71). One main way in which these differences could be and were used was to refine the chronological fine-tuning of the LBK sequence. This kind of operation generally implies a unilinear trajectory, mostly from simple to more complex, and in the case of the LBK also to more idiosyncratic, decoration. The guiding assumptions are that a new motif will be introduced slowly, reach a peak and then “fade out”. While the mechanisms by which new motifs were introduced could be varied, in practice the question of why this stylistic divergence began and progressed has only just begun to be tackled for the LBK (see Pechtl 2015 on pottery; more generally: Van de Velde forthcoming). Implicitly, then, regional difference was generally treated as analogous to a process of genetic drift: pottery simply became more different over time, as random “copying errors” were introduced (although interestingly, formal modelling from an evolutionary perspective suggested that simple drift was unlikely to explain the observed pattern, see Shennan and Wilkinson 2001). In addition to pottery, other items of material culture were recognized as showing increasing regional divergence over time. To name but one example, houses of the developed LBK look rather different to those of the earliest phase, and within the later horizon there are distinct regional preferences for certain kinds of post settings and orientation, as well as in the average size of the buildings, the ease with which internal partitions can be identified, and so on (e.g. Coudart 1998; Modderman 1970; 1986). Although buildings are readily accepted as being closely connected to people’s way of life and worldview (for the LBK e.g. Bickle 2013; Hofmann 2013; Veit 1996, 63–67; Whittle 1996, 162–166; 2003, 136– 141), the models proposed for architectural diversity did not actually differ all that much from those for pottery. Decreasing post densities over time were connected with increased building efficiency (Modderman 1970, 119), while otherwise the appearance of regional diversity remained undertheorized. In addition, there was a counter-tendency in seeing architecture, and particularly the organization of site space, as a powerful unifying factor of the LBK, starting with Hodder’s (1990) ideas of a 6 Chapter One specific worldview expressed in “the” LBK longhouse and ending with the widespread and inter-regional application of the “yard model” of Bandkeramik settlement development (Boelicke 1982; Kuper et al. 1974; Zimmermann 2012). As similar debates developed regarding differences in burial customs, economic preferences, knapping styles and the use of personal ornaments, a new consensus regarding the role of diversity in our interpretations of the LBK began to emerge. An important role here was played by P.J.R. Modderman, one of the founding scholars of LBK research in Europe. Based on his meticulous contributions on the LBK in Dutch Limburg, he developed important typo-chronological systems for pottery and house typology, which—albeit slightly refined—are still at the heart of many studies into the LBK (Modderman 1970). By their inherent logic, these typologies in themselves also helped to reinforce the idea of a very structured and uniform set of practices and material culture within the LBK by providing the tools to categorize and analyse them. Yet, at the same time Modderman stressed the opposite, the overall diversity underlying the apparently uniform LBK cultural complex. In his seminal paper “Diversity in uniformity” (1988), he drew attention to the many characteristics of the LBK that were not the same throughout, ranging from the frequency of tripartite longhouses, the choice of personal ornamentation, or the kinds of flint tools in use to physical diversity between cemetery populations and possibly even differences in social organization. Reflecting on the geographical and social dimensions that may form the basis of this diversity, Modderman (1988, 130) concluded that “different solutions were chosen for problems that were not identical everywhere”. Yet at the same time, he insisted that many of the differences he detected, especially in later LBK phases, were “no more than the gradual changes that can be expected in any human society” (Modderman 1988, 130). Overall, then, a certain ambivalence remained, and indeed looking closely, the kinds of diversity that Modderman defined throughout his text are of very different orders. Sometimes, they concern regionality, at other times chronological differences. In the case of burial grounds, these can be combined: the need for cemetery burial arose with increasing territoriality, and this may not have affected all regions equally (Modderman 1988, 73). At other points, individual or idiosyncratic factors are stressed, such as where differences in economic success between settlements are attributed to the skill and shrewdness of the inhabitants (Modderman 1988, 88). “Diversity” thus came to cover everything from accidental drift to flexible reaction to local environments, from the continuation of local Mesolithic Introduction: Diversity and Uniformity in LBK Studies 7 traditions to the emergent properties of weakly hierarchical social systems, and from individual preferences to group organization. The relative importance of geography, historical trajectories and individual inventiveness differed with each aspect considered, but one single term was used to cover them all. In this way, it became difficult to disentangle the different factors contributing to “diversity”. This problem is also stressed by Lenneis (2012) when she points out that typological schemes drawn up for the western LBK are often used to classify material from the “core regions” of early settlement further east, potentially conflating regional diversity and chronological changes. In spite of these issues, this general re-orientation towards identifying “diversity” proved to be immensely creative in the following decades and its appearance on the interpretative scene of LBK archaeology—and beyond—was warmly welcomed. This is perhaps partly because its wide scope allowed its application to many different kinds of phenomena, at many scales. It enabled the search for a deeper understanding of Early Neolithic development within a regional context, re-aligning the debate by characterising LBK Neolithization as a mosaic process from the start. The problem, then, was not the introduction of diversity itself—indeed, the framework Modderman built was invaluable for moving forward the debate—but the lack of any clear definition of its nature. Another important factor certainly was that its core idea of granting a more active role to the hitherto neglected indigenous, pre-LBK population seamlessly aligned itself with wider trends in Neolithic research, and with a shift in archaeological theory generally, in which the role of small-scale differences and agent-based narratives became increasingly important. Especially in the Anglophone literature, a certain migration scepticism had long set in and was if anything further engrained with the emergence of post-processualist approaches (as criticized e.g. in Anthony 1990; Chapman and Hamerow 1997). Put very simply, this resulted in a general outlook which valued the recognition of diversity in the archaeological record as a sign for the active role of people in appropriating, rather than passively perpetuating, forms of material culture. Diversity became equated with agency. In the Neolithization debate in particular, this was also explicitly connected to the indigenous adoption (rather than foreign introduction) of an agricultural way of life. Putative colonisers would hence be expected to import their material culture more or less unchanged and to establish it rapidly. In contrast, slow adoption, experimentation, and the introduction of changes reflect the choices of people actively selecting a new kind of lifestyle (as e.g. discussed in Robb and Miracle 2007, 100– 103). Chapter One 8 Put a little starkly, this can be summarized as follows: Diversity : Uniformity Agency : Structure Hunters : Farmers Archaeologists began to exploit work generated in other social sciences to discuss issues of creolization, the creative fashioning of new identities, and various forms of resistance. But in spite of the sophistication of some of these ideas and the work resulting from them, as well as sustained criticism regarding the prevalence of dichotomous thinking (e.g. Pluciennik 2008; Robb 2013; Robb and Miracle 2007; Thomas 2015; Whittle 1996, 355–360), these basic sets of opposites remained deeply engrained. Even recent attempts at resolving them have often ended with trying to assign a specific practice, such as wild plant use or fishing, to one or the other side in the equation, with any transgression seen as proof of Mesolithic involvement in a gradual Neolithization process (e.g. Cummings and Harris 2011; Jones and Sibbesson 2013). This new and very productive set of assumptions was not limited to the post-processualist paradigm, as across central Europe similar arguments began to be made. The culture historical narrative, which opposed two peoples with differing material cultures, could be usefully extended to oppose two peoples with different capacities for material culture innovation: conservative foreign farmer-colonizers and creative local hunter-gatherers. Soon, the first studies along these lines began to appear specifically for the LBK (Jochim 2000; Kind 1998; Tillmann 1993; Whittle 1996, 150–152; for a summary see Scharl 2004, 57–81). In the last couple of decades, the emerging new consensus has been of leapfrog colonization, whereby some farmers migrated into central Europe and established enclaves, which acted as centres of secondary Neolithization. As this second step was largely carried by the indigenous population, diversity began to emerge (e.g. Gronenborn 1999). While diversity was thus accorded a guiding explanatory role for our understanding of the LBK culture, the question is whether our vision of it had really changed so fundamentally. “The” LBK was still seen as intrusive, conceived as an almost pathologically uniform (Keeley 1992, 82) cultural and mental unit originating somewhere far off, and then later merely adopted by others. Only these others had the capacity to be inventive. In some cases this was explicitly seen as resistance to the otherwise stifling norms of colonisers (e.g. Jeunesse 2009). But even where this was less clearly formulated, these narratives generally assumed