“Dealing with Difference: Investigating Social Diversity in the Central European Neolithic”

Seminar by Dr Penny Bickle, University of York 

Report by Emily Mooney

Last Thursday evening, the Archaeology Society was delighted to welcome Dr. Penny Bickle from the University of York, who gave a lecture entitled “Dealing with Difference: Investigating Social Diversity in the Central European Neolithic”. The lecture commenced with Dr. Bickle mentioning two of the projects that she has been involved in, and stating how there has been a relative tendency towards hesitation when it comes to discussing social differences during the Neolithic.

She then moved her talk onto the discussion of the archaeology of the Central European Neolithic, with a focus on the Linear Band Keramic (LBK) culture. Most of the evidence for Central European Neolithic comes from the settlement of the LBK, which consisted of villages containing longhouses, with clusters of settlements alongside river valleys.

Dr. Bickle proceeded to then discuss the pottery evidence for the LBK and what it says about regional diversity and hierarchy within the culture, with prestige objects dominating. She used the very effective analogy of football teams when explaining pottery diversity within different LBK groups - everyone was playing by the same rules, but for different teams, but there is also the possibility that they could have even been playing different ball games altogether.

She then discussed the details of her first project, “The First Farmers in Central Europe: Diversity in LBK lifeways” (2013), which utilised the study of isotopes to determine diet, which revealed that hunter-gatherers and farmers had a widespread similarity in diet, and that the evidence exhibited the sharing of food between settlements, but the project was not able to determine any changes over time.
The second project, “The Time of their Lives: Precise chronologies for the European Neolithic” (http://totl.eu/), currently ongoing and led by Dr Alasdair Whittle and Alex Bayliss, uses Baysian modelling techniques to address what the previous project could not, examining change over time across different cultural groups, but due to a limited stratigraphy resorted to the examination of the different ceramic phases of the LBK across Europe.

The results of both projects concluded that there were changes in social relations of Neolithic Europe between 5160 – 5115 BC, with periods of increased and stable settlements and then a collapse, the reason for which is unclear, with the society focusing on the contemporary social groups as opposed to previous generations being the focal point.

To conclude, Dr. Bickle’s work has shown that social relations and kinship played a central role in the LBK way of life, alongside a system of shared values, and those communities on the edges of the society exhibiting more variation. Overall it was a very engaging talk that was enjoyed by all who attended, and we look forward to hearing of Dr. Bickle’s fantastic work in the future.

Seminar report: Middle and Late Neolithic Amber, Jet and Bone ornaments contributions from the microscope

This seminar was spilt into two parts: the first discussed ornaments found at various sites throughout the Middle and Late Neolithic and the second part focused on the building of Bronze Age houses based on experimental techniques.

In order to discuss the vast amounts of information concerning this topic, Prof. van Gijn focused this lecture on three main time periods of manufacture during the Neolithic. The first is the Middle Neolithic between 3700-3400 BC, generally associated with the Hazendank group. The sites at Ypenburg and Schipluien provide incredible evidence of ornaments. Ypenburg contains a cemetery consisting of 37 graves, burials of women and children discovered containing ornaments that were shiny and had evidence of heavy wear. Jet beads discovered were all heavily worn whereas it would seem that the amber beads found in the burials were both worn and manufactured specially for burial. At Schipluiden bone beads were recovered from a child’s grave with pronounced evidence of manufacture. Further evidence at this site indicates that the amber and jet beads were not made with much thought.

The second time span refers to ornaments from the Funnel Beaker Period between 3400-2900 BC, this period saw the construction of megaliths and communal burials, generally amber ornaments were found as jet was not as easily available. One interesting characteristic about these beads is that they were reground before they were placed in the communal burials. Re-sharpened axes from the TRB megaliths - Trichterbecherkultur, ie. Funnel Beaker Culture -  add much to the debate. Van Gijn herself believes that these objects were reground in order to depersonalise them, so as to allow them into the communal tomb. Others, however, have argued that an object cannot be depersonalised as it already has a story.

The third period that was discussed is that of Beaker pottery, this time associated with more individual burials such as barrows. Ornaments linked to this period show different biographies in contrast to the Funnel Beaker tradition as they are more individual. At Hanzelijn in North Holland, 16 amber beads were recovered, all with different biographies but all were described as ‘pretty’. Another burial site, Hattemerbroek, provided 18 v-perforated beads, again with different biographies, some pretty and some worn.

During the second part of this seminar, Prof. Van Gijn focused on the more experimental side to her work and discussed the construction of a Bronze Age house. This lecture described the background to this experiment, the goals set out before hand,the construction and the final results. This house was to be constructed at Huize Hosterworld, after the Dutch National Forestry service wanted somewhere to begin walking tours. Diederik Pamstra wanted to attempt to build a house based on teachings from Hans de Haos and Prof. Van Gijn herself wanted an area to carry out other experiments. Some goals of this venture were: to use strictly stone tools and local material, the hardest goal to keep was the documentation of everything that occurred. Other problems with this building were identified during the planning stages, with for instance debates over where to locate the doors. Prof. Van Gijn gave us a great insight into the construction of the house with too much detail to fully describe.  The construction was a success, however Van Gijn states that it will need to be rebuilt again. At this point in time another structure is in the process of being built and will be finished sometime in the future and will be used to house future experiments. 

By Emily Geoghegan

Seminar: "Itineraries of Neolithic jet and amber beads: a microscopic view"

This week, we will welcome Prof. Annelou van Gijn from the University of Leiden, Netherlands, who is going to give a talk entitled

 "Itineraries of Neolithic jet and amber beads: a microscopic view".

Wednesday 26th March
5:30pm
RoomK012, School of Archaeology, Newman Building

Nota: This seminar will take place on Wednesday and not the usual Thursday, at 5:30pm , in Room K012 and not the usual A109. All welcome !

Seminar report: "Land use and community differentiation in the European Neolithic: isotopic evidence"

This week’s seminar was brought to us by Prof. Alex Bentley of the University of Bristol and it was a chance for him to present some of the findings from his study of land use and community differentiation using isotopic analysis. I entered the room with a very rudimentary knowledge of isotope analysis from my leaving certificate chemistry class so I was interested in learning more about this process.

Prof. Bentley outlined how they were measuring the strontium isotopes from the skeletons, particularly the teeth, found buried in different Neolithic cemeteries in the LBK (LinearBandKeramik period). He would use cemeteries that contained thirty or more burials and these large samples can help us look at things like land use and community differentiation.

This also helped with looking at demographic patterns and their changes throughout the Neolithic. Prof. Bentley told us about the Neolithic dispersal and how it can be viewed with genetic data that has been collected. Most consistent is the fact that we can see that the men were marrying indigenous women.

He presented us next with the isotopic evidence that they have collected so far. Tooth enamel forms between the ages of 0-10 months but bone constantly remodels due to a number of different factors but it is chemically inert. He would use a mass spectrometer to analyse the strontium isotope ratios. He also carried out enhanced-resolution methods of analysis, which included micro sampling, compound-specific stable isotope analysis and laser ablation ICP-MS.

One of the problems encountered was that there are similar strontium isotope ratios in different geologies.

One of the key areas that Prof. Bentley looked at and presented to us was looking at adze deposition patterns in burials, ie. which burials contained one and which not. The findings for these were presented in a clear manner on graphs which showed a possibility of gender inequality within these settlements. For example the majority of people buried with an adze were on the mean line. This suggests that local land owners were given a more prestigious burial and given that there were intermarriages at this time between the Neolithic men and indigenous women. This in turn may suggest that a form of gender inequality as well as an inequality between local and non-local peoples.

Prof. Bentley's talk was both very interesting and exciting, and it gave us a different perspective on how to examine group dynamics, land use and social organisation in the Neolithic. I would like to thank him for taking time out to present his work to us and wish him the best of luck in future research.

By Melanie Dunne