From about 7000 b.C in Greece, farming economies were progressively adopted in Europe, though areas farther west, such as Britain, were not affected for two millennia and Scandinavia not until even later. The period from the beginning of agriculture to the widespread use of bronze about 2300 bc is called the Neolithic (New Stone Age).
The Adoption of Farming
Agriculture had developed at an earlier date in the Middle East, and the relationship of Europe to that area and the mechanism of the introduction of agriculture have been variously explained. At one extreme is a model of immigrant colonization from the Middle East, with the agricultural frontier pushing farther westward as population grew and new settlements were founded. A variation of this model denies the uniformity of such a “wave of advance” and stresses the possibility of a more irregular pioneering movement. At the other extreme is a model of agricultural adoption by indigenous Mesolithic groups, with a minimum of reliance on any introduced people or resources.
In favour of the intrusive model is the nature of the crops that formed the basis of early agriculture; the main cereals were emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, and barley, together with other plants such as peas and flax. These had all been domesticated in the Middle East, where their wild progenitors were found. The material culture of the earliest farmers in Greece and southeastern Europe also shows great similarity to that of the Middle East. On the other hand, the animals important to early agriculture are not so clearly introduced. Wild sheep and goats may have been available in southern Europe, and cattle were probably domesticated in southeastern Europe at least as early as in the Middle East. There also were definite European contributions; the dog was domesticated in Europe in the Mesolithic Period, and evidence suggests that the horse was first domesticated on the Western Steppe.
The process of agricultural adoption, furthermore, was neither fast nor uniform. It took at least 4,000 years for farming to reach its northern limit in Scandinavia, and there it was the success of fishing and sealing that allowed agriculture as a desirable addition to the economy. In many areas of western Europe, it is likely that domesticated animals were used before the adoption of agricultural plants.
It is also possible to argue for a considerable Mesolithic contribution, especially in the north and west. Not only did some areas continue to rely on hunting and gathering in addition to farming but there was also continuity of settlement location and resource use, especially of stone for tools. Despite the disappearance of the small blades previously used for spears and arrows and the appearance of heavy tools for forest clearance, there was some continuity of tool technology.
The adoption of farming is unlikely to have been a simple or uniform process throughout Europe. In some regions, especially Greece, the Balkans, southern Italy, central Europe, and Ukraine, actual colonization by new populations may have been important. Elsewhere, especially in the west and north, a gradual process of adaptation by indigenous communities is more likely, though everywhere the pattern would have been mixed.
The consequences of the adoption of farming were important for all later developments. Permanent settlement, population growth, and exploitation of smaller territories all brought about new relationships between people and the environment. Mobility had previously necessitated small populations at low densities and had allowed only material items that could be carried, with little investment in structures; these restraints were removed, and the opportunity was created for many new crafts and technologies.
The earliest evidence for agriculture comes from sites in Greece, such as Knossos and Argissa, soon after 7000 bc. During the 7th millennium, farming was widespread in southeastern Europe. The material culture of this region bears a strong similarity to that of the Middle East. Pottery making was introduced, and a variety of highly decorated vessels was produced. Permanent settlements of small mud-brick houses were established, and continuous rebuilding of such villages on the same spot produced large settlement mounds, or tells. Clay figurines, mostly female, are common finds in many houses, and there may also have been special shrines or temples.
The precise beliefs cannot be ascertained, but they suggest the importance of ritual and religion in these societies. By the 5th and 4th millennia, some of these sites, such as Sesklo and Dhimini in Greece, were defended. From the early 5th millennium, there is evidence for the development of copper and gold metallurgy, independently of Middle Eastern traditions, and copper mines have been found in the Balkan Peninsula. Metal products included personal ornaments as well as some functional items; the cemetery at Varna, Bulg., contained many gold objects, with large collections in some graves. Control of ritual, technology, and agriculture, as well as the need for defense, all suggest the growing differentiation within Neolithic society.
In the central and western Mediterranean, the clearest evidence is from southern Italy, where a mixed farming economy was established in the 7th millennium. Many large villages, often surrounded by enclosure ditches, have been recognized. Elsewhere in the region, domesticated crops and animals were adopted more slowly into the indigenous economies. New technologies also were adopted; pottery decorated with characteristic impressed patterns was made, and by the 4th millennium copper was being worked in Spain. The major islands of the Mediterranean were colonized. The general picture is one of small-scale regional development. One such regional pattern was on Malta, where a series of massive stone temples was constructed from the early 4th millennium.
In a band across central and western Europe, the earliest farmers from 5400 bc onward are represented by a homogeneous pattern of settlements and material culture, named the LBK culture (from Linienbandkeramik or Linearbandkeramik), after the typical pottery decorated with linear bands of ornament. The same styles of pottery and other material are found throughout the region, and their settlements show a regular preference for the easily worked and well-drained loess soils. The houses were 20 to 23 feet (6 to 7 metres) wide and up to 150 feet (45.72 metres) long and possibly included stalling for animals. In some areas they were grouped in large villages, but elsewhere there was a dispersed pattern of small clusters of houses.
Some known cemeteries show a concentration of objects deposited with older males. About 4700 bc the cultural homogeneity ended, and regional patterns of settlement and culture appeared as the population grew and new areas were exploited for farming. Some of the best information comes from villages on the edges of lakes in France and Switzerland, where organic material has been preserved in damp conditions.
Farming also spread northeastward into the steppe north of the Black Sea. Before 6000 bc domesticated animals and pottery were found there, but in societies that still relied heavily on hunting and fishing. By about 4500 bc a new pattern of villages, such as at Cucuteni and Tripolye, was established with a mixed farming economy.
Some of these villages contained many hundreds of houses in a planned layout, and they were increasingly surrounded by massive fortifications. Farther east across the steppe as far as the southern Urals, pottery, domesticated animals, and cereals were progressively added to an indigenous hunting and gathering economy, and the horse was domesticated. Nomadic pastoral economies developed by the 2nd millennium.
Farming extended from central to northern Europe only after a long interval. For a millennium, agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers were in contact and pottery was adopted or exchanged, but domesticated animals and crops were only introduced into northern Germany, Poland, and southern Scandinavia about 4200 bc, apparently after a decline in the availability of marine food resources. Farming was rapidly adopted as the mainstay of subsistence and expanded to its maximum climatic viability in Scandinavia. By the middle of the 4th millennium, large communal tombs were being built, frequently of megalithic (large-stone) construction.
In western Europe, there was a similar delay in the spread of farming. In western France, domesticated animals were added to hunting and gathering in a predominantly stock-based economy, and pottery was also adopted. In Britain and Ireland, forest clearance as early as 4700 bc may represent the beginnings of agriculture, but there is little evidence for settlements or monuments before 4000 bc, and hunting and gathering economies survived in places. The construction of large communal tombs and defended enclosures from 4000 b,C may mark the growth of agricultural populations and the beginning of competition for resources. Some of the enclosures were attacked and burned, clear evidence of violent warfare.
The tombs, of earth and timber or of megalithic construction, contained communal burials and served as markers for claims to farming territories as well as foci for the worship of ancestors. Some, such as the tombs of Brittany and Ireland, contained elaborately decorated stones.
From the late 4th millennium a number of developments in the agricultural economy became prominent. They did not, however, begin all at once nor were they found everywhere. Some of them may have been in use for some time, and there also are distinct regional variations. Cumulatively, however, they add up to a new phase of agricultural organization.
Agricultural Intensification
One of the most important developments was the management of animal herds for purposes other than the provision of meat. In the case of cattle, there is some evidence for milk production earlier, but dairying appears to have taken on a much more significant role from this time. Oxen were raised to provide traction, and sheep were managed not for meat but primarily as a source of manure and wool. Textiles in the early Neolithic Period were predominantly made of flax, but from the early 3rd millennium wool was widely used, and spinning and weaving became important crafts and new ways of exploiting agricultural resources. New crops also were introduced. The most important were the vine and the olive, found in Greece from the early 3rd millennium. These tree crops represented an important addition to the range of agricultural produce and formed the basis for later developments in the Aegean.
There were also new technologies, especially the use of animal traction for the plow and for wheeled vehicles. The earliest evidence for plowing consists of marks preserved in the soil under burial mounds and dated to the end of the 4th millennium. A clay model of a wheeled cart of the same date is known from a grave at Szigetszentmárton, Hung., and actual wheels from northern Europe by 2500 bc . In southeastern Spain, the most arid area of Europe, irrigation systems were probably introduced. These all represent important new technologies applied to agriculture and an intensification of energy expenditure in that field.
The innovations outlined above marked the development of early agriculture toward a system more specifically adapted to the European environment and capable of producing a much wider range of outputs, especially of nonfood products. Some, such as wine and cloth, had a particular social significance, and others, especially the wheeled vehicle, led to further developments. The new agricultural regime also showed a better adaptation to the wide variety of regional environments in Europe and permitted expansion into new ecological zones. Whereas the earliest farmers mostly preferred the prime arable soils, such as the loess of central Europe, it was now possible, especially with the use of sheep, to exploit many less fertile soils.
The period from the late 4th millennium also saw many important social changes. They varied from region to region but laid the foundations for the society of the Bronze Age, which followed. In southeastern Europe about 3200 bc, there was a major break in material culture and settlement patterns. The old styles of decorated pottery were replaced with new plainer forms, and the evidence for ritual, such as the figurines, ends. Many of the long-occupied tell sites were abandoned; the new settlement pattern shows many smaller sites and some larger ones which may have played a central role. In Greece there were similar changes, with population expansion especially in the south and the emergence of some sites as centres of authority; this period marked the beginning of the Aegean Bronze Age.
Elsewhere in the Mediterranean the changes are most marked in parts of Iberia. At Los Millares in southeastern Spain and in southern Portugal at sites such as Vila Nova de São Pedro, strongly fortifi ed settlements accompanied by cemeteries containing rich collections of prestige goods suggest the appearance of a more hierarchically organized society. Similar trends toward the emergence of sites of central authority took place in southern France, but there is little sign of such developments in Italy.
In central and northern Europe, changes of a different nature began about 2800 bc . The most obvious feature is two phases of new burial rites, comprising individual rather than communal burials with a particular emphasis on the deposition of prestige grave goods with adult males. The fi rst phase, characterized by Corded Ware pottery and stone battle-axes, is found particularly in central and northern Europe. The second phase, dated to 2500–2200 bc , is marked by Bell Beaker pottery and the frequent occurrence of copper daggers in the graves; it is found from Hungary to Britain and as far south as Italy, Spain, and North Africa. At the same time, there was an increase in the exchange of prestige goods such as amber, copper, and tools from particular rock sources.
Both of these burial rites have been attributed to invading population groups. On the other hand, they may also be seen as a new expression of an ideology of social status, emphasizing control of resources rather than ancestral descent. Such an explanation fits better with a picture of slow internal development within European society. The new ideology did not prevail everywhere, however, and in Britain, for instance, the 3rd millennium saw the construction of massive ceremonial monuments such as Avebury and Stonehenge, before the introduction of individual burial rites at the end of the millennium.
When there is evidence for the languages spoken in Europe at the end of the prehistoric period, it is clear that with few exceptions, such as Basque or Etruscan, they belonged to the Indo-European language group, which also extended to India and Central Asia. This raises the question of when these languages, or their ancestral prototype, were first spoken in Europe. One theory links these languages with a particular population of Indo-Europeans and explains the expansion of the languages as the result of invasion or immigration; their origin is sought in the east, perhaps in the area north of the Black and Caspian seas. The invasion is associated with the new patterns of settlement, economy, material culture, burial, and social organization seen about 3000 bc. These innovations, however, may be better attributed to internal developments.
An alternative explanation for the origin of Indo-European languages associates it with the immigration of the first farmers from Anatolia at the beginning of the Neolithic Period, but the spread of farming does not seem to have been a uniform process or to have been achieved everywhere by population migration. There is, however, no single archaeological pattern that might correspond to a migration on an appropriate geographic scale throughout Europe, and all these explanations raise fundamental questions about the development, spread, and adoption of languages, the relationship of language to ethnic groups, and the correspondence of archaeologically recognizable patterns of material culture to either language or ethnicity.
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