Abstract:

Traditional archaeological ideas about Neolithic societies were shaped by questionable premises. The modern concept of social and cultural coherence of residence groups as well as the ethnic interpretation of ‘archaeological cultures’ fostered ideas of static and homogeneous social entities with fixed borders. Farming – as the core of the Neolithic way of life – was associated with sedentariness rather than with spatial mobility and cross-regional social networks. Furthermore, the widely used (neo-)evolutionist thinking universally assumed a growing social complexity and hierarchisation during prehistory. After all, such ‘top-down’–perspectives deprived individuals and groups of genuine agency and creativity while underestimating the relational dynamic between the social and material worlds. In recent years, a wide array of empirical results on social practices related to material culture and settlement dynamics, (inter-)regional entanglements and spatial mobility were published. For the latter the adoption of the relatively new scientific methods in archaeology like Stable Isotope Analysis as well as aDNA played a crucial role. Yet the question of possible inferences regarding spatial and temporal differences in forms of social organisation has not been addressed sufficiently.

The aim of this volume is therefore to rethink former top-down concepts of Neolithic societies by studying social practices and different forms of Neolithic social life by adopting bottom-up social archaeological perspectives. Furthermore, the validity and relevance of terms like ‘society’, ‘community’, ‘social group’ etc. will be discussed. The contributions reach from theoretical to empirical ones and thematize a variety of social theoretical approaches as well as methodological ways of combining different sorts of data. They show the potential of such bottom-up approaches to infer models of social practices and configurations which may live up to the potential social diversity and dynamism of Neolithic societies. The contribution shed light on spatial mobility, social complexity, the importance of (political) interests and factors of kinship etc. We hope that this volume, with its focus on the Neolithic of Europe, will contribute to the ongoing critical debates of theories and concepts as well as on our premises and perspectives on Neolithic societies in general – and the practices of social archaeology as such.

Contents

I. Introduction

Towards bottom-up approaches in social archaeological Neolithic research
Maria Wunderlich, Caroline Heitz, Martin Hinz, Martin Furholt

II. Conceptual and methodological approaches to forms of social organization

Anarchy: Anthropological reflections on an unruly concept
Till Förster

Negotiating power in Neolithic communities – The politics of cohabitation
Martin Furholt

From ‘communities of practice’ to ‘translocal communities’. A practice-theoretical approach to mobility and socio-spatial configurations of Neolithic groups.
Caroline Heitz

Ethnoarchaeology and agent-based simulation modelling as bottom-up approaches: Perspectives for archaeological research
Maria Wunderlich/Julian Laabs

III. Material dimensions of social organization

The world in a village? Regional and supra-regional transmission of pottery-making practices in south-western Germany in the early third millennium BC
Philipp Gleich

Tracing the evidence of Neolithic social groups’ mobility according to the ornamentation on ceramics from the Lysa Hora burial site
Marta Andriiovych

Lausanne-Vidy: From Single to Social?
Katharina V. M. Jungnickel

Perversion of the Pareto Principle: Using a bottom-up approach to study burial practices in the Late Neolithic Carpathian Basin
Kata Szilágyi

IV. Scales and forms of social organization

Setting the ground for a village – communal organisation and space of the Early Neolithic site of Altscherbitz (Germany)
Isabel A. Hohle

Same but different: cross-regional cultural entanglement during the first half of the third millennium BC – a view from Franconia
Thomas Link

How wide are social frames of cultural diversity and mutual cultural influences?
Aleksandr Diachenko/Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka

V. Afterthoughts, Reflections and Outlook

Purging our approach to Neolithic societies: a critical review of the terms, analytical categories and cultural concepts applied in research
Brigitte Röder

Abandoning Neolithic societies – A practice-based approach
Alexander Veling

Theory versus data. Dealing with the interpretive dilemma in the biomolecular era
Maxime N. Brami