Neolithisation Europe (jan 1, 5500 BC – jan 1, 2300 BC)

Description:

Key Facts
- Characteristics of Neolithic societies are :
1) Agriculture
2) Domesticated animals
3) Pottery
4) Polished stone axes
*(These characteristics do not always hold true: some Mesolithic societies did have pottery (for example the Danish Ertebølle culture))

Chronology Three Phases:
The introduction of farming gradually takes places from south to north Europe;

Phase 1.
7000-5500 BC: Neolithisation of Greece/southeast Europe (the Balkan).

Phase 2.
5500-4900 BC: Bandkeramik culture farmers spread from Hungarian Plain to the far west (France/south Netherlands and far east (Moldavia/Ukraine) and are the first farmers in these regions (the ‘north’ wave of Neolithisation).

Phase 3
4100-2500 BC: (end date differs from region to region): Mesolithic societies in northern Europe become farmers as result of interaction with farming communities in the south.

What about the Mesolithic societies in this time?:
- Mesolithic hunter/gatherers traded goods with farmers, and through such exchange, Neolithic adzes and axes and later domesticated products reached them;
- through such exchanges, Mesolithic societies came to incorporate some agriculture and domesticated animals in their hunter/gatherer life style; an example is the Dutch Swifterbant culture who lived in the delta;
- Mesolithic societies had an extended broad spectrum subsistence economy (using many sources in the landscape such as fishing, gathering plants, hunting etc.); agriculture and domesticated animals became another element;
- in regions like the Dutch delta, it took millennia (from 4100-2500 BC) before these ‘Mesolithic farmers’ become real farmers.

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