Association Mitteleuropa - Creating communities: new advances in Central European neolithic research

Published by
Oxbow Books, Oxford

Oxbow Books and the individual authors, 2009

ISBN 978-1-84217-353-4
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-78297-328-7
PRC ISBN: 978-1-78297-329-4

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Creating communities : new advances in Central European neolithic research / edited by Daniela Hofmann and
Penny Bickle.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-84217-353-4
1. Bandkeramik culture. 2. Neolithic period--Europe, Central. 3. Neolithic peoples--Europe, Central. 4. Europe,
Central--Antiquities. 5. Excavations (Archaeology)--Europe, Central. I. Hofmann, Daniela. II. Bickle, Penny. GN776.2.B3C74 2009
943--dc22

2009018086

Cover image: an LBK longhouse at Wang, southern Bavaria, during excavation in September 2008.
Photo: Alasdair Whittle

Printed in Great Britain by
Hobbs the Printers Ltd, Totton, Hampshire.

Contents

Penny Bickle and Daniela Hofmann

Luc Amkreutz, Bart Vanmontfort and Leo Verhart

Marc Lodewijckx, with Corrie Bakels

Olga V. Larina

Joanna Pyzel

Britta Ramminger

Erich Claen

Lisandre Bedault

Penny Bickle

Corina Knipper

Oliver Rck

Joachim Pechtl

Andrea Zeeb-Lanz, Rose-Marie Arbogast, Fabian Haack, Miriam N. Haidle, Christian Jeunesse, Jrg Orschiedt, Dirk Schimmelpfennig and Samuel van Willigen

Daniela Hofmann

Anna Rauba-Bukowska

Alasdair Whittle

Contributors

Luc Amkreutz

National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden)

Papengracht 30, Postbus 11114

NL 2301 EC Leiden

Rose-Marie Arbogast

Institut fr Prhistorische und

Naturwissenschaftliche Archologie (IPNA)

University of Basel

Spalenring 145

CH 4055 Basel

Corrie Bakels

Faculty of Archaeology

University of Leiden

Reuvensplaats 34

NL 2311 BE Leiden

Lisandre Bedault

Universit de Paris 1 Panthon-Sorbonne

CNRS UMR 7041, ArScAn, Protohistoire Europenne

Maison de lArchologie et de lEthnologie

21, alle de lUniversit

FR 92023 Nanterre Cedex

Penny Bickle

School of History and Archaeology

Cardiff University

Humanities Building, Colum Drive

UK Cardiff CF10 3EU

Erich Claen

Bayerisches Landesamt fr Denkmalpflege

Dienststelle Ingolstadt

Unterer Graben 37

DE 85049 Ingolstadt

Corina Knipper

Eberhard-Karls-Universitt Tbingen

Institut fr Ur-und Frhgeschichte und Archologie des Mittelalters

Naturwissenschaftliche Archologie

Rmelinstr. 23

DE 72070 Tbingen

Olga Larina

Institutul Patrimoniului Cultural

Str. Banulescu Bodoni 35

MD-2012 Chisinau

Marc Lodewijckx

Department of Archaeology and Art History

University of Leuven

Blijde Inkomsstraat 21, bus 3313

B 3000 Leuven

Fabian Haack

Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz

Direktion Archologie Speyer

Kleine Pfaffengasse 10

DE 67346 Speyer

Miriam Haidle

Intitut fr Ur- und Frhgeschichte und Archologie

des Mittelalters

Abt. ltere Urgeschichte Quartrkologie

Schloss, Burgsteige 11

DE 72072 Tbingen

Daniela Hofmann

School of History and Archaeology

Cardiff University

Humanities Building, Colum Drive

UK Cardiff CF10 3EU

Christian Jeunesse

MISHA

Universit Marc Bloch Strasbourg II

5, alle du Gnral Rouvillois

FR 67083 Strasbourg Cedex

Jrg Orschiedt

Archologisches Institut

Universitt Hamburg

Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Flgel West

DE 20146 Hamburg

Joachim Pechtl

Rotkehlchenweg 14c

DE 82538 Geretsried

Joanna Pyzel

Institute of Archaeology

Gdask University

al. Bielaska 5

PL 80-851 Gdask

Britta Ramminger

Archologisches Institut

Universitt Hamburg

Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Flgel West

DE 20146 Hamburg

Anna Rauba-Bukowska

AGH University of Sciences and Technology

PL 30-059 Krakow

al. Mickiewicza 30

Oliver Rck

Prhistorische Archologie

Institut fr Kunstgeschichte und Archologien Europas

Martin-Luther-Universitt Halle-Wittenberg

Brandenbergweg 23c

DE 06120 Halle (Saale)

Dirk Schimmelpfennig

Institut fr Ur- und Frhgeschichte

Universitt zu Kln

DE 50923 Kln

Bart Vanmontfort

Eenheid Prehistorische Archeologie

Geo-instituut

Celestijnenlaan 200e bus 2409

BE 3001 Leuven

Samuel van Willigen

Swiss National Museum

Department of Archaeology

Museumstrae 2

CH 8023 Zrich

Leo Verhart

Limburgs Museum

Keulsepoort 5

NL 75911BX Vento

Alasdair Whittle

School of History and Archaeology

Cardiff University

Humanities Building, Colum Drive

UK Cardiff CF10 3EU

Andrea Zeeb-Lanz

Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz

Direktion Archologie Speyer

Kleine Pfaffengasse 10

DE 67346 Speyer

Introduction: researching across borders

Penny Bickle and Daniela Hofmann

Introduction

Unquestionably, the LBK is one of the best researched Neolithic cultures in Europe. Substantial information on architecture, settlement patterns, economic behaviour, exchange and mortuary rites is available, and the quantity of excavation and specialist reports, theses and micro-regional studies in various European countries now escapes easy overview. Why, then, this book?

This volume originated at a 2006 EAA session at Krakow entitled Advances in Central European Neolithic research which aimed to provide a forum for PhD students and newly established researchers to present their ideas to a wider audience, sharing approaches across traditional research boundaries. As the field becomes much more specialised, it is often hard to keep track of where research concerns converge. In the course of the session, it became clear that presentations consistently raised certain key themes which cross-cut, but also reinforced some of the established research foci. These can best be characterised as the nature and interplay of various scales of social interaction and the linked concern with identities, be they individual, local, regional, or ethnic and culture-wide.

The aims of this book are hence not only to make a wealth of scattered material in various European languages available to an English-speaking audience, but also to raise more fundamental questions about the investigation of identity, community and change in prehistory. The nature and quality of the LBK material invites reflection on how different scales of social life can best be interconnected. Moddermans (1988) dictum of diversity in uniformity for the LBK is frequently quoted, but we are still grappling to explain the social mechanisms behind these patterns. How can LBK material culture be so instantly recognisable and comparable over vast geographical areas and over half a millennium, while at the same time showing regional variations in almost every respect? How are these similarities and differences negotiated at various social levels?

One reason for archaeologys persistent problems in explaining this point is the dominant and pervasive tendency to think in neatly packaged, bounded building blocks of social interaction: beginning with the individual and working our way up via the household, settlement, settlement cell and micro-region to larger regions and eventually the culture. All these elements function a bit like Lego bricks, where several small ones can be connected together to form the next largest entity, but without their own boundaries being questioned in the process. Traditionally there has been a tendency to aim modelling at the top tiers of this hierarchy of bricks: at social structure and even culture-wide norms. It is here that we saw the need to depart from the established canon to open up new trajectories of investigation, but without creating an artificial focus on just the small scale. To be successful, LBK archaeology needs to embrace a variety of approaches and voices, and this is what the volume represents.