Gradual or punctuated? Pinpointing the emergence of animal husbandry and farming in the Dutch wetlands

Description

The fifth millennium BCE in the Dutch wetlands witnessed several remarkable novelties in the subsistence patterns of Swifterbant culture, namely the emergence of pottery production, animal husbandry, and cereal cultivation. Given the importance of these changes and the perplexing nature of the data, much debate has centred on the timing and duration of these events. Because these novelties appear to occur across the entire fifth millennium BCE, the most
popular model is that of a gradual and long transition to agriculture, triggered by the contact with LBK culture from 5300 BCE onwards. Short Early and Short Late models, on the other hand, stress the punctuated nature of these
processes. To investigate this, we selected the keystone sites featuring the earliest evidence of domesticated animals, animal husbandry and cereal cultivation, with the goal of establishing precise site chronologies. We screened legacy data and conducted radiocarbon dating on carefully selected material, and combined old and new data within Bayesian models. As a result, we were able to pinpoint these subsistence novelties with considerably greater precision and discuss the nature and pace of these events, challenging the previously proposed interpretations. Our study forms a significant contribution to the debate on the Neolithization of north-western Europe.

Period	1-Sept-2023
Event title	29th European Association of Archaeologists Annual Meeting: Weaving Narratives
Event type	Conference
Conference number	29
Location	BelfastShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International