Cambridge Scholars Publishing Something Out of the Ordinary? Interpreting Diversity in the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik and Beyond

More than 7000 years ago, groups of early farmers (the Linearbandkeramik, or LBK) spread over vast areas of Europe. Their cultural characteristics comprised common choices and styles of execution, with a central meaning and functionality attached to ‘doing things a certain way’, over an enormous geographical area. However, recent evidence suggests that the reality was much more varied and diverse. The central question of this book is the extent to which notions of ‘uniformity’ and ‘diversity’ have caused a wider shift in archaeological perspective. Using the LBK case study as a starting point, the volume brings together contributions by international specialists tackling the notion of cultural diversity and its explanatory power in archaeological analysis more generally. Through discussions of the domestic architecture, stone tool inventory, pottery traditions, landscape use and burial traditions of the LBK, this book provides a crucial reappraisal of the culture’s potential for adaptability and change. Papers in the second part of the volume are devoted to archaeological case studies from around the globe in which the tension between diversity and uniformity has also proved controversial, including the Near Eastern Halaf culture, the North American Mississippian, the Pacific expansion of the Lapita culture, and the European Bell Beaker phenomenon. All provide exciting theoretical and methodological contributions on how the appreciation of cultural diversity as a whole can be moved forward. These papers expose diversity and uniformity as cultural strategies, and as such provide essential reading for scholars in archaeology and anthropology, and for anyone interested in the interplay between material culture and human social change. About the Author Luc Amkreutz is curator of Prehistoric Collections at the National Museum of Antiquities in the Netherlands. He has been working with LBK sites in the Netherlands and adjacent areas, focusing on settlement dynamics and networks. His research also deals with the process of Neolithisation in north-west Europe in general and the role and position of indigenous wetland communities in the Lower Rhine Area. Fabian Haack is currently curating an exhibition of circum-alpine Neolithic and Bronze Age lake-dwellings at the Archaeological Museum Baden-Württemberg. Based on his excavations at the LBK site of Herxheim in the Palatinate, he has worked on Neolithic bone and antler artefacts and on enclosures. His research focuses on depositional practices and taphonomic processes. Daniela Hofmann is a Junior Professor at Hamburg University. Her main research interests are centred on the architecture, burial rites and anthropomorphic figurines of the early Neolithic of central Europe. She has also addressed these issues through her work in research projects based on isotopic analyses and radiocarbon dating. Ivo van Wijk is a regional specialist at Archaeological Research Leiden (ARCHOL). His research covers early Neolithic settlement dynamics and the composition of the cultural landscape in the southern Netherlands. In addition to excavating, he is involved in a variety of community participation projects concerning the various aspects of archaeology.