Understanding the rates of expansion of the farming system in Europe

Bocquet‐Appel, Jean‐Pierre; Naji, Stephan; Linden, Marc Vander; Kozłowski, Janusz K.

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2011.10.010

Cited by 78 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…Similar work should be performed for other inland Neolithic cultures. On the other hand, some local Neolithic speeds were substantially faster (26) but, because sea travel was probably important, simulations in real geographies will be necessary to perform detailed comparisons of our model with such data. Overall, this work opens a way to discriminate the roles of demic and cultural diffusion at regional scales within Europe, as well as for Neolithic transitions in other regions of the world and for other historical transitions and cultural diffusion phenomena.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthesis between demic and cultural diffusion in the Neolithic transition in Europe

Fort

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

129

181

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There is a long-standing controversy between two models of the Neolithic transition. The demic model assumes that the Neolithic range expansion was mainly due to the spread of populations, and the cultural model considers that it was essentially due to the spread of ideas. Here we integrate the demic and cultural models in a unified framework. We show that cultural diffusion explains ∼40% of the spread rate of the Neolithic transition in Europe, as implied by archaeological data. Thus, cultural diffusion cannot be neglected, but demic diffusion was the most important mechanism in this major historical process at the continental scale. This quantitative approach can be useful also in regional analysis, the description of Neolithic transitions in other continents, and models of many human spread phenomena.he Neolithic transition, a major episode in human history, is defined as the shift from a hunter-gatherer economy (Paleolithic) into another one based on agricultural activities (Neolithic) (1). In the Near East, this transition took place ∼12,000 y ago, and from there it spread across Europe until ∼5,000 y ago (2-4). Archaeologists have provided many data that make it possible to measure the speed of the spread of the Neolithic transition, but they disagree on which of the following possibilities is correct: (i) it was mainly a demic process (range spread of farmers) (5); (ii) it was mainly a cultural one (transmission of the plants, animals and knowledge of farmers to hunter-gatherers (6)); or (iii) it was mainly demic in some regions and mainly cultural in others (7). It is important to note that many authors have clearly argued for the importance of both demic and cultural diffusion. For example, Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza (8), when introducing their demic diffusion model in 1973, wrote that demic and cultural diffusion are not mutually exclusive, and discussed the interactions between the Neolithic and Paleolithic populations that would have led to cultural diffusion and genetic clines. These authors also made some crucial statements: "The real question may well be to evaluate the relative importance of demic and cultural diffusion in different regions of Europe" because "in some areas both are likely to have contributed to the spread of farming," but "what is necessary before such an attempt can be made is the introduction of much more specific models" (ref. 4, pp. 6, 135, and 62, respectively). This is precisely the problem to which the present paper aims to contribute: we will here present a model, and apply it to determine the importance of demic and cultural diffusion on the spread rate at the continental scale. We will also outline how our model could be applied to solve the same problem at regional scales in future work.Several aspects of transitions in human prehistory have been analyzed during the past decade using increasingly refined mathematical models (9-16). On the other hand, genetic studies have led to an increasing consensus that demic dispersal was important in the Neolithic transition in ...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthesis between demic and cultural diffusion in the Neolithic transition in Europe

Fort

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

129

181

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“…There is also no need to assume that, once initiated, the Neolithic expansion out of Anatolia was an inexorable process as, at the European scale, the spread of farming undergoes several comparable episodes of stasis and expansion (Bocquet-Appel et al, 2009). The 8.2 cal BP event may well have impacted upon these cycles (Bocquet-Appel et al, 2012), but other factors -demographic, economic, social -must also be considered (e.g. Orton et al, 2016, Vander Linden, 2011.…”

Section: 2kya Event and The Spread Of Early Farming (8250±49 Cal Bpmentioning

confidence: 99%

A long hard road… Reviewing the evidence for environmental change and population history in the eastern Adriatic and western Balkans during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene

Birch

Linden

2018

Quaternary International

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The eastern Adriatic and western Balkans are key areas for assessing the environmental and population history of Europe during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene. It has been argued that the Balkan region served as a Late Glacial refugium for humans, animals, and plants, much like Iberia and the Italian Peninsula and in contrast to the harsh conditions of Eastern and Central Europe. As post-glacial amelioration occurred and sea level rose, these regions to the north and west of the Balkan Mountains became forested and were populated by Mesolithic forager-fishers. Meanwhile, to the south, the domestication of plants and animals in the Near East began to cause large-scale environmental as well as lifestyle changes. Even as the Balkan Peninsula was a likely crossroads on the route for the spread of agriculture and herding from Southwest Asia into Europe, issues such as pre-Neolithic settlement, the discussion of human-environment interactions, and the role of climate events such as the 11.4, 9.3, and 8.2 ka cal BP in this critical landscape are often overlooked. Efforts to counter this challenge have been hampered by an apparent lack of data, so that the region hardly occurs in distribution maps. In part this is due to patchy research and a complicated political history, which have contributed to a fragmented archaeological and paleoecological record. Yet, as we show here, there is in fact plenty of evidence available for review. We present a survey of different proxies for environment and settlement throughout the Late Pleistocene and into the Early Holocene, combining radiocarbon data with zooarchaeological, lithic, and palynological records. By mapping this evidence, we are able to discuss the impact of climate change during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and consider the role of environment and landscape on human population distribution at this crossroads in place and time.

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“…From around 7,500 years ago there was a very rapid spread of farming practices across the loess plains of Central Europe, reaching the Paris Basin by c. 7,200–7,100 years ago. Subsequently, there was a standstill of c. 1,000 years before farming spread to Britain, Ireland and northern Europe c. 6,000 years ago1. There is increasing evidence from ancient DNA and other sources23 that colonizing populations introduced farming over much of this area, although at the northern margins there may have been some adoption by indigenous hunter gatherers456.…”

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confidence: 99%

Regional population collapse followed initial agriculture booms in mid-Holocene Europe

et al. 2013

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Following its initial arrival in SE Europe 8,500 years ago agriculture spread throughout the continent, changing food production and consumption patterns and increasing population densities. Here we show that, in contrast to the steady population growth usually assumed, the introduction of agriculture into Europe was followed by a boom-and-bust pattern in the density of regional populations. We demonstrate that summed calibrated radiocarbon date distributions and simulation can be used to test the significance of these demographic booms and busts in the context of uncertainty in the radiocarbon date calibration curve and archaeological sampling. We report these results for Central and Northwest Europe between 8,000 and 4,000 cal. BP and investigate the relationship between these patterns and climate. However, we find no evidence to support a relationship. Our results thus suggest that the demographic patterns may have arisen from endogenous causes, although this remains speculative.

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Understanding the rates of expansion of the farming system in Europe

Cited by 78 publications

References 60 publications

Synthesis between demic and cultural diffusion in the Neolithic transition in Europe

Synthesis between demic and cultural diffusion in the Neolithic transition in Europe

A long hard road… Reviewing the evidence for environmental change and population history in the eastern Adriatic and western Balkans during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene

Regional population collapse followed initial agriculture booms in mid-Holocene Europe

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