Zum Kulturbegriff im Neolithikun

Lüning, Jens

doi:10.1515/prhz.1972.47.1-2.145

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…Ethnic identities are situational and dynamic (Shennan 1989;Wotzka 1993). Material culture can convey socially relevant meaning, but it is not necessarily connected to ethnicity (Hodder 1982;Lüning 1972). In the archaeological record, configurations of regional coherence between different kinds of cultural expressions almost never exist, so Kossinna´s "clearly bounded territories" are an illusion (Clarke 1968;Furholt 2008;Roberts and Vander Linden 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite having been challenged, deconstructed, and rejected, the concept of the archaeological culture has shown a remarkable resilience among the vast majority of archaeologists in Europe. Many colleagues have continued using the terminology, claiming their heuristic value as a tool of classification, while renouncing any ethnic connotation or association with distinct social groups (e.g., Lüning 1972). This is, however, a problematic position, as the archaeological culture concept carries the heavy ideological baggage of presupposing cultural coherence, i.e., homogeneity within and boundedness toward the outside world.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mobility and Social Change: Understanding the European Neolithic Period after the Archaeogenetic Revolution

Furholt

2021

J Archaeol Res

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This paper discusses and synthesizes the consequences of the archaeogenetic revolution to our understanding of mobility and social change during the Neolithic period in Europe (6500–2000 BC). In spite of major obstacles to a productive integration of archaeological and anthropological knowledge with ancient DNA data, larger changes in the European gene pool are detected and taken as indications for large-scale migrations during two major periods: the Early Neolithic expansion into Europe (6500–4000 BC) and the third millennium BC “steppe migration.” Rather than massive migration events, I argue that both major genetic turnovers are better understood in terms of small-scale mobility and human movement in systems of population circulation, social fission and fusion of communities, and translocal interaction, which together add up to a large-scale signal. At the same time, I argue that both upticks in mobility are initiated by the two most consequential social transformations that took place in Eurasia, namely the emergence of farming, animal husbandry, and sedentary village life during the Neolithic revolution and the emergence of systems of centralized political organization during the process of urbanization and early state formation in southwest Asia.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mobility and Social Change: Understanding the European Neolithic Period after the Archaeogenetic Revolution

Furholt

2021

J Archaeol Res

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“…Furthermore, the 14 C-overlap used by Manning et al (2014) to motivate the introduction of a new, statistical definition of culture has little relation, if any, to any previous discourse on how to define archaeological culture (e.g. , Lüning 1972). It is due to the inherent noisiness of underlying archaeological 14 C-data (e.g.…”

Section: Archaeological Examples Of Punctuated Equilibriummentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche Construction and Theory of Agricultural Origins. Case studies in punctuated equilibrium

Weninger

2017

Doc. praeh.

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IntroductionA central challenge to the theory of agricultural origins (TAO) concerns the integration and joint interpretation of the increasingly large amounts of numeric empirical data made available by participating scientific disciplines, for example, cultural studies, archaeobotany, archaeozoology, plant and animal genetics, radiometric dating, palaeogeography, palaeoclimatology, and others. In a recently published study, Kristen Gremillion et al. (2014) have argued that it may be possible to unify the scientific results pertaining to TAO under the umbrella of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory. To the same topic, Kim Niche construction and theory of agricultural origins. Case studies in punctuated equilibrium 7 of plants and animals, both microscopic and macroscopic, including humans (Gould, Eldredge 1977;Gould 1989;Jones et al. 1994;Laland et al. 2016;Saltz et al. 2016;Zeder 2016). NCT is equally promising for applications in archaeology, for which purpose even the elementary (unpretentious) renaming of the Neolithic Package as a mobile eco-system that is capable of environmental or climatic habitattracking may help students and researchers alike to achieve a qualitatively better understanding of the complex processes underlying Neolithisation. In the long run, however, quantitative modelling of archaeological NCT appears to be necessary. Punctuated Equilibrium (PE)In the following, let us explore what might happen in archaeological NCT discourse if concepts derived from the neo-darwinian theory of punctuated equilibrium (Gould, Eldredge 1977;Gould 2007) are taken into consideration. In contrast to classical Darwinian forecasting, the geological record shows not a slow and continuous fossil development (graduation), but instead long periods of stasis with no observable change. Then follows an abrupt switch from one species to the next (punctuation), with no apparent transition. According to Darwin's (and others'), explanation, the geological observation of a seemingly abrupt and quasi-instantaneous origination of new palaeontological species is caused by the notoriously imperfect character of the fossil record due to stratigraphic disturbance, incomplete preservation, and fragmentary research (Gould, Eldredge 1993.223). For PE theory, in contrast, the abrupt origination of species is the result neither of noisy or missing data, nor of an unobserved geographic switch in habitat, but the expected and meaningful consequence of a rapid genetic switch from one species to the next, following the law of natural selection. In a nutshell, most species originate in such brief moments of time, that expected 'transitions' have no apparent manifestation in the geological stratigraphy (Gould 2007).But how does PE work? As indicated above, many PE related processes are (today) subsumed under what is more commonly called the Theory of Complex Systems (or similar), but I propose we continue to use the term PE. An example from physics would be coulomb excitation, whereby a subatomic particle passes so close to an atomic nuc...

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“…One of the most obvious cases here is the idea that archeological cultures reflect specific, mutually exclusive social groups. This idea has been refuted successfully again and again for more than 50 years (just to name a few Clarke 1968;Lüning 1972;Hodder 1982;Shennan, S. 1989;Veit 1989;Müller 2001;Furholt 2008a; Roberts & Vander Linden eds 2011), yet the practice of characterizing these cultures as representing specific social groups, even 'peoples', of giving them collective agency, as having distinct burial rituals, house forms, physical anthropological traits and so forth remains highly popular. This is also due to the fact that those archaeologists who have been educated in a processual or post-processual environment -mostly concentrated in Western Europe and Northern America -have lost interest in the issue of cultures, or more generally the classification of material culture in terms of temporal and spatial units, and thus are less aware of the problem.…”

Section: Identifying Conceptual Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is also due to the fact that those archaeologists who have been educated in a processual or post-processual environment -mostly concentrated in Western Europe and Northern America -have lost interest in the issue of cultures, or more generally the classification of material culture in terms of temporal and spatial units, and thus are less aware of the problem. In Central and Eastern Europe, but also among many Western and Northern European colleagues, culture history is still dominant, and the existence of block-like cultures representing distinct social groups is, while often challenged (Lüning 1972;Eggert 1978;Veit 1989;Wotzka 1993;Müller 2001), still a mainstream position, and it is thus not surprising that such concepts were implemented into the first aDNA studies. But it poses a major problem, because many premises used for defining the units of study, and thus their implications, are highly misleading and prevent us from taking full advantage of our new datasets.…”

Section: Identifying Conceptual Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

De-contaminating the aDNA – archaeology dialogue on mobility and migration: discussing the culture-historical legacy

Furholt

2019

CSA

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While the newly available ancient DNA data have shaken a lot of archaeological debates, they have, despite their enormous potential, not yet had any meaningful impact on the way we view prehistory. Instead of using this new data-source to explore new questions, or at least to re-assess the old ones, aDNA results have been tacked onto some of the most outdated narratives in European prehistory, stemming from the early twentieth century. The simplified Steppe migration narrative builds upon long-outdated culture-historical concepts, sloppy classification work, and a reliance on a monothetic culture concept which was convincingly deconstructed 50 years ago by David Clarke. In this paper, a polythetic approach to the material of the third millennium BC presents a different picture of the period. Additionally relying on a practice-based approach to how new transregional objects and practices are integrated into local contexts, it is argued that these two adjustments to our approach to the archaeological material can significantly improve the aDNA - archaeology dialogue, and better integrate the different datasets.

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Zum Kulturbegriff im Neolithikun

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

Mobility and Social Change: Understanding the European Neolithic Period after the Archaeogenetic Revolution

Mobility and Social Change: Understanding the European Neolithic Period after the Archaeogenetic Revolution

Niche Construction and Theory of Agricultural Origins. Case studies in punctuated equilibrium

De-contaminating the aDNA – archaeology dialogue on mobility and migration: discussing the culture-historical legacy

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