Analysis of organic residue absorbed in to the walls of ceramic vessels has proved to be a valuable contributor to the knowledge of prehistoric societies. Based on the analysis of absorbed lipids in the wall of ceramic vessels and existing knowledge and theories about the Pitted Ware culture, an attempt of understanding of the Pitted Ware site Vendel is made. Based on the obtained results and evidences presented throughout the paper it is argued that the Vendel site is a permanent or seasonal settlement, and furthermore that the results seem to reflect a change in vessel use towards the end of the Pitted Ware Culture, and possibly even a change of society, ideology and economy.

This thesis discusses aspects of how the Late Neolithic society in southern Sweden changed through the use of metal. Particular focus is on how the different categories of the material culture were utilized in this process – the Late Neolithic flint daggers and objects of stone imitating objects of metal. The presence of metal in the Late Neolithic society is discussed and explicated by the correlation of metal objects to objects imitating metal. Imitations are not perceived as passive copies, but as a continuing dialogue between artefacts. These imitations are viewed as filling a function wherein they help to prepare society to express social and political processes in a different material, as a way to meet and relate to the new world-view that the metal objects implied through their existence. The difference between resharpened and non-resharpened flint daggers is explored through a variety of quantitative and qualitative analyses. There appears to have been two differing rules of deposition of the two types of flint daggers in the Late Neolithic society. Resharpened and non-resharpened flint daggers thus seem to relate to different societal spheres of significance in society. It is suggested that the flint daggers were used in varying forms of ritual body modification practices, as tools for alteration of bodily appearance. These rituals can be termed passage rituals – rituals connected to the individual’s journey through her life-cycle. The resharpening of the dagger blade is then to be understood as a ceremonial resharpening, a ritual remaking of the dagger. During the Late Neolithic, gallery graves, mortuary houses and votive offerings were used to express a connection to an older, ancestral ideology, based on communal rituals. At the same time a new ideology was expressed through the use of individual earth graves and ritual body modification practices. The human body, previously attributed an ancestral role, was now used as a medium of classification, signification and individual expression. The ritual practice works both as a societal regulator and as a way for individuals to express themselves in relation to others. The ritual body modification practices, manifested in different rituals of passage, may have been a way for individuals to relate to the changes in society during the course of the Late Neolithic.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Anthropology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

The late Neolithic of North Mesopotamia has long been held up as the first example of a ‘global’ culture with aspects of shared material culture, most notably pottery styles and subsistence strategies, spread across North Mesopotamia, the Northern Levant, and parts of south-east Anatolia. Increasing research in the past twenty years has illustrated that the material similarities visible in the late Neolithic do not represent a closed cultural community, but instead reflect a network of loosely connected groups who were members of imagined communities that linked people within shared cosmologies. Since their discovery in the early decades of the twentieth century stamp seals have been treated as a type artefact of the late Neolithic (particularly one of its constituent parts the Halaf) where they have been used to argue for the presence of sealing systems based around administrative storage of personal or communal property and possibly trade relations. However, except for a thesis published in 1990, late Neolithic stamp seals have never been comprehensively studied or interpreted primarily within their own context. Instead previous studies of stamp seals have tied stamp seals into a modernist narrative of progression that implicitly culminates in modern, Western, Nation States. This research challenges and deconstructs this narrative to demonstrate there is little evidence that seals in the late Neolithic were used for administrative purposes. To this end it gathered and re-classified the available data on provenanced stamp seals using a classificatory ontology called prototype theory that allows for more reflexive classification then the existing Aristotelian classifications. The thesis argues that stamp seals were indexical symbols with their symbolism being used to link members of imagined communities within real communities across the late Neolithic ‘world’. These people were members of a perceived descent group originating in shifting relationships to place during the change from sedentary farming communities in the eighth millennium BC to more mobile communities in the seventh millennium BC. At the same time as negotiating these supra-community identities seals were also used indexically in a variety of sub-community ways being used for a variety of magical (primarily apotropaic and talismanic) uses. As part of this I argue sealing practices in the late Neolithic relate to specific events of efficacious sealing using the power in the seal’s design.

The Structure and the Chronology of Stroked Pottery Culture Settlements in Eastern Bohemia; This work covers the period of the Stroked Pottery Culture (5100/5000 - 4500/4400 cal BC) in a spatial context that in accordance with the current territorial administrative division corresponds to the Pardubice and the Hradec Králové Regions (Central Europe, Czech Republic). It describes and compares the forms and the composition of the two adjacent areas of Neolithic settlements. Attention is focused primarily on the Hradec Králové area, where two main sites are being studied, i.e. Jaroměř and Plotiště nad Labem. Through analysis of the archaeological material and contextualisation of the results within the wider framework of the Eastern part and subsequently also the entire area of Bohemia it is seeking to identify the hierarchical structure of the settlement. On the basis of the documents of remote distribution it also seeks to identify within this structure any evidence of the presence of groups or individuals with exceptional social status.

Neolitická sídelní aglomerace v prostoru dnešního Kolína - abstrakt Disertační práce Markéta Končelová Kolínsko svou polohou i příhodnými přírodními podmínkami patří ke staré sídelní oblasti České kotliny a řadí se k nejlépe archeologicky poznaným územím u nás. I přes tuto skutečnost poskytl záchranný archeologický výzkum v trase stavby silničního obchvatu Kolína množství nových a v mnohém unikátních stop starších antropogenních aktivit. Neobyčejnou koncentraci zde vytváří půdorysy dlouhých domů neolitického stáří (kultury s keramikou lineární a vypíchanou). Především výskyt a forma pozůstatků mladoneolitických obytných struktur představuje fenomén, který nemá u nás analogie. Předmětem předkládané práce je archeologický rozbor veškerých neolitických sídlištních nálezů a chronologické zařazení dokladů těchto prozatím jedinečných obytných konstrukcí. Navíc vyhodnocení mladoneolitického sídliště doprovázeného pozůstatky domů jako chronologicko-prostorové jednotky prozatím scházelo. Důležitým úkolem do budoucna je synchronizace s nedalekým dosud nezpracovaným rondelovým komplexem a dalšími nepublikovanými areály s nálezy půdorysů jiných mladoneolitických staveb (např. v Příšovicích nebo Jaroměři). Sídliště v Kolíně je zasazeno do kontextu vývoje osídlení definovaného regionu užšího Kolínska v neolitu....

The intent of this essay is to get a clearer picture of the regional differences and traditions within the funnel-beaker culture in Scandinavia during the early neolithic period. By getting a more thorough understanding of the practical labour and social aspects of the production attributed to the polygonal battle-axe, interpretations of regional divisions and the manufacture process are presented. This is done with the use of distribution patterns, ethnographic research and cultural evolution theory. / <p>Betyg: A</p>

This dissertation research examines variability in Natufian settlement and subsistence patterns. The Natufian is a late Epipaleolithic culture that flourished in the Levant during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. There has been considerable research interest in the nature of Natufian settlement and subsistence over the last fifty years. This is due to the apparent pivotal position the Natufian holds in the developmental sequence from mobile hunting and gathering societies to sedentary village communities subsisting on domestic plants and animals. The research has two major components. The first aspect of the research focused on the range of activities and the nature of settlement intensity and duration during the Natufian occupation at one site, Beidha. The second aspect of the research entailed examining data for settlement and subsistence patterns throughout the Levant during this time period in order to gain insight into pan-Levantine variation. Research on the Beidha settlement has provided information on the range of chipped stone manufacturing processes carried out at the site, the nature of the tools produced, the range of activities that these tools imply, and the distribution of these elements between different areas of the site. The minimal evidence of spatial differences between provenience units is indicative of a site that was occupied as a relatively short-term camp site. The interpretation of the site as a short-term settlement, that was occupied repeatedly, fits with the lack of evidence for permanent features such as houses and storage facilities, as well as the lack of large groundstone objects and burials. Analysis of available data on Natufian settlement and subsistence has indicated that there are regional differences in settlement and subsistence patterns, most notably between steppe and desert sites versus sites of the forest and coast. In addition, there appear to be patterns in variability within the steppe and desert area with respect to the permanence of sites and the range of activities carried out in them. One set of sites is characterized by moderate settlement permanence and intensity, while the other set of sites is characterized by less permanent occupation and more specialized activity focused primarily on hunting.

Prior to this study, knowledge of Gobi Desert prehistory was mostly limited to early and mid-20th century descriptions of undated stone tool assemblages from unanalyzed museum collections. This research focuses on the use of extensive existing museum collections to establish a baseline chronology of technology, economy, and land-use for prehistoric Gobi Desert groups. Radiocarbon and luminescence dating are used to establish an artefact-based chronology and provide a relative age for 96 archaeological site assemblages. Interpretations of land-use derived from lithic analysis are compared to detailed regional and local palaeoenvironmental records in order to contextualize residential mobility and subsistence. Results indicate that a dramatic shift in land-use after about 8000 years ago was related to a combination of widespread forestation and the increased productivity of lowland habitats during a period of high effective moisture. Hunter-gatherers organized their movements around dune-field/wetland environments, but utilized a range of both high- and low-ranked foods such as large ungulates from adjoining plains and uplands, and seeds and/or tubers from dune-fields and wetlands. New radiocarbon dates indicate that the use of dune-fields and wetlands persisted into the early Bronze Age, overlapping with the rise of nomadic pastoralism across Northeast Asia. These findings illuminate the period just prior to the rise of nomadic pastoralism in Northeast Asia and add considerable depth to our understanding of hunter-gatherer adaptations within arid environments following the Last Glacial Maximum.

This study presents the results of an analysis of three Late Neolithic pottery assemblages from Wadi Ziqlab, northern Jordan. These sites were occupied during the 6th millennium BC (calibrated) and are therefore contemporary with sites in other parts of the southern Levant that are attributed to the Wadi Rabah culture. The assemblages are analyzed from a stylistic perspective, broadly defined, which includes an examination of technological style in addition to a more traditional examination of vessel form and surface treatment. Different stages in the pottery production sequence are investigated using a range of analytical techniques, including thin-section petrography and xeroradiography. While there are some similarities between the assemblages, there are also some noticeable differences. The results of the pottery analysis are used to explore the nature of community in the context of the Late Neolithic. A critique of more traditional archaeological approaches to prehistoric communities leads to a re-conceptualization of community that combines interactional and ideational perspectives. Similarities in pottery among the sites, especially technological similarities, suggest that pottery producers may have comprised a dispersed community of practice. At the same time, pottery may have also been a symbolic marker of community boundaries. Differences in pottery among the sites, including surface treatment, may reflect the flexibility of these boundaries as different parts of the dispersed community negotiated their place in it. The presence of variation among contemporary pottery assemblages in a localized area suggests that social organization during the 6th millennium may have been more complex than is normally assumed for the Late Neolithic in the southern Levant. A dispersed community, with its members spread throughout the wadi, would require a sufficiently complex and flexible system of relationships to maintain it. Failing to acknowledge this has contributed to the difficulties archaeologists have encountered when trying to understand the culture-history of the 6th millennium BC in and east of the Jordan Valley.