DOI chapter:
Klimscha, Florian; Heumüller, Marion; Raemaekers, Daan C. M.; Peeters, Hans; Terberger, Thomas: Stone Age parallel societies?
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.66745#0008
Foreword
7
Stone Age parallel societies?
When we started the preparations for new research
on the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the North
European Plain, the great differences between both
modes of life specified by previous research had just
been enhanced by exciting results of palaeogene-
tic analysis: The publication of isotope studies and
palaeogenetic data from the Blatter Cave (Blatter-
hohle) in Westfalia suggested seperated communi-
ties for as long as 2,000 years.1 While the spread
of agriculture certainly stops at the loess border,
contacts between the Linear Pottery culture and its
successors and Late Mesolithic groups in the north
were nevertheless present.
A key site to comprehend how this communi-
cation might be understood in terms of intensity
and interactivity is the wetland settlement Hude I
at Lake Dummer in Lower Saxony, where the exis-
tence of Late Mesolithic as well as Early Neolithic
strata suggested the unique possibility to examine
the changes which finally led to the neolithisation
of the North Europan Plain and the formation of the
Funnelbeaker culture. Key aspects of the excavations
there have never been fully published and, further-
more, at the time of the excavation in the 1960s
findings were understood under a paradigm which
saw Mesolithic pottery in northwest Germany as a
subgroup of Ertebolle culture ware.
This perspective has been dramatically changed
by groundbreaking new research making clear that
the Hude I-site needs to be included in the Swifterbant
culture.2 This new interpretation opens up a whole
new perspective on the neolithisation of the north, as
new research has made it evident that regular contacts
between Swifterbant groups and Danubian farmers
indeed led to an early northern experimentation with
animal husbandry and agriculture. While we certainly
see differences in both ways of life, the situation is
much more complex than suggested before; this new
research has already made clear that important impul-
ses for the early Funnelbeaker pottery are visible
within the Swifterbant ceramic tradition.
1 Cf. the paper by Daniela Hoffmann, Hans Peeters and Ann-
Kathrin Meyer for a more elaborate discussion.
2 Cf. the papers by Bernhard Stapel, Daan Raemaekers and
Theo ten Anscher and Sebastiaan Knippenberg.
The spread of this pottery seems to correlate
with an initial adoption of elements of the Neolithic
economy in the north.
This volume sums up the contributions of an
international conference hosted in Hanover, May
20th-22nd, 2019 in the State Museum of Lower
Saxony. The papers follow several lines of thought
and can be divided into two groups.
A first part, Grenzgangers, traders and the
last hunter-gatherers of the North European Plain,
scrutinises the interactions between Mesolithic and
Neolithic communities. New evidence from Hude I
and the Swifterbant culture is presented and contras-
ted with the broader picture in the North European
Plain. Papers about the archaeological context of
the Hude I site include those by Marion Heumiiller,
Mirjam Briel, Florian Klimscha, Andreas Kotula,
Hanns Hubert Leuschner, Reinhold Schoon and
Tanja Zerl who introduce new excavation data from
the Dummer basin, as well as the one by Andreas
Bauerochse and Hanns Hubert Leuschner who
examine the same area from a palaeo-botanical point
of view with a special reference to road building.
Ozge Demirci, Alexandre Lucquin, Florian Klim-
scha, Oliver E. Craig and Daan C. M. Raemaekers
present the first results from lipid residue analysis on
some of the Hude I pottery, while Helle M. Molthof
and Steffen Baetsen show the first results from an
exciting new discovery at Nieuwegein-Het Klooster
in the Netherlands, where well-preserved Swifter-
bant graves were excavated in a settlement context.
Theo J. ten Anscher and Sebastiaan Knippenberg
review another Swifterbant settlement and can, for
the first time, document houseplans resembling those
from contemporary Danubian villages in the Rhine-
land. Whereas Bernhard Stapel sums up unexpected
evidence for Swifterbant sites in Westphalia, Svea
Mahlstedt, Martina Karie and Jan F. Kegler scru-
tinise the Late Mesolithic evidence for the coastal
areas of Lower Saxony. Finally Laura Thielen sums
up new data on Hamburg-Boberg, another key site
for understanding the Late Mesolithic.
On a larger scale, Erwin Cziesla examines
the distribution of specific microlithic flint types
to reconstruct Mesolithic territories and the origin
of pottery in hunter-gatherer societies, while Klaus
Gerken, Andreas Kotula, Clemens Ludwig, Hildegard
7
Stone Age parallel societies?
When we started the preparations for new research
on the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the North
European Plain, the great differences between both
modes of life specified by previous research had just
been enhanced by exciting results of palaeogene-
tic analysis: The publication of isotope studies and
palaeogenetic data from the Blatter Cave (Blatter-
hohle) in Westfalia suggested seperated communi-
ties for as long as 2,000 years.1 While the spread
of agriculture certainly stops at the loess border,
contacts between the Linear Pottery culture and its
successors and Late Mesolithic groups in the north
were nevertheless present.
A key site to comprehend how this communi-
cation might be understood in terms of intensity
and interactivity is the wetland settlement Hude I
at Lake Dummer in Lower Saxony, where the exis-
tence of Late Mesolithic as well as Early Neolithic
strata suggested the unique possibility to examine
the changes which finally led to the neolithisation
of the North Europan Plain and the formation of the
Funnelbeaker culture. Key aspects of the excavations
there have never been fully published and, further-
more, at the time of the excavation in the 1960s
findings were understood under a paradigm which
saw Mesolithic pottery in northwest Germany as a
subgroup of Ertebolle culture ware.
This perspective has been dramatically changed
by groundbreaking new research making clear that
the Hude I-site needs to be included in the Swifterbant
culture.2 This new interpretation opens up a whole
new perspective on the neolithisation of the north, as
new research has made it evident that regular contacts
between Swifterbant groups and Danubian farmers
indeed led to an early northern experimentation with
animal husbandry and agriculture. While we certainly
see differences in both ways of life, the situation is
much more complex than suggested before; this new
research has already made clear that important impul-
ses for the early Funnelbeaker pottery are visible
within the Swifterbant ceramic tradition.
1 Cf. the paper by Daniela Hoffmann, Hans Peeters and Ann-
Kathrin Meyer for a more elaborate discussion.
2 Cf. the papers by Bernhard Stapel, Daan Raemaekers and
Theo ten Anscher and Sebastiaan Knippenberg.
The spread of this pottery seems to correlate
with an initial adoption of elements of the Neolithic
economy in the north.
This volume sums up the contributions of an
international conference hosted in Hanover, May
20th-22nd, 2019 in the State Museum of Lower
Saxony. The papers follow several lines of thought
and can be divided into two groups.
A first part, Grenzgangers, traders and the
last hunter-gatherers of the North European Plain,
scrutinises the interactions between Mesolithic and
Neolithic communities. New evidence from Hude I
and the Swifterbant culture is presented and contras-
ted with the broader picture in the North European
Plain. Papers about the archaeological context of
the Hude I site include those by Marion Heumiiller,
Mirjam Briel, Florian Klimscha, Andreas Kotula,
Hanns Hubert Leuschner, Reinhold Schoon and
Tanja Zerl who introduce new excavation data from
the Dummer basin, as well as the one by Andreas
Bauerochse and Hanns Hubert Leuschner who
examine the same area from a palaeo-botanical point
of view with a special reference to road building.
Ozge Demirci, Alexandre Lucquin, Florian Klim-
scha, Oliver E. Craig and Daan C. M. Raemaekers
present the first results from lipid residue analysis on
some of the Hude I pottery, while Helle M. Molthof
and Steffen Baetsen show the first results from an
exciting new discovery at Nieuwegein-Het Klooster
in the Netherlands, where well-preserved Swifter-
bant graves were excavated in a settlement context.
Theo J. ten Anscher and Sebastiaan Knippenberg
review another Swifterbant settlement and can, for
the first time, document houseplans resembling those
from contemporary Danubian villages in the Rhine-
land. Whereas Bernhard Stapel sums up unexpected
evidence for Swifterbant sites in Westphalia, Svea
Mahlstedt, Martina Karie and Jan F. Kegler scru-
tinise the Late Mesolithic evidence for the coastal
areas of Lower Saxony. Finally Laura Thielen sums
up new data on Hamburg-Boberg, another key site
for understanding the Late Mesolithic.
On a larger scale, Erwin Cziesla examines
the distribution of specific microlithic flint types
to reconstruct Mesolithic territories and the origin
of pottery in hunter-gatherer societies, while Klaus
Gerken, Andreas Kotula, Clemens Ludwig, Hildegard