Into Central Europe, LBK Culture
(March 19, 2025) Wealth disparities (Gini coefficient) for Eurasia, North America, and Mesoamerica with Central European Neolithic sites marked with a light color (modified after Kohler et al. 2017). The Neolithic sites were generally egalitarian.
References
Detlef Gronenborn (2024) Jade, Salt, and Copper: Emerging Complexity in Central European early Agrarian Societies. In FROM SEDENTARISATION TO COMPLEX SOCIETY: SETTLEMENT, ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT, CULT Proceedings of the workshops in Lisbon, Tehran and Lima. Online at: https://www.academia.edu/128305721/Jade_Salt_and_Copper_Emerging_Complexity_in_Central_European_early_Agrarian_Societies?email_work_card=view-paper
(March 19, 2025) Wonderful illustration comparing fluctuating populations with cultural events and burial customs in central Europe. The population fluctuations are likely due to major droughts and the resulting social stresses. The Neolithic farmers tended to use communal cave-like barrows for their burials after initially using single burials. The Indo-Europeans introduced the rounded burial mounds. The Early, Middle, Young, and Late Neolithic also have slightly different material culture.
ENL – Early Neolithic, MNL – Middle Neolithic, YNL – Young Neolithic, LNL – Late Neolithic (yellow line represents summed probability distribution of 14C-dates)
References
Detlef Gronenborn (2024) Jade, Salt, and Copper: Emerging Complexity in Central European early Agrarian Societies. In FROM SEDENTARISATION TO COMPLEX SOCIETY: SETTLEMENT, ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT, CULT Proceedings of the workshops in Lisbon, Tehran and Lima. Online at: https://www.academia.edu/128305721/Jade_Salt_and_Copper_Emerging_Complexity_in_Central_European_early_Agrarian_Societies?email_work_card=view-paper
(March 19, 2025) At first, Middle Neolithic societies do not show any movement towards a more hierarchical structure but from the mid 4,000's onwards enormous accumulations of surpluses occur on both coast of Europe, both in the Carnac region in Brittany. In the east (Balkans) this seems to be associated with copper axe production and trade while in the west it is associated with Jade axe production and trade. (map from Pétrequin 2017a; Pétrequin et al. 2017c).