Hostname: page-component-89b8bd64d-r6c6k Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-12T23:39:54.613Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Migrations or local interactions? Spheres of interaction in third-millennium BC Central Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2020

Jan Kolář Open the ORCID record for Jan Kolář [Opens in a new window]
Jan Kolář*
Affiliation:
Department of Vegetation Ecology, Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic Institute of Archaeology and Museology, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
*
*(✉ jan.kolar@ibot.cas.cz)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Increasing scholarly interest in past human mobility has provoked intense debate between archaeologists and archaeogeneticists. Explanations advanced by the latter have been criticised for framing explanations in terms of large-scale migrations, lacking underpinning social theory or interest in human behaviour; conversely, archaeologists have been criticised for supplying samples but no intellectual input. This article uses examples of ceramics and chipped stone tools to illustrate local interactions within regional Eneolithic Corded Ware culture in Moravia, demonstrating that what may appear as a homogeneous archaeological culture spread by mass migration can be understood as a more complex series of overlapping, local cultural changes.

Keywords

prehistoric EuropeCzech RepublicCorded Waremigrationstrans-locality

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 94 , Issue 377 , October 2020 , pp. 1168 - 1185
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Allentoft, M.E. et al. 2015. Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia. Nature 522: 167–72.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beckerman, S.M. 2015. Corded ware coastal communities: using ceramic analysis to reconstruct third millennium BC societies in the Netherlands. Leiden: Sidestone.Google Scholar
Bertemes, F. & Heyd, V.. 2002. Der Übergang Kupferzeit/Frühbronzezeit am Nordwestrand des Karpatenbeckens: kulturgeschichtliche und paläometallurgische Betrachtungen, in Bartelheim, M., Krause, R. & Pernicka, E. (ed.) Die Anfänge der Metallurgie in der alten Welt, Euroseminar Freiberg/Sachsen, 18–20 November 1999: 185–229. Rahden: Marie Leidorf.Google Scholar
Bilger, M. 2018. Der Glockenbecher in Europa: eine Kartierung. Journal of Neolithic Archaeology 4: 203–70. https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2018S.11Google Scholar
Bläuer, A. & Kantanen, J.. 2013. Transition from hunting to animal husbandry in southern, western and eastern Finland: new dated osteological evidence. Journal of Archaeological Science 40: 1646–66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2012.10.033CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Booth, T.J. 2019. A stranger in a strange land: a perspective on archaeological responses to the palaeogenetic revolution from an archaeologist working amongst palaeogeneticists. World Archaeology 51: 586–601. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2019.1627240CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourgeois, Q. & Kroon, E.. 2017. The impact of male burials on the construction of Corded Ware identity: reconstructing networks of information in the 3rd millennium BC. PLoS ONE 12: e0185971. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185971CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Buchvaldek, M. 1986. Kultura se šňůrovou keramikou ve střední Evropě. I. Skupiny mezi Harcem a Bílými Karpaty (Praehistorica XII). Praha: Universita Karlova.Google Scholar
Burmeister, S. 2016. Archaeological research on migration as a multidisciplinary challenge. Medieval Worlds 4: 42–64. https://doi.org/10.1553/medievalworlds_no4_2016s42CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Childe, G.V. 1925. The dawn of European civilization. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.Google Scholar
Clarke, D.L. 1978. Analytical archaeology. London: Methuen & Co. https://doi.org/10.7312/clar90328CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenmann, S. et al. 2018. Reconciling material cultures in archaeology with genetic data: the nomenclature of clusters emerging from archaeogenomic analysis. Scientific Reports 8: 13003. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31123-zCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frieman, C.J. & Hofmann, D.. 2019. Present pasts in the archaeology of genetics, identity, and migration in Europe: a critical essay. World Archaeology 51: 528–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2019.1627907CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furholt, M. 2004. Entstehungsprozesse der Schnurkeramik und das Konzept eines Einheitshorizontes. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 34: 479–98.Google Scholar
Furholt, M. 2008. Pottery, cultures, people? The European Baden material re-examined. Antiquity 82: 617–28. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X0009726XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furholt, M. 2014. Upending a ‘totality’: re-evaluating Corded Ware variability in Late Neolithic Europe. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 80: 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1017/ppr.2013.20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furholt, M. 2017. Translocal communities: exploring mobility and migration in sedentary societies of the European Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Praehistorische Zeitschrift 92: 304–21. https://doi.org/10.1515/pz-2017-0024CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furholt, M. 2018. Massive migrations? The impact of recent aDNA studies on our view of third millenium Europe. European Journal of Archaeology 21: 159–91. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2017.43CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furholt, M. 2019. Re-integrating archaeology: a contribution to aDNA studies and the migration discourse on the 3rd millennium BC in Europe. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 85: 115–29. https://doi.org/10.1017/ppr.2019.4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerling, C., Bánffy, E., Dani, J., Köhler, K., Kulcsár, G., Pike, A.W.G., Szeverényi, V. & Heyd, V.. 2012. Immigration and transhumance in the Early Bronze Age Carpathian Basin: the occupants of a kurgan. Antiquity 86: 1097–111. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00048274CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gramsch, A. 2011. Theory in Central European archaeology: dead or alive?, in Bintliff, J. & Pearce, M. (ed.) The death of archaeological theory: 48–71. Oxford: Oxbow. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvh1dk87.7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haak, W. et al. 2015. Massive migration from the Steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe. Nature 522: 207–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14317CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heyd, V. 2011. Yamnaya groups and tumuli west of the Black Sea, in Borgna, E. & Müller-Celka, S. (ed.) Ancestral landscapes (TMO 58): 536–55. Lyon: Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée.Google Scholar
Heyd, V. 2017. Kossinna's smile. Antiquity 91: 348–59. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2017.21CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmqvist, E., Larsson, Å.M., Kriiska, A., Palonen, V., Pesonen, P., Mizohata, K., Kouki, P. & Räisänen, J.. 2018. Tracing grog and pots to reveal neolithic Corded Ware Culture contacts in the Baltic Sea region (SEM-EDS, PIXE). Journal of Archaeological Science 91: 77–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2017.12.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaňáková Hladíková, L. 2013. Posteneolitická štípaná industrie na Moravě (Dissertationes Archaeologicae Brunenses/Pragensesque 15). Brno: Masarykova Univerzita.Google Scholar
Kolář, J. 2018. Archaeology of local interactions: social and spatial aspects of the Corded Ware communities in Moravia (Studien Zur Archäologie Europas 31). Bonn: Rudolf Habelt.Google Scholar
Kolář, J., Kuneš, P., Szabó, P., Hajnalová, M., Svobodová, H.S., Macek, M. & Tkáč, P.. 2018. Population and forest dynamics during the Central European Eneolithic (4500–2000 BC). Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 10: 1153–64. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-016-0446-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kossinna, G. 1911. Die Herkunft der Germanen zur Methode der Siedlungsarchäologie (Mannus-Bibliothek 6). Leipzig: Kabitszch.Google Scholar
Kristiansen, K. et al. 2017. Re-theorising mobility and the formation of culture and language among the Corded Ware Culture in Europe. Antiquity 91: 334–47. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2017.17CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, J. 2002. What is molecular anthropology? What can it be? Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 11: 131–35. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.10031CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mateiciucová, I. 2008. Talking stones: the chipped stone industry in Lower Austria and Moravia and the beginnings of the Neolithic in Central Europe (LBK), 5700–4900 BC (Dissertationes Archaeologicae Brunenses/Pragensesque 4). Brno: Masarykova Universita.Google Scholar
Müller, J. 2009. Dating the Neolithic: methodological premises and absolute chronology. Radiocarbon 51: 721–36. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033822200056058CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Müller, J., Seregély, T., Becker, C., Christensen, A.M., Fuchs, M., Kroll, H., Mischka, D. & Schüssler, U.. 2009. A revision of Corded Ware settlement pattern: new results from the Central European low mountain range. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 75: 125–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00000323CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliva, M. 2010. Pravěké hornictví v Krumlovském lese: vznik a vývoj industriálně-sakrální krajiny na jižní Moravě. Brno: Moravské zemské muzeum.Google Scholar
Price, D.T., Knipper, C.., Grupe, G. & Smrčka, V.. 2004. Strontium isotopes and prehistoric human migration: the Bell Beaker period in Central Europe. European Journal of Archaeology 7: 9–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461957104047992CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raghavan, M. et al. 2014. The genetic prehistory of the New World Arctic. Science 345: 1255832. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1255832CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Šebela, L. 1993. Lid se šňůrovou keramikou, in Podborský, V. (ed.) Pravěké dějiny Moravy (Vlastivěda Moravská, Svazek): 204–18. Brno: Muzejní a vlastivědná společnost v Brně.Google Scholar
Sibson, R. 1981. A brief description of natural neighbor interpolation, in Barnett, V. (ed.) Interpolating multivariate data: 21–36. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Šída, P. 2006. Distribuční areály surovin v neolitu na území České republiky. Archeologické Rozhledy 58: 407–26.Google Scholar
Vander Linden, M. 2004. Polythetic networks, coherent people: a new historical hypothesis for the Bell Beaker phenomenon, in Czebreszuk, J. (ed.) Similar but different: Bell Beakers in Europe: 35–62. Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University.Google Scholar
Vander Linden, M. 2016. Population history in third-millennium-BC Europe: assessing the contribution of genetics. World Archaeology 48: 714–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2016.1209124CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Všianský, D., Kolář, J. & Petřík, J.. 2014. Continuity and changes of manufacturing traditions of Bell Beaker and Bronze Age encrusted pottery in the Morava River catchment (Czech Republic). Journal of Archaeological Science 49: 414–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2014.05.028CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Włodarczak, P. 2010. Dunajski szlak kultury grobów jamowych a problem genezy kultury ceramiki sznurowej, in Kadrow, S. (ed.) Mente et rutro: studia archaeologica Johanni Machnik viro doctissimo octogesimo vitae anno ab amicis, colleges et discipulus oblate: 299–325. Rzeszów: Mitel.Google Scholar
Wolf, E.R. 2010. Europe and the people without history. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar