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The recent discovery of several late Linearbandkeramik (LBK) sites in Central Europe, including Vrable in south-west Slovakia, has revealed evidence for increasing diversity in Neolithic mortuary practices, which may reflect inter-community war and sociopolitical crisis at the end of the LBK. Here, the authors combine osteological and radiocarbon analyses of inhumations from Vrable. Rather than a straightforward sign of inter-community conflict and war, this development reflects a culmination of internal conflict and a diversification in the ritual treatment of human bodies. The emerging variability in LBK methods of manipulating and depositing dead bodies can be interpreted as an experimental approach in how to negotiate social conflicts and community boundaries. Keywords: Central Europe, Slovakia, Neolithic, Linearbandkeramik, mortuary practice, Introduction The Linearbandkeramik (LBK, c. 5500-4950 cal BC) is considered one of the few examples of a Neolithic culture with an individualised, clearly gendered and elaborate mortuary tradition (Robb & [...]

Joanna Bruck's (2021) article is a timely intervention into the current debate about the use of ancient DNA (aDNA) data to reconstruct prehistoric kinship, based on the archaeological record. Her [...]

B.A. OLSEN, T. OLANDER & K. KRISTIANSEN (ed.). 2019. Tracing the Indo-Europeans: new evidence from archaeology and historical linguistics. Oxford: Oxbow; 978-1-78925-270-5 paperback 25 [pounds sterling]. Reviewing this book was [...]

The internal layout of early settlements can provide insight into social organisation and the processes of Neolithic expansion into Europe. Analysis of variables describing 71 sites revealed a spectrum extending between two distinct settlement types that can be regionally and chronologically situated. The very early 'Anatolian village' in the south-east exhibits multi-level organisation, reflected in concentrated residence and temporal stability; the younger (post 6000 BC) 'Balkan village' in the north-west represents a new model with less centralised control of space and a less permanent layout. Between these types is a transitional domain of more heterogeneous, and ever-changing settlement layouts, which is characterised as a 'third space' of hybridised traditions. Keywords: Europe, Neolithic, settlement, social organisation, correspondence analysis, Introduction The earliest Neolithic settlements in Europe were founded around 6500 cal BC in Greece and north-western Turkey, and they seem to have their roots in Anatolia (Brami & Heyd [...]

This paper critically examines how power is understood and used in archaeological interpretation of prehistoric societies. We argue that studies on power within archaeology have been haltered in their interpretive potential, frequently limited to individualizing coercive power with androcentric connotations. We explore new avenues of power through a retrospective view. Drawing on ideas first conceptualized by Hannah Arendt, while also incorporating theoretical ideas from collective action, anarchistic theory and the affective turn, we argue that power as a phenomenon and explanation within archaeology can be refined and nuanced when approached through a lens of collective agency and the affective potential of material culture. This connects, furthermore, to how we today see and act on changing power dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research at the large LBK settlement site of Vráble, southwest Slovakia, revealed dynamics of social integration and antagonisms unfolding in an agglomerated, early farming community. During its lifespan from 5250 to 4950 bc, it constantly grew until around 5050 bc it was inhabited by about 70 contemporaneous longhouses. We found that Vráble consisted of markedly autonomous farmstead units that were held together by village-wide social institutions including sharing and communality. Nevertheless, from the beginning, a contradiction between particular farmstead and collective village and neighbourhood interests existed and rose. Towards the end of the village's existence, around 5075 bc an elaborate enclosure was constructed around one of the three neigbourhoods, actively blocking contact with the others. Along this enclosure, human bodies were deposited, showing a social categorization that we interpret as relating to social inequality. This rising level of conflict and emerging social inequality was, we argue, not sustainable under the conditions of early farming societies and led to the village's abandonment at 4950 bc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since aDNA research suggested a marked gene influx from Eastern into Central Europe in the 3rd millennium bc , outdated, simplistic narratives of massive migrations of closed populations have re-appeared in archaeological discussions. A more sophisticated model of migration from the steppes was proposed recently by Kristiansen et al. As a reaction to that proposal, this paper aims to contribute to this ongoing debate by refining the latter model, better integrating archaeological data and anthropological knowledge. It is argued that a polythetic classification of the archaeological material in Central Europe in the 3rd millennium reveals the presence of a new complex of single grave burial rituals which transcends the traditional culture labels. Genetic steppe ancestry is mainly connected to this new kind of burials, rather than to Corded Ware or Bell Beaker materials. Here it is argued that a polythetic view on the archaeological record suggests more complicated histories of migration, population mixtures and interaction than assumed by earlier models, and ways to better integrate detailed studies of archaeological materials with a deeper exploration of anthropological models of mobility and social group composition and the molecular biological data are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New human aDNA studies have once again brought to the forefront the role of mobility and migration in shaping social phenomena in European prehistory, processes that recent theoretical frameworks in archaeology have downplayed as an outdated explanatory notion linked to traditional culture history. While these new genetic data have provided new insights into the population history of prehistoric Europe, they are frequently interpreted and presented in a manner that recalls aspects of traditional culture-historical archaeology that were rightly criticized through the 1970s to the 1990s. They include the idea that shared material culture indicates shared participation in the same social group, or culture, and that these cultures constitute one-dimensional, homogeneous, and clearly bounded social entities. Since the new aDNA data are used to create vivid narratives describing 'massive migrations', the socalled cultural groups are once again likened to human populations and in turn revitalized as external drivers for socio-cultural change. Here, I argue for a more nuanced consideration of molecular data that more explicitly incorporates anthropologically informed mobility and migration models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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