Review: Review Article: Explanations, Interpretations, and Stories of the European Neolithic Author(s): Sarunas Milisauskas Source: American

Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 102, No. 2 (Apr., 1998), pp. 421-423 Published by: Archaeological Institute of America Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/506473 Accessed: 14/12/2010 10:40
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REVIEW ARTICLES

Explanations, Interpretations, and Stories of the European Neolithic

SARUNASMILISAUSKAS
AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE NEOLITHIC: EARLY PREHISTORIC SOCIETIES IN SOUTHERN SCANDINAVIA,

by Christopher Tilley.(New Studies in Archaeology.) Pp. 363, figs. 190, tables 34. Cambridge University Press, New York 1996. $79.95. ISBN 0521-56096-9.
EUROPE IN THE NEOLITHIC: THE CREATION OF NEW

by Alasdair Whittle.(Cambridge World Archaeology.) Pp. 443, figs. 116. Cambridge University Press, New York 1996. $80. ISBN 0-52144476-4.
WORLDS,

ARTIME, CULTURE AND IDENTITY:AN INTERPRETIVE

CHAEOLOGY, fulian Thomas. Pp. 267, figs. 49. by

Routledge, New York 1996. $59.95. ISBN 0-41511861-1.

THE ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE IN EUROPE,

by I..

Thorpe.Pp. 224, figs. 36. Routledge, New York 1996. $79.95. ISBN 0-415-08009-6.
The Neolithic spans 2,500 to 3,000 years of European prehistory and marks the emergence and development of farming communities throughout the continent. These communities appear around 7000 B.C. in southeastern Europe, 5500 B.C. in central Europe, and 4000 B.C. in northern Europe. For many years, archaeologists have asked numerous and diverse questions about the Neolithic. How did farming communities originate in different parts of Europe? How were they organized economically, socially, and politically? What beliefs did they hold? Eminent archaeologists such as V. Gordon Childe struggled with questions of this sort, and wrote masterful syntheses: for example, The Danube in Prehistory (Oxford 1929) and The Dawn of European Civilisation (London 1925). Because I have worked with central European Neolithic cultures for many years, I am interested in how British archaeologists currently explain and interpret the material remains of these societies. Thomas, Tilley, and Whittle each challenge traditional explanations but, in my opinion, their postprocessualist interpretations represent a retreat from science. Empirical scientific archaeology is being replaced by a mysticism over which the 12th- and 13th-century scholasticism would be an advance. To these three authors, archaeology is a kind of literature. I commend the gradual disappearance of the Germanic approach, with its deluge of dates, sites, and artifact types, but I am disturbed by the speculations and fantasies about the European Neolithic that pass as explanations and interpretations in American Journal of Archaeology 102 (1998) 421

today's Anglo-American intellectual environment. These approaches are producing a plurality of idiosyncratic portrayals of this prehistoric period. At the end of his book, Tilley clearly expresses this approach, stating that "working at archaeology is primarily working with metaphors. Fresh metaphors will produce new and alternative pasts" (341). But working in archaeology is working with data. The link of data and metaphors is never precisely examined in this study. In his book An Ethnography of the Neolithic: Early Prehistoric Societies in Southern Scandinavia, Tilley first synthesizes from a postpositivist perspective the southern Scandinavian Late Mesolithic and Neolithic, and then discusses stone monuments and society in the Scandinavian Middle Neolithic. The synthesis is excellent, especially for Scania in Sweden, though there is not much discussion of chronological or typological problems. The Late Mesolithic is mainly devoted to the Ertebolle culture, famous for its shell mounds. The Ertebolle people subsisted by gathering, fishing, fowling, and the hunting of land and sea mammals. Their numerous burials yield red ocher, animal bones, axes, chipped stone and bone artifacts, and ornaments. Tilley idealizes the Late Mesolithic societies as "a kind of Garden of Eden ... [in which] ... men did not dominate and exploit women" (68), just as Marija Gimbutas idealized the "Old Europe" of the Early and Middle Neolithic. Such contestable statements reflect the author's beliefs, and they are notjustified by any archaeological data. Tilley can tell stories about the past, such as gender equity in the Ertebolle society, but these stories should be corroborated with archaeological data. Our industrial society, by contrast, is unappealing to Tilley: "By comparison with hunter-gatherers who work less and have a bountiful supply of all they need, it is we in industrial societies who are poor and badly off" (57). He might have added that Late Mesolithic life expectancies ran to less than 30 years: if Tilley and I were living in an Ertebolle society, we would be dead by now. Tilley argues, reasonably in my opinion, that wheat and barley were not part of Early Neolithic Scandinavian subsistence strategies. Local foragers probably adopted farming very gradually; the small samples of cereals so far recovered are assumed to have had a symbolic, not a caloric, significance. Tilley presents an excellent description of the dolmens and earthen barrows constructed by Early Neolithic peoples. According to Tilley, these structures were "gigantic symbolic axes placed in clearings in the forest that had been cleared by the axe" (114). I concur with his observation that these megalithic monuments "acted, and still act, as signs of history and as signs in history.... They served to immortalize the group constructing them" (157). He suggests that there was competition among the Neolithic groups in the construction of these monuments. So-

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cial inequality developed during the Neolithic-- inequality between groups, according to Tilley, and not between individuals. His statements in this connection reveal insights not usually found in archaeological publications, such as the following: "Fields of wheat, cattle, pigs, sheep and goats could be controlled, produced and exchanged between individuals in a manner not possible with wild plants and animals scattered around a territory and available to all" (115). There are numerous discussions of specific ethnographic societies in Tilley's book. For example, in discussing the mortuary practices of Neolithic societies, he summarizes the burial customs of the Trobriand Islanders and the Merina of central Madagascar. When discussing the symbolic role of cattle, he selects two ethnographic examples: the Nuer and the Dinka of the Sudan. The relationship he draws between ethnographic societies in Africa and the southern Scandinavian Neolithic societies is problematic, to say the least. Since there are thousands of societies in the ethnographic record, we can make many choices to illustrate our arguments. How do you evaluate which choices are the best? Tilley's book contains intelligent and insightful discussions concerning the southern Scandinavian Late Mesolithic and Early and Middle Neolithic. But where his observations have little archaeological data in their support, they can be irritating. In Europe in the Neolithic: The Creation of New Worlds,Alasdair Whittle provides an impressive survey of the European Neolithic. His adept synthesis of a large, diverse, and complex archaeological record is admirable. Whittle is one of the few British archaeologists who is thoroughly familiar with continental Neolithic material. His book is narration, however, and not scientific analysis, a curious mix of shrewd criticisms of his predecessors and sometimes alternatives of his own. His key phrases include "another alternative" (66) or "different approach" (190). In some cases, like those of the Lepenski Vir trapezoids or the Varna cemetery, these alternative interpretations are supported by some data; in other cases, such as the Balkan Early Neolithic figurines, we receive ex cathedra pronouncements unsupported by any data. According to Whittle, "the Neolithic way of life in Europe was based above all on a set of beliefs, values and ideals about the place of people in the scheme of things, about descent, origins and time, and about relations between people. It involved the conceptualization of a universe peopled by spirits and ancestors as well as by the living. From spirits, ancestors and other beings came a sense of the sacred, and this, rather than anything more secular, guided people's values and ideals" (355). This is an example of a claim virtually impossible to justify archaeologically. Furthermore, such a generalization is so broad that it applies to any culture, including our own. Whittle emphasizes indigenous developments and continuity from the preceding Mesolithic period. He stresses the mobility, rather than the sedentism, of Europe's farmers; he deemphasizes social and political competition and the appearance of ranked societies; he rejects the consensus explanation (i.e., nonlocal population expansion) for the spread of the earliest farmers in central Europe. Whittle dislikes the notion of conflict between Neolithic groups.

Thus, the Middle Neolithic ditched and palisaded enclosures are not considered fortifications, but rather places of social and symbolic preeminence. True, Whittle denies envisaging "the Neolithic period as some far-off Arcadia" (7). It appears to me, however, that he is quite successful in assuming the role of an archaeological Rousseau. In summary, the reader will find in Whittle an excellent synthesis of the European Neolithic if one ignores most of his alternative explanations. In Time, Culture and Identity: An Interpretive Archaeology, Julian Thomas first presents his views concerning "a phenomenological archaeology," before turning to three case studies. After glancing through Thomas's bibliography, I immediately concluded that this publication is unusual. There are 13 references to Martin Heidegger, excluding those authors cited by Thomas who wrote about Heidegger. Michel Foucault holds 11 positions in the bibliography. In contrast, there are only five references for V. Gordon Childe, one of the preeminent old masters. Surprisingly, Colin Renfrew also has only five references. Lewis Binford is the most-cited archaeologist, with 12 references, followed by Ian Hodder, who receives nine. In fact, Thomas devotes a good deal of space to discussing Heidegger's relevance to archaeology. In doing so, he makes some naive statements about Heidegger, e.g., that he "may or may not have been a convinced Nazi" (3) or that the evil of Fascism was not that evident in the early 1930s. There is clear documentation substantiating the fact that Heidegger acted as a Nazi during the 1930s and until the end of World War II. Of course, a person may be a great philosopher and at the same time morally repellent. We should also remember that archaeologists did not distinguish themselves as moral beacons in Nazi Germany. Numerous archaeologists, including Werner Buttler, the excavator of the Early Neolithic settlement of K6oln-Lindenthal, supported Hitler. The actions of Hitler's followers suggested a morbid future for Germany and Europe in the early 1930s, underscoring the repugnant nature of Fascism. In defense of Heidegger's behavior, Thomas argues that there is a benign and a malignant side to Marxism, which proclaims the liberation of oppressed peoples, on the one hand, and sets up gulags, on the other. The argument misses the point. Nazism and Communism, as it was practiced in eastern Europe or as it is still functioning in China and Vietnam, represent totalitarian systems. Academic Marxism, as discussed in the cafes of Paris or London, failed to mirror reality. Political ethics apart, Thomas strongly believes in Heidegger's relevance to archaeology. According to Thomas, "the most salient quality of LBK longhouses is, of course, that they are 'buildings' As such, they embody the distinctive activity of building, which as Heidegger describes it is a form of transformation, but also a means of dwelling, of abiding with things, sparing them, and entering into a relationship with them" (102). I do not think we need to rely on Heidegger to make these observations. Thomas conveys the impression that archaeology's future lies in the study of scholars like Habermas and Heidegger. His assumption that studying Habermas or Heidegger will mold us into better archaeologists is highly contestable. These scholars did not contribute to the advancement of archaeological research, and reading them is unlikely to help us

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423

in interpreting the past. At least the previously mentioned Nazi archaeologist, Werner Buttler, conducted significant research on the Neolithic; we can, therefore, still evaluate his work as an archaeologist. Thomas's three case studies are "The Descent of the British Neolithic"; "Later Neolithic Britain: Artifacts with Personalities"; and "Time, Place, and Tradition at Mount Pleasant' He derives the earliest Neolithic on the Atlantic fringe of Europe from the hybridization of the central European Linear Pottery culture and the local Mesolithic cultures. He also extensively discusses Mount Pleasant, a large embanked enclosure or a henge monument in the county of Dorset. According to Thomas, "a monument like Mount Pleasant is a paradigm example of the way in which a human engagement with material things can serve to maintain order in social life. Building, the setting up of a structure, presupposes that future activities will take place which are to be given form by the space being configured" (185). One is here reminded of Whittle's sweeping and unsubstantiated statements. In comparison to the three books discussed so far, I.J. Thorpe's The Origins of Agriculture in Europe is far more traditional. It is an expansion of his doctoral dissertation at University College, London. While he clearly infuses his own opinions, he fairly presents and evaluates the views and data of a wide range of archaeologists. He begins by discussing various theories that explain the transition to farming in the Near East. Recently, there has been a revival in relying on climatic models to explain the origin of farming. Thorpe finds these unsatisfactory because they present human societies as passive. Instead, he argues that social competition served as the catalyst for farming in the Near East. Thorpe's main concern is the origin of farming in Europe. Two competing explanations exist for the appearance of farming there: colonization by farmers from Anatolia; and the indigenous origin of farming communities. The Early Neolithic population of Anatolia was very small, and there was enough land locally available to accommodate demographic expansion. Why would Anatolians have moved to Europe? We must next look to social explanations for the appearance of farming. Farmers appeared in Crete around 7000 B.C.; this occurrence implies colonization, since Mesolithic populations were nonexistent on the island. The evidence for an indigenous origin of Neolithic communities in southeastern Europe is weak. In his book, Thorpe also discusses the appearance of

the earliest farming populations in central Europe, the Atlantic Fringe, Scandinavia, and Britain. He concludes his book with a discussion of Early Neolithic societies in southern Scandinavia, Britain, and Ireland. Like Tilley, Thorpe presents a synthesis of the Ertebolle and Early Neolithic societies of southern Scandinavia. Unlike Tilley, however, Thorpe's discussion more closely reflects a consensus of archaeologists' explanations. Also, he spares us any utopian observations concerning Late Mesolithic society. Thomas, Thorpe, and Whittle each synthesize the archaeological record of the Linear Pottery culture of central Europe. I have worked with the material of this Early Neolithic culture for many years, and, while I cannot agree with all of these authors' conclusions, I do acknowledge that their syntheses are valuable contributions to the study of the Neolithic. As a synthesis of the European Neolithic, I would recommend Europe in the Neolithic, since Whittle's book is the best such work currently available in English. The Origins of Agriculture in Europe, while good, is much more limited in scope. Time, Culture and Identity:An InterpretiveArchaeology is an enigma; I would be highly surprised if Heidegger becomes a significant force in archaeology, and I think that materialist philosophers are more relevant to archaeology. An Ethnographyof the Neolithic presents a split personality: there is an impressive part with interesting descriptions and interpretations of the archaeological record, and then there is a part that can only be considered fiction. I do, however, recommend Tilley's book as an intellectually challenging study of the Mesolithic and Neolithic. In addition to the four works reviewed here, there are recent books in other languages that make important contributions to our understanding of the European Neolithic. For example, Markus Honeisen of the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum in Zurich has edited the two-volume Die erstenBauern (Zurich 1990) about the central European and the Balkan Neolithic. Max WiThren'scontribution there on early finds of bread and cereals is very appealing. The articles in H6neisen's volumes are descriptive, and they do not contain fictional stories about the lives and beliefs of our Neolithic ancestors. There is much more about the European Neolithic that serious archaeology can yet tell us, without resorting to storytelling.
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