The eve of destruction?

This volume collects papers on the pre-Corded Ware horizon in central Europe and adjacent areas (i.e. from c. 3500 – 2800 BC). This phase is very patchily researched, partly also because certain kinds of evidence, notably domestic architecture and burials, are rare or absent in many regions. This has occasionally been interpreted as signs of a major crisis and population bottleneck, which in turn facilitated the migration of new populations from the steppe, bringing with them amongst others new economic regimes, ideologies and settlement patterns.Research over the last few years has shown that this scenario needs to be nuanced. Although evidence remains scattered, a picture of regional diversity is emerging, with probably mobile but well-connected Late Neolithic societies undergoing social changes of their own, and instituting several key innovations long before the appearance of the Corded Ware. This volume offers a selection of such case studies, comprising amongst others an overview over the steppe background of new mortuary practices, contributions on settlement and changing networks in Switzerland, Poland and several regions of Germany, as well as discussions on the spread of pottery innovations and lithic material, the possible effect of droughts on Late Neolithic societies, new patterns of monumentality and figurative expression, the social role of battle axes, networks of influences visible in burial rites, and the possibility for “parallel societies” with different modes of life. An introductory chapter draws out central themes.Together, these contributions show that the transition to the Corded Ware culture was a diverse and multi-facetted process, with many continuities across the transition.

Daniela Hofmann is Professor of Archaeology at Bergen University, where she teaches and researches mainly on the Neolithic of Europe. Her current interests include migration, kinship, ritual, social inequality and resistance to it, as well as social contacts and change (see the forthcoming co-authored volume Negotiating migrations. The archaeology and politics of mobility, 2024, and the co-edited outreach publication Migration narratives in archaeology, 2023). In her projects, she tries to combine theoretical considerations with a variety of methods, including bioarchaeological information, in an effort to write narratives that take into account different perspectives. She hopes that knowing about diversity in the past could help us create a fairer society today, but has doubts on whether this is actually working. Doris Mischka is Professor for Prehistoric Archaeology at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Previously, she worked at the Universities of Göttingen, Kiel, Bologna and Cologne. Her publications are devoted mainly to the Linear Pottery culture, the Funnel Beaker culture and Cucuteni-Tripyllia. She is also interested in landscape archaeology and has worked on lithics and pottery. Her most recent publications include an exhaustive study of the Neolithic burials in Flintbek (Das Neolithikum in Flintbek, Kr. Rendsburg-Eckernförde, Schleswig-Holstein. Eine feinchronologische Studie zur Besiedlungsgeschichte anhand von Gräbern, 2022), and co-editorship of a landmark introductory work on the Neolithic of Bavaria (Steinzeit in Bayern. Das Handbuch in 2 Bänden, 2023, with T. Uthmeier). Currently she conducts fieldwork in Romania. Silviane Scharl is Professor for Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cologne. One focus of her research is on the central European Neolithic, where she has published extensively on networks of innovation and on human mobility (see e.g. Human mobility and the spread of innovations – case studies from Neolithic Central and Southeast Europe. Open Archaeology 9/1, 2023). She has also written an introductory volume on the Neolithic in central Europe (Jungsteinzeit – Wie die Menschen sesshaft wurden, 2021). In her current project, she explores the Late Neolithic in the Rhineland in western Germany.

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