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Review: Review Article: Explanations, Interpretations, and Stories of the European Neolithic

Author(s): Sarunas MilisauskasSource: American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 102, No. 2 (Apr., 1998), pp. 421-423Published by: Archaeological Institute of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/506473

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REVIEW ARTICLESExplanations, Interpretations, and Stories of the European Neolithic

SARUNASMILISAUSKASAN ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE NEOLITHIC: EARLY PRE-HISTORIC SOCIETIES IN SOUTHERN SCANDINAVIA,

by ChristopherTilley.(New Studies in Archaeol-ogy.)Pp.363, figs. 190,tables 34. Cambridge Uni-versity Press, New York 1996. $79.95. ISBN 0-521-56096-9.

EUROPE IN THE NEOLITHIC: THE CREATION OF NEWWORLDS, by Alasdair Whittle.(Cambridge WorldArchaeology.) Pp. 443, figs. 116.Cambridge Uni-versity Press, New York 1996. $80. ISBN 0-521-44476-4.

TIME, CULTUREAND IDENTITY:AN INTERPRETIVEAR-CHAEOLOGY,by fulian Thomas. Pp. 267, figs. 49.Routledge, New York 1996. $59.95. ISBN 0-415-11861-1.

THE ORIGINS OF AGRICULTURE IN EUROPE, by I..Thorpe.Pp. 224, figs. 36. Routledge, New York1996. $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 offarming communities throughout the continent. These com-munities appear around 7000 B.C. in southeastern Europe,5500 B.C. in central Europe, and 4000 B.C. in northernEurope. For many years, archaeologists have asked numer-ous and diverse questions about the Neolithic. How didfarming communities originate in different parts of Europe?How were they organized economically, socially, and po-litically? What beliefs did they hold? Eminent archaeol-ogists such as V. Gordon Childe struggled with questionsof this sort, and wrote masterful syntheses: for example,The Danube in Prehistory(Oxford 1929) and The Dawn of Eu-ropean Civilisation (London 1925).Because I have worked with central European Neolithiccultures for many years, I am interested in how British ar-chaeologists currently explain and interpret the materialremains of these societies. Thomas, Tilley, and Whittle eachchallenge traditional explanations but, in my opinion, theirpostprocessualist interpretations represent a retreat fromscience. Empirical scientific archaeology is being replacedby a mysticism over which the 12th- and 13th-century scho-lasticism would be an advance. To these three authors, ar-chaeology is a kind of literature. I commend the gradualdisappearance of the Germanic approach, with its delugeof dates, sites, and artifact types, but I am disturbed bythe speculations and fantasies about the European Neo-lithic that pass as explanations and interpretations in

today's Anglo-American intellectual environment. Theseapproaches are producing a plurality of idiosyncratic por-trayals of this prehistoric period. At the end of his book,Tilley clearly expresses this approach, stating that "work-ing 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 exam-ined in this study.In his book An Ethnography of the Neolithic:Early Prehis-toricSocieties in SouthernScandinavia, Tilley first synthesizesfrom a postpositivist perspective the southern Scandina-vian Late Mesolithic and Neolithic, and then discusses stonemonuments and society in the Scandinavian Middle Neo-lithic. The synthesis is excellent, especially for Scania inSweden, though there is not much discussion of chrono-logical or typological problems.The Late Mesolithic is mainly devoted to the Ertebolleculture, famous for its shell mounds. The Ertebolle peoplesubsisted by gathering, fishing, fowling, and the huntingof land and sea mammals. Their numerous burials yieldred ocher, animal bones, axes, chipped stone and boneartifacts, and ornaments. Tilley idealizes the Late Meso-lithic societies as "akind of Garden of Eden ... [in which]... men did not dominate and exploit women" (68), justas Marija Gimbutas idealized the "Old Europe" of the Earlyand Middle Neolithic. Such contestable statements reflectthe author's beliefs, and they are notjustified by any archae-ological data. Tilley can tell stories about the past, suchas gender equity in the Ertebolle society, but these storiesshould be corroborated with archaeological data. Our in-dustrial society, by contrast, is unappealing to Tilley: "Bycomparison with hunter-gatherers who work less and havea bountiful supply of all they need, it is we in industrialsocieties who are poor and badly off" (57). He might haveadded that Late Mesolithic life expectancies ran to lessthan 30 years: if Tilley and I were living in an Ertebollesociety, we would be dead by now.

Tilley argues, reasonably in my opinion, that wheat andbarley were not part of Early Neolithic Scandinavian sub-sistence strategies. Local foragers probably adopted farm-ing very gradually; the small samples of cereals so far re-covered are assumed to have had a symbolic, not a caloric,significance. Tilley presents an excellent description of thedolmens and earthen barrows constructed by Early Neo-lithic peoples. According to Tilley, these structures were"gigantic symbolic axes placed in clearings in the forestthat had been cleared by the axe" (114). I concur with hisobservation that these megalithic monuments "acted, andstill act, as signs of history and as signs in history.... Theyserved to immortalize the group constructing them" (157).He suggests that there was competition among the Neo-lithic groups in the construction of these monuments. So-

421American Journal of Archaeology 102 (1998)

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422 SARUNAS MILISAUSKAS [AJA 102cial inequality developed during the Neolithic-- inequalitybetween groups, according to Tilley, and not between in-dividuals. His statements in this connection reveal insightsnot usually found in archaeological publications, such asthe following: "Fields of wheat, cattle, pigs, sheep and goatscould be controlled, produced and exchanged between in-dividuals in a manner not possible with wild plants andanimals scattered around a territory and available to all"(115).There are numerous discussions of specific ethnographicsocieties in Tilley's book. For example, in discussing themortuary practices of Neolithic societies, he summarizesthe burial customs of the Trobriand Islanders and theMerina of central Madagascar. When discussing the sym-bolic role of cattle, he selects two ethnographic examples:the Nuer and the Dinka of the Sudan. The relationshiphe draws between ethnographic societies in Africa and thesouthern Scandinavian Neolithic societies is problematic,to say the least. Since there are thousands of societies inthe ethnographic record, we can make many choices toillustrate our arguments. How do you evaluate which choicesare the best? Tilley's book contains intelligent and insight-ful discussions concerning the southern Scandinavian LateMesolithic and Early and Middle Neolithic. But where hisobservations have little archaeological data in their sup-port, they can be irritating.In Europe in the Neolithic: The Creationof New Worlds,Al-asdair Whittle provides an impressive survey of the Eu-ropean Neolithic. His adept synthesis of a large, diverse,and complex archaeological record is admirable. Whittleis one of the few British archaeologists who is thoroughlyfamiliar with continental Neolithic material. His book isnarration, however, and not scientific analysis, a curiousmix of shrewd criticisms of his predecessors and sometimesalternatives of his own. His key phrases include "anotheralternative" (66) or "different approach" (190). In some cases,like those of the Lepenski Vir trapezoids or the Varna ceme-tery, these alternative interpretations are supported by somedata; in other cases, such as the Balkan Early Neolithicfigurines, we receive ex cathedra pronouncements unsup-ported by any data.

According to Whittle, "theNeolithic way of life in Europewas based above all on a set of beliefs, values and idealsabout the place of people in the scheme of things, aboutdescent, origins and time, and about relations betweenpeople. It involved the conceptualization of a universepeopled by spirits and ancestors as well as by the living.From spirits, ancestors and other beings came a sense ofthe sacred, and this, rather than anything more secular,guided people's values and ideals" (355). This is an exam-ple of a claim virtually impossible to justify archaeolog-ically. Furthermore, such a generalization is so broad thatit applies to any culture, including our own.Whittle emphasizes indigenous developments and con-tinuity from the preceding Mesolithic period. He stressesthe mobility, rather than the sedentism, of Europe's farmers;he deemphasizes social and political competition and theappearance of ranked societies; he rejects the consensusexplanation (i.e., nonlocal population expansion) for thespread of the earliest farmers in central Europe. Whittledislikes the notion of conflict between Neolithic groups.

Thus, the Middle Neolithic ditched and palisaded enclo-sures are not considered fortifications, but rather placesof social and symbolic preeminence. True, Whittle deniesenvisaging "the Neolithic period as some far-off Arcadia"(7). It appears to me, however, that he is quite successfulin assuming the role of an archaeological Rousseau. Insummary, the reader will find in Whittle an excellent syn-thesis of the European Neolithic if one ignores most ofhis alternative explanations.In Time, Culture and Identity:An InterpretiveArchaeology,Julian Thomas first presents his views concerning "a phe-nomenological archaeology," before turning to three casestudies. After glancing through Thomas's bibliography, Iimmediately concluded that this publication is unusual.There are 13 references to Martin Heidegger, excludingthose 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. GordonChilde, one of the preeminent old masters. Surprisingly,Colin Renfrew also has only five references. Lewis Binfordis the most-cited archaeologist, with 12 references, followedby Ian Hodder, who receives nine. In fact, Thomas devotesa good deal of space to discussing Heidegger's relevanceto archaeology. In doing so, he makes some naive state-ments about Heidegger, e.g., that he "may or may not havebeen a convinced Nazi" (3) or that the evil of Fascism wasnot that evident in the early 1930s. There is clear docu-mentation substantiating the fact that Heidegger acted asa Nazi during the 1930s and until the end of World WarII. Of course, a person may be a great philosopher andat the same time morally repellent. We should also remem-ber that archaeologists did not distinguish themselves asmoral beacons in Nazi Germany. Numerous archaeologists,including Werner Buttler, the excavator of the Early Neo-lithic settlement of K6oln-Lindenthal, supported Hitler. Theactions of Hitler's followers suggested a morbid future forGermany and Europe in the early 1930s, underscoring therepugnant nature of Fascism. In defense of Heidegger'sbehavior, Thomas argues that there is a benign and a ma-lignant side to Marxism, which proclaims the liberationof oppressed peoples, on the one hand, and sets up gulags,on the other. The argument misses the point. Nazism andCommunism, as it was practiced in eastern Europe or asit is still functioning in China and Vietnam, represent to-talitarian systems. Academic Marxism, as discussed in thecafes of Paris or London, failed to mirror reality.Political ethics apart, Thomas strongly believes in Hei-degger'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 distinc-tive activity of building, which as Heidegger describes itis a form of transformation, but also a means of dwelling,of abiding with things, sparing them, and entering intoa relationship with them" (102). I do not think we needto rely on Heidegger to make these observations. Thomasconveys the impression that archaeology's future lies inthe study of scholars like Habermas and Heidegger. Hisassumption that studying Habermas or Heidegger will moldus into better archaeologists is highly contestable. Thesescholars did not contribute to the advancement of archae-ological research, and reading them is unlikely to help us

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1998] EXPLANATIONS, INTERPRETATIONS, AND STORIES OF THE EUROPEAN NEOLITHIC 423in interpreting the past. At least the previously mentionedNazi archaeologist, Werner Buttler, conducted significantresearch on the Neolithic; we can, therefore, still evaluatehis work as an archaeologist.Thomas's three case studies are "The Descent of theBritish Neolithic"; "Later Neolithic Britain: Artifacts withPersonalities"; and "Time, Place, and Tradition at MountPleasant' He derives the earliest Neolithic on the Atlanticfringe of Europe from the hybridization of the central Eu-ropean Linear Pottery culture and the local Mesolithic cul-tures. He also extensively discusses Mount Pleasant, a largeembanked enclosure or a henge monument in the countyof Dorset. According to Thomas, "amonument like MountPleasant is a paradigm example of the way in which a hu-man engagement with material things can serve to main-tain order in social life. Building, the setting up of a struc-ture, presupposes that future activities will take place whichare to be given form by the space being configured" (185).One is here reminded of Whittle's sweeping and unsub-stantiated statements.In comparison to the three books discussed so far, I.J.Thorpe's TheOriginsofAgriculturein Europeis far more tra-ditional. It is an expansion of his doctoral dissertation atUniversity College, London. While he clearly infuses hisown opinions, he fairly presents and evaluates the viewsand data of a wide range of archaeologists.He begins by discussing various theories that explainthe transition to farming in the Near East. Recently, therehas been a revival in relying on climatic models to explainthe origin of farming. Thorpe finds these unsatisfactorybecause they present human societies as passive. Instead,he argues that social competition served as the catalystfor farming in the Near East. Thorpe's main concern isthe origin of farming in Europe. Two competing expla-nations exist for the appearance of farming there: coloni-zation by farmers from Anatolia; and the indigenous originof farming communities. The Early Neolithic populationof Anatolia was very small, and there was enough land lo-cally available to accommodate demographic expansion.Why would Anatolians have moved to Europe? We mustnext look to social explanations for the appearance of farm-ing. Farmers appeared in Crete around 7000 B.C.; this oc-currence implies colonization, since Mesolithic populationswere nonexistent on the island. The evidence for an in-digenous origin of Neolithic communities in southeasternEurope is weak.In his book, Thorpe also discusses the appearance of

the earliest farming populations in central Europe, the At-lantic Fringe, Scandinavia, and Britain. He concludes hisbook with a discussion of Early Neolithic societies in south-ern Scandinavia, Britain, and Ireland. Like Tilley, Thorpepresents a synthesis of the Ertebolle and Early Neolithicsocieties of southern Scandinavia. Unlike Tilley, however,Thorpe's discussion more closely reflects a consensus ofarchaeologists' explanations. Also, he spares us any utopi-an observations concerning Late Mesolithic society.Thomas, Thorpe, and Whittle each synthesize the archae-ological record of the Linear Pottery culture of centralEurope. I have worked with the material of this Early Neo-lithic culture for many years, and, while I cannot agreewith all of these authors' conclusions, I do acknowledgethat their syntheses are valuable contributions to the studyof the Neolithic.As a synthesis of the European Neolithic, I would rec-ommend Europein theNeolithic, since Whittle's book is thebest such work currently available in English. The Originsof Agriculture in Europe, while good, is much more limitedin scope. Time,Cultureand Identity:An InterpretiveArchaeol-ogyis an enigma; I would be highly surprised if Heideggerbecomes a significant force in archaeology, and I thinkthat materialist philosophers are more relevant to archaeol-ogy. An Ethnographyof the Neolithic presents a split person-ality: there is an impressive part with interesting descrip-tions and interpretations of the archaeological record, andthen there is a part that can only be considered fiction.I do, however, recommend Tilley's book as an intellectu-ally challenging study of the Mesolithic and Neolithic.In addition to the four works reviewed here, there arerecent books in other languages that make important con-tributions to our understanding of the European Neolithic.For example, Markus Honeisen of the SchweizerischesLandesmuseum in Zurich has edited the two-volume DieerstenBauern (Zurich 1990) about the central European andthe Balkan Neolithic. Max WiThren'scontribution there onearly finds of bread and cereals is very appealing. Thearticles in H6neisen's volumes are descriptive, and theydo not contain fictional stories about the lives and beliefsof our Neolithic ancestors. There is much more about theEuropean Neolithic that serious archaeology can yet tellus, without resorting to storytelling.

DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGYSTATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALOBUFFALO, NEW YORK

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