by Chris Fowler
CONCLUDING REMARKS
From the beginning of the Neolithic, animals and plants were moved by humans into and across Europe, purposefully or unwittingly, at a scale never seen before. As such, they can be considered the continent’s earliest biological invaders, well before the intercontinental movements of the Renaissance and modern times that led to the introduction of dozens of new alien organisms into Europe. Archaeozoological and archaeobotanical evidence, coupled with palaeogenetics and biogeochemistry, reveals that most of the domestic lineages introduced to Europe adapted fairly quickly to their new environmental conditions. Beyond the plasticity of these organisms, this highlights the skills of generations of Neolithic farmers who succeeded in acclimatizing them. Modern farming still relies on their achievements.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Marie-Pierre Ruas, Cécile Brun, Véronique Zech-Matterne, and Aurélie Salavert provided the author with valuable information on Neolithic plants in Europe. Robin Bendrey and Rebecca Oakes kindly helped to improve the English of this article.
REFERENCES
Ammerman, A.J. 1989. On the Neolithic transition in Europe: a comment on Zvelebil and Zvelebil (1988). Antiquity 63, 162–165.
Badr, A., Müller, K., Schäfer-Pregl, R., Rabey, H.E., Effgen, S., Ibrahim, H.H., Pozzi, C. Rhode, W., and Salamini, F. 2000. On the origin and domestication history of barley (Hordeum vulgare). Molecular Biology and Evolution 17, 499–510.
Bakels, C. 1978. Four Linearbandkeramik settlements and their environment: a palaeological study of Sittard, Stein, Elsloo and Hienheim. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 11, 1–241.
Bakels, C. 1990. The crops of the Rössen culture: significantly different from their Bandkeramik predecessors—French influence? In D. Cahen and M. Otte (eds), Rubané et Cardial (actes du colloque de Liège, 1988), 83–87. Liège: Université de Liège.
Bakels, C. 1999. Archaeobotanical investigations in the Aisne valley, Northern France, from the Neolithic up to the Early Middle Ages. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 8, 71–77.
Bakels, C. 2000. The Neolithization of the Netherlands: two ways, one result. In A.S. Fairbairn (ed.), Plants in Neolithic Britain and beyond. Neolithic Studies Group Papers, 101–106. Oxford: Oxbow.
Bakels, C. 2009. The western European loess belt: agrarian history, 5300 BC–AD 1000. Dordrecht: Springer.
Balasse, M. and Tresset, A. 2007. Environmental constraints on the reproductive activity of domestic sheep and cattle: what latitude for the herder? Anthropozoologica 42, 71–88.
Balasse, M., Smith, A.B., Ambrose, S.H., and Leigh, S.R. 2003. Determining sheep birth seasonality by analysis of tooth enamel oxygen isotope ratios: the Late Stone Age site of Kasteelberg (South Africa). Journal of Archaeological Science 30, 205–215.
Balasse, M., Tresset, A., and Ambrose, S.H. 2006. First evidence for seaweed winter foddering in the Neolithic of Scotland. Journal of Zoology 270(1), 170–176.
Bedault, L. and Hachem, L. 2008. Recherches sur les sociétés du Néolithique danubien à partir du Bassin parisien: approche structurelle des données archéozoologiques. In L. Burnez-Lanotte, M. Ilett, and P. Allard (eds), Fin des traditions Danubiennes dans le Néolithique du Bassin Parisien et de Belgique (5100–4700 BC). Autour des recherches de Claude Constantin. Actes du Colloque International de Namur, Novembre 2006, 221–243. Paris: Société Préhistorique Française.
Behre, K.E. 2007. Evidence for Mesolithic agriculture in and around central Europe? Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 16, 203–219.
Bender, B. 1985. Prehistoric developments in the American midcontinent and in Brittany, north-west France. In T.-D. Price and J.A. Brown (eds), Prehistoric hunter-gatherers, the emergence of complexity, 21–58. Orlando/London: Academic Press.
Cockram, J., Jones, H., Leigh, F.J., O’Sullivan, D., Powell, W., Laurie, D., and Greenland, A.J. 2007. Control of the flowering time in temperate cereals: genes, domestication, and sustainable productivity. Journal of Experimental Botany 58, 1231–1244.
Collard, M., Edinborough, K., Shennan, S., and Thomas, M.G. 2010. Radiocarbon evidence indicates that migrants introduced farming to Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science 37, 866–870.
Colledge, S., Conolly, J., and Shennan, S. 2005. The evolution of Neolithic farming from SW Asian to NW European limits. European Journal of Archaeology 8, 137–156.
Cooney, G. 2000. Landscapes of Neolithic Ireland. London: Routledge.
Corbet, G.B. 1961. Origin of the British insular races of small mammals and of the ‘Lusitanian’ fauna. Nature 191, 1037–1040.
Corbet, G.B. 1979. Report on rodent remains. In C. Renfrew (ed.), Investigations in Orkney, 135–137. London: Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries Vol. 38.
Coward, F., Shennan, S., Colledge, S., Conolly, J., and Collar, M. 2008. The spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe: a phylogenetic analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science 35, 42–56.
Cucchi, T., Vigne, J.-D., and Auffray, J.-C. 2005. First occurrence of the house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus Schwartz & Schwartz, 1943) in the Western Mediterranean: a zooarchaeological revision of subfossil occurrences. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 84, 429–445.
Cucchi, T., Barnett, R., Searle, J., and Dobney, K. 2009. Analysis of the vole remains. In A. Ritchie (ed.), On the fringe of Neolithic Europe. Excavation of a chambered cairn on the Holm of Papa Westray, Orkney, 87–91. Edinburgh: Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
Cucchi, T., Balasescu, A., Bem, C. Radu, V., Vigne, J.-D., and Tresset, A. 2011. New insights into the invasive process of the eastern house mouse (Mus musculus musculus): evidence from the burnt houses of Chalcolithic Romania. Holocene 21, 1195–1202.
Dietsch-Sellami, M.-F. 2000. Les résultats carpologiques. In S. Cassen (ed.), Eléments d’architecture: exploration d’un tertre funéraire à Lannec er Gadouer (Erdeven, Morbihan): constructions et reconstructions dans le Néolithique Morbihannais: propositions pour une lecture symbolique, 139–148. Chauvigny: Association des Publications Chauvinoises.
Dunne, C.M. 2003. Neolithic structure at Drummenny Lower, Co. Donegal. In I. Armit, E. Murphy, E. Nelis, and D. Simpson (eds), Neolithic settlement in Ireland and Western Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society Conference, Belfast, April 2001. 164–171. Oxford: Oxbow.
Edwards, C.J., Bollongino, R., Scheu, A., Chamberlain, A., Tresset, A., Vigne, J.-D., Baird, J.F., Larson, G., Ho, S.Y.W., Heupink, T.H., Shapiro, B., Freeman, A.R., Thomas, M.G., Arbogast, R.-M., Arndt, B., Bartosiewicz, L., Benecke, N., Budja, M., Chaix, L., Choyke, A.M., Coqueugnot, E., Döhle, H.-J., Göldner, H., Hartz, S., Helmer, D., Herzig, B., Hongo, H., Mashkour, M., Özdogan, M., Pucher, E., Roth, G., Schade-Lindig, S., Schmölcke, U., Schulting, R.J., Stephan, E., Uerpmann, H.-P., Vörös, I., Voytek, B., Bradley, D.G., and Burger, J. 2007. Mitochondrial DNA analysis shows a Near-Eastern Neolithic origin for domestic cattle and no indication of domestication of European aurochs. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274, 1377–1385.
Edwards, C.J., McHugh, D.E., Dobney, K.E., Martin, L., Russell, N., Horwitz, L., McIntosh, S.K., MacDonald, K., Helmer, D., Tresset, A., Vigne, J.-D., and Bradley, D.G. 2004. Ancient DNA analysis of 101 cattle remains: limits and prospects. Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 695–710.
Edwards, K.J. and Hirons, H.K.R. 1984. Cereal pollen grains in pre-Elm Decline deposits: implications for the earliest agriculture in Britain and Ireland. Journal of Archaeological Science 11, 71–80.
Eneau, T., Fouéré, P., Joussaume, R., Sidéra, I., and Tresset, A. 1998. Le site Néolithique moyen de Gouzon à Chauvigny (Vienne). In R. Joussaume and X. Gutherz (eds), Actes du XXIe Colloque Interrégional sur le Néolithique, Poitiers, Octobre 1994, 97–116. Chauvigny: Association des Publications Chauvinoises.
Fairbairn, A. 2000. On the spread of plant crops across Neolithic Britain with special reference to southern England. In A. Fairbairn (ed.), Plants in Neolithic Britain and beyond, 107–121. Oxford: Oxbow.
Fairwe
ather, A.D. and Ralston, I.B.M. 1993. The Neolithic timber hall at Balbridie, Grampian region, Scotland: the building, the date, the plant macrofossils. Antiquity 67, 313–323.
Fleuriot, L. 1986. Les très anciennes lois bretonnes. Leur date. Leur texte. In M. Simon (ed.), Landévennec et le monachisme breton dans le Haut Moyen ge, 65–84. Bannalec: Association Landévennec.
Gebhardt, A. and Marguerie, D. 1993. La transformation du paysage armoricain sous l’influence de l’homme. In J.-C. Blanchet, A. Bulard, C. Constantin, D. Mordant, and J. Tarrête (eds), Le Néolithique au quotidien. Actes du XVIe Colloque Interrégional sur le Néolithique (Paris, 5 et 6 novembre 1989), 19–24. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.
GENACO. 1998. Le Néolithique ancien dans le centre-ouest de la France. In R. Joussaume and X. Gutherz (eds), Actes du XXIe Colloque Interrégional sur le Néolithique, Poitiers, Octobre 1994, 67–96. Chauvigny: Association des Publications Chauvinoises.
Ghesquière, E., Marcigny, C., Aubry, B., Clément-Sauleau, S., Dietsch-Sellami, M.-F., Deloze, V., Hamon, G., Querré, G., and Renault, V. 2003. L’habitat néolithique moyen I de Vivoin ‘le Parc’ (Sarthe). Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française 100, 533–573.
Gowen, M. 1988. Three Irish gas pipelines. New archaeological evidence in Munster. Wicklow: Wordwell.
Hansen, J.-M. 1992. Franchti cave and the beginnings of agriculture in Greece and the Aegean. In P. Anderson-Gerfaud (ed.), Préhistoire de l’agriculture. Nouvelles approches expérimentales et ethnographiques, 231–247. Paris: CNRS.
Haynes, S., Jaarola, M., and Searle, J.B. 2003. Phylogeography of the common vole (Microtus arvalis) with particular emphasis on the colonization of the Orkney archipelago. Molecular Ecology 12, 951–956.
Jones, G. and Rowley-Conwy, P. 2007. On the importance of cereal cultivation in the British Neolithic. In S. Colledge and J. Conolly (eds), The origins and spread of domestic plants in southwest Asia and Europe, 391–419. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Jones, H., Leigh, F.J., Mackay, I., Bower, M.A., Smith, L.M.J., Charles, M.P., Jones, G., Jones, M.K., Brown, T.A., and Powell, W. 2008. Population based resequencing reveals that the flowering time adaptation of cultivated barley originated east of the Fertile Crescent. Molecular Biology and Evolution 25, 2211–2219.
Jones, G., Charles, M.P., Jones, M.K., Colledge, S., Leigh, F.J., Lister, D.A., Smith, L.M.J., Powell, W., Brown, T.A., and Jones, H. 2013. DNA evidence for multiple introductions of barley into Europe following dispersed domestications in Western Asia. Antiquity 87, 701–713.
Kiely, J. 2003. A Neolithic house at Cloghers, Co. Kerry. In I. Armit, E. Murphy, E. Nelis, and D. Simpson (eds), Neolithic settlement in Ireland and western Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society Conference, Belfast, April 2001, 182–187. Oxford: Oxbow.
Knörzer. 1971. Urgeschichtliche Unkräuter im Rheinland, ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Segetalgesellschaften. Vegetatio 23, 89–111.
Krause-Kyora, B., Makarewicz, C., Evin, A., Flink, L.G., and Dobney, K. 2013. Use of domesticated pigs by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in northwest Europe. Nature Communications 4, 1–7. doi:10.1038/ncomms3348
Kreuz, A.M. 1990. Die ersten Bauern Mitteleuropas—eine archäobotanische Untersuchung zu Umwelt und Landwirtschaft der ältesten Bandkeramik. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 23, 1–145.
Kreuz, A.M. 2007. Archaeobotanical perspectives on the beginning of agriculture north of the Alps. In S. Colledge and J. Conolly (eds), The origins and spread of domestic plants in southwest Asia and Europe, 259–294. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Larson, G., Albarella, U., Dobney, K., Rowley-Conwy, P., Schibler, J., Tresset, A., Vigne, J.-D., Edwards, C.J., Schlumbaum, A., Dinu, A., Balasescu, A., Dolman, G., Tagliacozzo, A., Manaseryan, N., Miracle, P., Winjgaarden-Bakker, L.V., Masseti, M., Bradley, D.G., and Cooper, A. 2007. Ancient DNA, pig domestication and the spread of the Neolithic into Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104, 15276–15281.
Le Bailly, M., Leuzinger, U., Schlichtherle, H., and Bouchet, F. 2007. ‘Crise économique’ au Néolithique à la transition Pfyn-Horgen (3400 BC): contribution de la paléoparasitologie. Anthropozoologica 42, 175–185.
Le Roux, C.-T. (ed.). 2006. Monuments mégalithiques à Locmariaquer (Morbihan). Le long tumulus d’Er Grah dans son environnement. Suppléments à Gallia Préhistoire. Paris: CNRS.
Le Rouzic, Z. 1932. Fouilles faites dans la région de Carnac. Tumulus du Mont Saint-Michel. Vannes: Imprimerie Nationale.
Lesur, J., Gasco, J., Tresset, A., and Vigne, J.-D. 2001. Un approvisionnement carné chasséen caussenard exclusivement fondé sur la chasse? La faune de Roucadour (Lot). Préhistoire du Sud-Ouest 8, 71–90.
Marchand, G., Dupont, C., Oberlin, C., and Delque-Kolic, E. 2009. Entre ‘effet réservoir’ et ‘effet de plateau’: la difficile datation du Mésolithique de Bretagne. In P. Crombé, M.V. Strydonk, J. Serjant, and M. Bats (eds), Proceedings of the International Congress ‘Chronology and Evolution of the Mesolithic of North-Western Europe’, Brussels, May 30–June 1 2007, 307–335. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholar Publishing.
Marinval, P. 1990. Relations Cardial-Rubané, les apports de la carpologie. In D. Cahen and M. Otte, Rubané et Cardial (Actes du colloque de Liège, 1988), 401–404. Liège: Université de Liège.
Marinval, P. 1993. Données récentes sur l’agriculture au Néolithique ancien et moyen dans le nord de la France. In J.-C. Blanchet, A. Bulard, C. Constantin, D. Mordant, and J. Tarrête (eds), Le Néolithique au quotidien. Actes du XVIe Colloque Interrégional sur le Néolithique (Paris, 5 et 6 novembre 1989), 122–126. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.
Martinkova, N., Barnett, R., Cucchi, T., Struchen, R., Pascal, M., Fischer, M.C., Higham, T., Brace, S., Ho, S.Y.W., Quere, J.-P., Higgins, P.O., Excoffier, L., Heckel, G., Hoelzel, A.R., Dobney, K.M., and Searle, J.B. 2013. Divergent evolutionary processes associated with colonization of offshore islands. Molecular Ecology 22, 5205–5220.
Mascheretti, S., Rogatcheva, M.B., Gündüz, I., Fredga, K., and Searle, J.B. 2003. How did pigmy shrews colonize Ireland? Clues from a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 270, 1593–1599.
McDevitt, A.D., Rambau, R.V., O’Brien, J., McDevitt, C.D., Hayden, T., and Searle, J.B. 2009. Genetic variation in Irish pigmy shrew Sorex minutus (Soricomorpha: Soricidae): implications for colonisation history. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 97, 918–927.
Monk, M. 2000. Seeds and soils of discontent: an environmental archaeological contribution to the nature of the early Neolithic. In A. Desmond, G. Johnson, M. McCarthy, J. Sheehan, and E. Shee Twohig (eds), New agendas in Irish prehistory, 67–87. Wicklow: Wordwell.
Moore, D.G. 2003. Neolithic houses in Ballyharry townland, Islandmagee, Co. Antrim. In I. Armit, E. Murphy, E. Nelis, and D. Simpson (eds), Neolithic settlement in Ireland and western Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society Conference, Belfast, April 2001, 156–163. Oxford: Oxbow.
Nobis, G. 1975. Zur Fauna des ellerbekzeitlichen Wohnplatzes Rosenhof in Ostholstein. Die Schriften des Naturwissenschaftlichen Vereins für Schleswig-Holstein 45, 5–30.
O’Connell, M. 1987. Early cereal-type records from Connemara, western Ireland and their possible significance. Pollen et Spores 29, 207–224.
O’Drisceoil, C. 2003. Archaeological excavation of a Neolithic settlement at Coolfore, Co. Louth. In I. Armit, E. Murphy, E. Nelis, and D. Simpson (eds), Neolithic settlement in Ireland and western Britain. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society Conference, Belfast, April 2001, 176–181. Oxford: Oxbow.
Perlès, C. 2001. The Early Neolithic in Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pernaud, J.-M., Chartier, M., Tresset, A., Sidéra, I., Augereau, A., and Leroyer, C. 2004. Gestion des territoires et évolution de l’exploitation des ressources animales et végétales aux Ve et IVe millénaires en Bassin parisien. Bilan des connaissances et perspectives de travail. In A
ctes du XXVe Congrès Préhistorique de France, Nanterre 24–26 novembre 2000—Approches fonctionnelles en Préhistoire, 409–425. Paris: Société Préhistorique Française.
Perrin, T., Marchand, G., Allard, P., Binder, D., Collina, C., Garcia-Puchol, O., and Valdeyron, N. 2009. Le second Mésolithique d’Europe occidentale: origines et gradient chronologique (The late Mesolithic of Western Europe: origins and chronological stages). Annales de la Fondation Fyssen 24, 160–176.
Poplin, F., Poulain, T., Méniel, P., Vigne, J.-D., Geddes, D., and Helmer, D. 1986. Les débuts de l’élevage en France. In J.-P. Demoule and J. Guilaine (eds), Le Néolithique de la France, 37–51. Paris: Picard.
Poska, A. and Saarse, L. 2006. New evidence of possible crop introduction to north-eastern Europe during the Stone Age. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 15(3), 169–179.
Richard, H. (ed.) 2004. Néolithisation précoce. Premières traces d’anthropisation du couvert végétal à partir des données polliniques. Annales Littéraires de l’Université de Franche-Comté 777, 107–116.
Rowley-Conwy, P. 2004. How the West was lost. A reconsideration of agricultural origins in Britain, Ireland, and southern Scandinavia. Current Anthropology 45, 83–113.