Early Neolithic
A section of the New Stone Age (Neolithic) in Central Europe is known as the early Neolithic , which dates from 4400 to 3500 BC. Dated. The beginning of the Late Neolithic is because the first occurrence of objects made of copper in the southeastern Europe means with the beginning of the " matte time " (or " chalcolithic " or " Aeneolithic identical"). The main cultural influences are the Lengyel culture from south-eastern Central Europe and the western European megalithic cultures . South of the Alps, in the 5th millennium BC, First pile-dwelling cultures out already .
Structure of the Neolithic
The term Young Neolithic goes back to the five-fold structure largely used in Germany today by Jens Lüning and follows the Middle Neolithic . Accordingly, the Neolithic is divided into five stages: Early Neolithic , Middle Neolithic, Early Neolithic, Late Neolithic and End Neolithic .
The early, late and end Neolithic are grouped together as the Copper Age (or Copper Age ) because of the increasing importance of jewelry and weapons made of copper .
- Regionally different terminology
The terms are not used uniformly in individual regions of Germany. In central Germany (in the sense of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia) the Neolithic is traditionally divided into three parts. For the first time in 1951, Ulrich Fischer proposed the three sections Early, High and Late Neolithic. Hermann Behrens also later pleaded for a threefold division into the early , middle and late Neolithic . According to this, the Jordansmühler culture and Gatersleben culture stand on the threshold from the early to the middle Neolithic . All of the following cultures were therefore in the Middle Neolithic . Later, the proposal of a four-fold structure including the early Neolithic also followed for Central Germany , whereby a parallelization with the Southwest German cultures was sought. After calibration of the radiocarbon data , it turned out that the stage of the Young Neolithic was significantly longer in absolute chronological terms than the other three, whereupon Lüning switched to the five-fold structure.
Lüning's five-fold subdivision is a proposal to standardize the Central European chronological system, which at the same time reflects important turning points in cultural development. According to this classification, the cultures listed below date to the Early Neolithic.
Archaeological cultures of the early Neolithic
According to the structure of Lüning, the following archaeological cultures and regional groups belong to the Early Neolithic:
- Older funnel cup culture (Northern Germany)
- Jordansmühler culture (Silesia, Bohemia, Central Germany)
- Gatersleben culture (Central Germany)
- Baalberg culture (Central Germany)
- Michelsberg culture (western Central Europe)
- Pfyner Culture (Northern Switzerland)
- Schussenried Culture and Aichbühler Group (Southwest Germany)
- Mondsee culture (western Austria)
- Münchshöfen culture (Bavaria)
- Pollinger Group (Bavaria)
- Altheimer Group (Bavaria)
Inventions of the early Neolithic
Numerous social and economic innovations occurred during the Early Neolithic. These innovations are also referred to as the " secondary products revolution ".
- Cattle as draft animals, ox carts with rigid axles and disc wheels
- Hook plow (possibly since the band ceramics )
- Grassland grazing
- Plank paths
- Domestication of the horse (but not yet as a riding horse)
- metallurgy
- Small houses (in contrast to the large buildings of the early and middle Neolithic)
- Megalithic
- Wetland settlements
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- ↑ Jens Lüning: New thoughts on naming the Neolithic periods. In: Germania. Volume 74/1, 1996, pp. 233-237 ( online ).
- ↑ Ulrich Fischer, On the Central German Clay Drums. Archaeologica Geographica 1, pp. 98-105
- ↑ Ulrich Fischer, About subsequent burials in the Neolithic of Saxony-Thuringia. Festschrift RGZM Mainz Vol. 3, pp. 161–181
- ↑ Hermann Behrens, The Neolithic Age in the Middle Elbe-Saale Region. Berlin 1973 (publisher of science)
- ↑ Ulrich Fischer, thoughts on naming the prehistoric periods. Find reports Hessen 14, 1974.
- ↑ Ulrich Fischer, A Chronology System in the Neolithic. Germania 54, 1976. pp. 182-184