Middle Neolithic

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As Middle Neolithic the middle portion of is Neolithic ( New Stone Age ) in central Europe , respectively. This epoch dates differently depending on the region.

Differences in terminology

To this day, the terms are not used uniformly in individual regions of Germany, which is due to different research traditions.

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 later pleaded for a threefold division into 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 Young 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.

Jens Lüning's five-fold subdivision of the Neolithic in southern and western Germany is a proposal for the standardization of the Central European chronological system, which at the same time reflects important turning points in the development of culture. Accordingly, the Neolithic Age is divided into Early Neolithic, Middle Neolithic , Early Neolithic , Late Neolithic and End Neolithic . The Middle Neolithic dates here between 5000 and 4500/4300 BC. Chr.

In Hungary, the Middle Neolithic follows the Körös culture and includes Vinca and Bükk cultures .

Archaeological cultures of the Middle Neolithic according to Lüning

According to J. Lüning's classification, the cultures listed below date to the Middle Neolithic:

The Ertebølle culture is at the same time as the southern German Middle Neolithic (= late Mesolithic in northern Germany).

Circular moat systems

The special form of earthworks , mostly consisting of multiple wall-ditch combinations, are a temporally and spatially limited phenomenon of the Middle Neolithic in Central Europe (Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Moravia, Slovakia). The impetus comes from the early Lengyel culture in Hungary and Slovakia, where the oldest circular moats are located.

Settlements and graves

Construction, grave customs and ceramic vessels are seen in Linear Pottery tradition, but are regionally differentiated much stronger than that of Ukraine to the Paris basin largely uniform Linear Pottery .

Typical of the Rössen culture are slightly arched ("ship-shaped"), sometimes trapezoidal long houses . There are large grave fields with body burials.

There is extensive continuity between the Early and Middle Neolithic, but there is a clear break in the way of settlement between the Middle and the New Neolithic: There people live in small, rectangular houses, use flat-bottomed, barely decorated pots and bury their dead in a way that is in particular rarely leaves traces in the area of Michelsberg culture . A continuum is the continuation of earthworks in the Michelsberg culture.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich Fischer , On the Central German Clay Drums. Archaeologica Geographica 1, pp. 98-105
  2. ↑ Ulrich Fischer: About subsequent burials in the Neolithic of Saxony-Thuringia. Festschrift RGZM Mainz Vol. 3, pp. 161–181.
  3. ↑ Hermann Behrens, The Neolithic Age in the Middle Elbe-Saale Region. Berlin, Verlag der Wissenschaften 1973
  4. ↑ Ulrich Fischer: Thoughts on naming the prehistoric periods. Find reports from Hessen 14, 1974.
  5. ↑ Ulrich Fischer: A chronology system in the Neolithic. Germania 54, (1976), pp. 182-184.
  6. ↑ Jens Lüning: New thoughts on naming the Neolithic periods. In: Germania. Volume 74/1, 1996, pp. 233-237 ( online ).