Linear Pottery culture


The Linear Pottery culture is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic period, flourishing. Derived from the German Linearbandkeramik, it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, falling within the Danubian I culture of V. Gordon Childe.
Most cultural evidence has been found on the middle Danube, the upper and middle Elbe, and the upper and middle Rhine. It represents a major event in the initial spread of agriculture in Europe. The pottery consists of simple cups, bowls, vases, jugs without handles and, in a later phase, with pierced lugs, bases, and necks.
Important sites include Vráble and Nitra in Slovakia; Bylany in the Czech Republic; Langweiler and Zwenkau in Germany; Brunn am Gebirge in Austria; Elsloo, Sittard, Köln-Lindenthal, Aldenhoven, Flomborn, and Rixheim on the Rhine; Lautereck and Hienheim on the upper Danube; and Rössen and Sonderhausen on the middle Elbe. In 2019, two large Rondel complexes were discovered east of the Vistula River near Toruń in Poland.
A number of cultures ultimately replaced the Linear Pottery culture over its range, but without a one-to-one correspondence between its variants and the replacing cultures. Some of the successor cultures are the Hinkelstein, Großgartach, Rössen, Lengyel, Cucuteni-Trypillian, and Boian-Maritza cultures.

Name

The term "Linear Band Ware" derives from the pottery's decorative technique. The "Band Ware" or Bandkeramik part of it began as an innovation of the German archaeologist Friedrich Klopfleisch. The earliest generally accepted name in English was the "Danubian", introduced by V. Gordon Childe. Most names in English are attempts to translate Linearbandkeramik.
Since Starčevo–Körös pottery was earlier than the LBK and was located in a contiguous food-producing region, early investigators looked for its precedents there. Much of the Starčevo–Körös pottery displays painted decorative patterns composed of spirals, converging bands, and vertical bands. The LBK appears to imitate—and often refine—these convolutions with incised lines, hence the use of “linear” to distinguish the incised band ware from earlier painted band ware.
The name depends on specialized meanings of "linear" and "band", whether in English or German. These words, without archaeological qualifiers, do not accurately describe the decoration. There are few bands running horizontally around the vessels, and the incised lines are primarily curved rather than straight.

Geography and chronology

It began in regions of densest occupation on the middle Danube and spread over about along the rivers in 360 years. The rate of expansion was therefore about per year.
The LBK was concentrated somewhat inland from the coastal areas; i.e., it is not evidenced in Denmark or the northern coastal strips of Germany and Poland, or the coast of the Black Sea in Romania.
The northern coastal regions remained occupied by Mesolithic cultures exploiting the then rich Atlantic salmon runs.
There are lighter concentrations of LBK in the Netherlands, such as at Elsloo, Netherlands, with the sites of Darion, Remicourt, Fexhe, or Waremme-Longchamps and at the mouths of the Oder and Vistula.
Evidently, the Neolithics and Mesolithics were not excluding each other.
The LBK at maximum extent ranged from about the line of the Seine–Oise eastward to the line of the Dnieper, and southward to the line of the upper Danube down to the big bend. An extension ran through the Southern Bug valley, leaped to the valley of the Dniester, and swerved southward from the middle Dniester to the lower Danube in eastern Romania, east of the Carpathians.

Periodization

A significant number of C-14 dates has been estimated for the LBK, making possible statistical analyses, which have been performed on different sample groups. One such analysis by Stadler and Lennais sets 68.2% confidence limits at about 5430–5040 BC; that is, 68.2% of possible dates allowed by variation of the major factors that influence measurement, calculation, and calibration fall within that range. The 95.4% confidence interval is 5600–4750 BC.
Data continue to be acquired and therefore any single analysis only serves as a rough guideline. Overall, it is probable that the Linear Pottery culture spanned several hundred years of continental European prehistory in the late sixth and early fifth millennia BC, with local variations. Data from Belgium indicate a late survival of LBK there, as late as 4100 BC.
The Linear Pottery culture was not the only culture in prehistoric Europe.
It is distinguished from the Neolithic cultures, which is done by dividing the Neolithic of Europe into chronological phases.
These have varied a great deal. An approximation is:
The last phase is no longer the end of the Neolithic. A "Final Neolithic" has been added to the transition between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. All numbers depend to some extent on the geographic region.
The pottery styles of the LBK allow some division of its window in time. Conceptual schemes have varied somewhat. One is:
  • Early: The Eastern and Western LBK cultures, originating on the middle Danube
  • Middle: Musical Note pottery – the incised lines of the decoration are broken or terminated by punctures, or "strokes", giving the appearance of musical notes. The culture expanded to its maximum extent, and regional variants appeared. One variant is the late Bug-Dniester culture.
  • Late: Stroked pottery – lines of punctures are substituted for the incised lines.

    Early or Western

The early or earliest Western Linear Pottery culture began conventionally at 5500 BC, possibly as early as 5700 BC, developed on the middle Danube, including western Hungary, and was carried down the Rhine, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula. It is sometimes called the Central European Linear Pottery to distinguish it from the ALP phase of the Eastern Linear Pottery culture. In Hungarian, it is called dunántúli vonaldíszes kerámia, translated as "Transdanubian Linear Pottery". A number of local styles and phases of ware are defined.
The end of the early phase can be dated to its arrival in the Netherlands at about 5200 BC. The population there was already food-producing to some extent. The early phase went on there, but meanwhile the Music Note Pottery phase of the Middle Linear Band Pottery culture appeared in Austria at about 5200 BC and moved eastward into Romania and Ukraine. The late phase, or Stroked Pottery culture evolved in central Europe and went eastward, moving down the Vistula and Elbe.

Eastern

The Eastern Linear Pottery culture developed in eastern Hungary and Transylvania roughly contemporaneously with, perhaps a few hundred years after, the Transdanubian. The great plain there had been occupied by the Starčevo-Körös-Criş culture of "gracile Mediterraneans" from the Balkans as early as 6100 BC. Hertelendi and others give a reevaluated date range of 5860–5330 for the Early Neolithic, 5950–5400 for the Körös. The Körös Culture went as far north as the edge of the upper Tisza and stopped. North of it the Alföld plain and the Bükk Mountains were intensively occupied by Mesolithics thriving on the flint tool trade.
At around 5330 BC, the classical Alföld culture of the LBK appeared to the north of the Körös culture and flourished until about 4940. This time also is the Middle Neolithic. The Alföld culture has been abbreviated AVK from its Hungarian name, Alföldi Vonaldíszes Kerámia, or ALP for Alföld Linear Pottery culture, the earliest variant of the Eastern Linear Pottery culture.
In one view, the AVK came "directly out of" the Körös. The brief, short-ranged Szatmár group on the northern edge of the Körös culture seems transitional. Some place it with the Körös, some with the AVK. The latter's pottery is decorated with white painted bands with incised edges. Körös pottery was painted.
As is presented above, however, no major population movements occurred across the border. The Körös went on into a late phase in its accustomed place, 5770–5230. The late Körös is also called the Proto-Vinča, which was succeeded by the Vinča-Tordo, 5390–4960. There is no necessity to view the Körös and the AVK as closely connected. The AVK economy is somewhat different: it used cattle and swine, both of which occur wild in the region, instead of the sheep of the Balkans and Mediterranean. The percentage of wild animal bones is greater. Barley, millet and lentils were added.
Around 5100 or so, towards the end of the Middle Neolithic, the classical AVK descended into a complex of pronounced local groups called the Szakálhát-Esztár-Bükk, which flourished about 5260–4880:
  • The Szakálhát group was located on the lower and middle Tisza and the Körös Rivers, taking the place of the previous Körös culture. Its pottery went on with the painted white bands and incised edge.
  • The Esztár group to the north featured pottery with bands painted in dark paint.
  • The Szilmeg group was located in the foothills of the Bükk Mountains.
  • The Tiszadob group was located in the Sajó Valley.
  • The Bükk group was located in the mountains.
These are all characterised by finely crafted and decorated ware. The entire group is considered by the majority of the sources listed in this article to have been in the LBK. Before the chronology and many of the sites were known, the Bükk was thought to be a major variant; in fact, Gimbutas at one point believed it to be identical with the Eastern Linear Pottery culture. Since 1991, the predominance of the Alföld has come to light.
The end of the Eastern Linear Pottery culture and the LBK is less certain. The Szakálhát-Esztár-Bükk descended into another Late Neolithic legacy complex, the Tisza-Hérpály-Csöszhalom, which is either not LBK or is transitional from the LBK to the Tiszapolgar, a successor culture.