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Early Neolithic Cultures c.4000-3500 BC |
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Farming traditions and monument-building firmly established themselves across Britain, Ireland, and northern France around 4000 BC, carried by expanding agro-pastoral populations which transformed primeval woodlands into managed agricultural plots. In regions such as the Alpine lakes of Switzerland, Germany, and France communities built systematic, lakeside, or marshland settlements. The uniform, widespread linear pottery networks of earlier eras were now fragmenting into distinct regional groups. Settlements in some areas either became more dispersed or shifted to defensible positions and wetland-edge locations. The Cardium Pottery culture was an outlier in this regard, being much slower to break up into many regional cultures than had been Central Europe's Linear Pottery culture. The Stentinello in southern and central Italy was one of the early breakaways in this regard. In the north the Swifterbant was fast fading as climatic changes at the end of the fifth millennium BC caused increasing flooding which forced surviving settlers to favour 'donk' settlements. This would result in the brief appearance of the Hazedonk 3 group in its southern areas before the culture disappeared altogether to be submerged within the Funnelbeaker. A clickable version of this map is available for desktop displays. To select a territory for further information, click anywhere within its borders.
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Original text and map copyright © P L Kessler and the History Files. An original feature for the History Files. Go back or return home. |
