Enriqueta Vento Mir – Pierre Guerin koord.: Early Farmers in Europe - A korai földművelők Európában (1999)

Introduction

minor role in the life of the human groups, and thanks to that, the demand for the continous wandering ceased to exist and permanent settlements could occur in formerly infavourable environments as well. Stable, long-lasting houses were built and such tools were developed, which made possible not just the storing and cooking of food, but the preparing of other raw materials needed for the settled way of life. The manner of procuring food has changed considerably, the family became the main productive unit, and thereupon, the social organisations underwent slow transformations. The relations of individuals and community were placed on new bases and a new ideology was evolved. All these transformations began in the global warming period marking the end of the Ice Age, but in the different regions of Europe these changes came into operation in different timepoints. Both from the typological comparisons of the archaeological material and from the calibrated radiocarbon data of the different find-contexts derives equally, that the food-producing economy and the related neolithic tool industry were developed in the Near East, in the territories of the today Israel, Jordan, Siria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. It happened in this region the initial cultivation of cereal and leguminous plants and the domestication of sheep, goat, cattle and pig. This was the natural environmental zone for the wild varieties of the above species. The long transition period leading from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic here lasted from the 10-9th Millennia to the 8-7th Millennia B.C. and we can view this time through the developement of the Natufien-culture at those sites such as Jericho, Ain Mallaha, Tell-Abu-Hureira, Mureibit, Cayönü, Jarmo, Ali Kosh or Zawi-Chemi Shanidar. This was the period of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. The making of ceramic vessels began in the 8th Millennium B.C. in some sites of this region, almost one thousand years earlier, than in the first such places in Europe. Here must be mentioned Catal Hüyük, the site in South-Turkey, which is lying closest to Europe and where the material remains of the mature Neolithic was excavated in such a profusion and complexity, which is unparalleled up to now. Catal Hüyük and the younger but also well known site Hacilar are not only lying close to Southeast-Europe, but their finds show considerable similarity to the southeastern european early neolithic findmaterial. This similarity reach such a degree that some kind of relation can be supposed between the two territories. While the calibrated C14 dates of Catal Hüyük are between 7200-6500 B.C. and those of Hacilar are between 6500-5500 B.C., the dates of the earliest neolithic sites of Southeast Europe such as Achilleion, Sesklo or Nea Nikomedeia are not earlier than 6500 B.C. This time-difference shows clearly the precedence of the turkish and near eastern sites. This is the reason why the emergence of the europoean Neolithic are traced back to cultural or ethnical influences from the Near East. It must be mentioned, that based upon first of all the lowest cultural layers of Knossos and the mesolith layers of the Franchti-cave there were also experiments for outlining a southeast european pre-pottery neolithic period, nevertheless these early layers seem to be problematic and their dates do not even go back much before 7000 B.C. 10 The Earliest Neolithic in the Near East.