Clash of Cultures – Neolithic Europe vs. Middle Eastern Innovators

Europe’s neolithic culture is not very well documented on the World Wide Web. The vast majority of neolithic Websites seem to promote tours or just gloss over oft-published facts and ideas (many of which have since been discarded). You only rarely find a Website that provides in-depth discussion of Neolithic Europe.

Research into megalithic structures such as Stonehenge and Irish passage tombs (especially Newgrange) has revealed that western Europe’s neolithic peoples probably shared a widespread culture that entailed travel between distant regions, extensive trade networks, and possibly even shared or similar languages. Some researchers argue that neolithic artists in Brittany and Ireland may have shared styles and beliefs.

I recently watched a documentary on a PBS station that awakened a new interest in neolithic archaeology in me. I have not really looked deeply into Neolithic matters for many years. It just seemed like we knew so little about Neolithic cultures that all that could be said has been said.

Naturally, science progresses along quietly, gathering new information piece by piece and challenging old ideas. One of the more interesting topics covered by the documentary was the belief system of the Neolithic tomb builders in ancient Ireland. Tombs can only reveal a small part of the picture of any culture’s lifestyle but we are beginning to understand events in Neolithic Ireland much better.

Ireland has preserved more Neolithic structures than any other region in Europe or the Middle East. Naturally, what we can learn about Neolithic culture from Ireland will be largely regional in nature, but we have gleaned some fascinating clues about what may have been widespread culture in Neolithic Europe. This ancient culture has been studied for decades but was not well understood.

Based on Irish (and some English) discoveries, archaeologists now suggest that the Neolithic peoples may have built very sophisticated, large communities. Hundreds of families appear to have come together periodically in special locations for both subsistence and religious activities. We understand now that Neolithic peoples were not nearly as isolated as once believed. They cooperated and communicated across large distances.

The Irish Neolithic tombs demonstrate a clear progression in styles and placements that seem to reflect evolutionary changes in cultural practices and beliefs. Other evidence, such as the study of tree-ring data, indicates that some significant natural events may have played a role in the transitions between Neolithic practices across the millennia.

For example, analysis of the Irish tombs suggests to some archaeologists that somewhere in the past Neolithic peoples abandoned their devotion to an Earth-goddess in favor of a Sky-god. The tree-ring analysis indicates that a lengthy drought (lasting as much as 18-20 years) may have coincided with at least two such shifts in tomb construction activity.

Climate change that induces a generation’s worth of hardship could easily explain such shifts. Occurring about once every 1200 years, these tree-ring disasters seem to coincide with significant upheavals in eastern lands, such as the so-called Greek Dark Ages that began around about 1200 BCE. Looking farther back, tree-ring analysis suggests another such period occurred around 2400 BCE to 2300 BCE.

The period from 2400 BCE to 1200 BCE matches another significant transition in northern Europe: the apparent arrival of the ancestors of the modern Scandinavians in the Baltic area. Recent DNA studies seem to confirm what archaeology has already suggested: that Scandinavia went through a period of upheaval in which invaders displaced older Neolithic peoples.

Other research suggests that prehistoric inhabitants of the area were unable to digest milk, indicating they had no relationship with cattle — or at least not a dairy relationship with them. Recent studies indicate that milk-based agriculture may have started in central Europe around 7,500 years ago — a time-frame several thousand years after Catal Huyuk’s well-attested cattle-raising culture.

The leap from raising cattle for food to milking them cannot yet be explained, but it does appear that as agriculturists moved into Europe around 7,500 years ago they brought Middle Eastern pigs with them. Pigs and cattle were thus extremely important to the colonists who went on to conquer Europe.

The older Neolithic peoples were survivors of the last glaciation period — the so-called “ice age” that saw the end of the Neanderthals. It is now believed that early Europeans mingled with Neanderthals, preserving at least part of the Neanderthal genome in today’s European population (and descendants). Hunting and gathering were important to those Neolithic peoples, but we now know that they clearly had the time to develop sophisticated technologies and architectural engineering skills at least a thousand years before Egyptians began building pyramids.

The ability to movie dozens of large stones weighing many tons implies a sophisticated social structure with one or more elevated groups — castes. Neolithic Europeans appear to have had the equivalent of priests and/or kings who wielded immense social power. So one must ask why these Neolithic societies were so easily displaced by the agriculturists who emigrated from the Middle East.

After all, if the Neolithic clans practiced long-range trade and were able to hunt and fish on a scale that supported communities with hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, they should have presented an imposing barrier to the easy expansion of farmers who raised cattle and pigs. The cattle and pigs might have been vulnerable to raiding (a practice that became common in Celtic societies, as evidenced by Scottish and Irish history and tradition).

It has been argued that the introduction of metallurgy to Europe changed the balance of power. However, North American history teaches us that primitive peoples quickly adapt more superior weapon technologies when defending themselves against invasions. The Amerindians proved themselves to be capable fighters and enemies. They lost control of the continent because of European migration, the devastation of disease, and the development of nationalistic traditions within the United States and other nations.

Nationalism is not attested in the transition between Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures (outside of southeastern Europe). In truth, the earliest true nationalism probably did not exist prior to the Roman Republic — which arose centuries after the Neolithic cultures had largely vanished.

The great Indo-European migrations seem to coincide with these tree-ring disasters, which indicate that radical climactic change inflicted great deprivation upon Neolithic socities. Their cultures, lacking agricultural support, would not have tolerated climactic disasters nearly as well as the farmers and herders moving in from the east. Hunter-gatherers would have to pick up and move in search of new game and other foods. Their departures from arable lands would have presented opportunities for expansionistic farming groups.

In some cases the hunter-gatherers must have clashed with the farmers. In other cases they must have adopted the farming way of life, perhaps merging with newer peoples. The upheavals in their cultures would have broken age-old traditions, bonds between families, and led to the breakdown of once unified communities.

Isolation would have weakened many Neolithic clans and led to a new generation questioning the values of the old generation. In fact, it’s human nature for people to dream and think and question where we are going in every generation. That is not a modern phenomenon. Neolithic cultures must have adapted to many changes within their possible 1200-year cycles. We’re only seeing the largest waves of change, the most radical and significant evolutions in their values and beliefs.

New ideas often spread farther and faster during hard times. People become desperate for relief from their suffering. The new idea may be as simple as “Let’s leave this cursed land and find a new home” or as radical as “Let us conquer our neighbors, enslave them, and live a life that we rightly deserve!”

A new idea might spread like wildfire if communities are in upheaval and fleeing in disarray. Look at how radical agents are able to organize refugee communities in the wake of modern wars and disasters. New social power structures emerge as the old leaders fail to cope with disaster and defeat and new leaders present themselves.

Should it have been any different 4,000 years ago? There seems no reason to suggest that people living 100 generations in the past would have been less intent on overcoming adversity than people today. Nor should we assume they were incapable of inflicting atrocities on each other. In fact, we know from Chinese history that the first emperor slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his enemies. The Romans wiped out whole tribes in their conflicts. Push the clock back 1500-2000 years earlier and smaller groups of Europeans might have been wiping each other off the map.

We have uncovered evidence of ancient massacres among other peoples, including Native American cultures in pre-Columbian North and South America. The lack of such evidence in our record of prehistoric Europe so far only leaves an open question. We have some idea of what to look for even if we never find it. But as we continue to learn about climate change and apply that knowledge to our study of history and prehistory, we may come to the realization that many of history’s (and prehistory’s) great upheavals owe something to changes in weather patterns.

To primitive men, it must have looked very much like their old gods were forgetting about them, or perhaps were crushed by the gods of new peoples who had only recently arrived on the horizon. The collapse of Neolithic cultures cannot be due to a simple process. There must have been several factors that affected Neolithic peoples enough that they either vanished or they merged with more advanced peoples.