Hunter-gatherers in northern Europe withstood the spread of agriculture for 1,500 years
WHEN PEOPLE IN THE Near East’s Fertile Crescent first learned how to domesticate animals and cultivate crops some 11,000 years ago, they dramatically altered the course of human history. Known as the Neolithic Revolution, this radical event transformed mobile hunter-gatherers to sedentary food producers, fundamentally changing humans’ relationship to the environment around them. “Adopting agriculture is only possible after hunter gatherers abandon their egalitarian ethos and invest in the idea of owning land,” says Princeton University archaeologist Peter Bogucki. “It involves a fundamental shift in belief systems.” Certainly farming was a successful way of life, and it spread rapidly beyond the Fertile Crescent. The first Neolithic people arrived in Greece around 6800 b.c., b and farming then moved across the European continent by an average of about five miles a year, according to one estimate. It is thought that farmers displaced or absorbed the European natives, so-called Mesolithic people, who moved their camps with the seasons and fished, hunted, and foraged just as their ancestors had for thousands of years.
Esta historia es de la edición May/June 2018 de Archaeology.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición May/June 2018 de Archaeology.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
A Very Close Encounter
New research has shown that human figures painted in red on a rock art panel in central Montana depict individuals engaged in a life-or-death encounter during an especially fraught historical moment.
A Sword for the Ages
A zigzag pattern, now tinged with the green-blue patina of oxidized metal, adorns the octagonal hilt of a rare sword dating to the Middle Bronze Age in Germany (1600-1200 B.C.) that was recently excavated in the Bavarian town of Nördlingen.
Ancient Egyptian Astrology
For centuries, layers of soot have coated the ceilings and columns in the entrance hall of Egypt's Temple of Esna. Now, an Egyptian-German team of researchers, led by Hisham El-Leithy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Christian Leitz of the University of Tübingen, is restoring the temple's vibrant painted reliefs to their original brilliance.
BRONZE AGE POWER PLAYERS
How Hittite kings forged diplomatic ties with a shadowy Greek city-state
RITES OF REBELLION
Archaeologists unearth evidence of a 500-year-old resistance movement high in the Andes
Secrets of Egypt's Golden Boy
CT scans offer researchers a virtual look deep inside a mummy's coffin
When Lions Were King
Across the ancient world, people adopted the big cats as sacred symbols of power and protection
UKRAINE'S LOST CAPITAL
In 1708, Peter the Great destroyed Baturyn, a bastion of Cossack independence and culture
LAPAKAHI VILLAGE, HAWAII
Standing beside a cove on the northwest coast of the island of Hawaii, the fishing village of Lapakahi, which is surrounded by black lava stone walls, was once home to generations of fishers and farmers known throughout the archipelago for their mastery of la'au lapa'au, or the practice of traditional Hawaiian medicine. \"
A MORE COMFORTABLE RIDE
Although the date is much debated, most scholars believe people 5,000 years ago. For thousands of years after that, they did so without saddles. \"In comparison with horse riding, the development of saddles began relatively late, when riders began to care more about comfort and safety in addition to the horse's health,\" says University of Zurich archaeologist Patrick Wertmann.