Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2018 - 46

This antler harpoon and three fragmentary antler axes
(clockwise from lower right) typify the kinds of tools made by
Mesolithic people.

Excavations near
E
the mouth of the
th
Vistula River on the
V
Baltic show that there
B
were short-lived Linear Potw
ttery settlements there around
the time farmers first reached the
region, but those were abandoned within a generation or two.
Apart from that experiment, a roughly 60- to 150-mile-wide
area separated Mesolithic and Neolithic settlements for the
next 1,500 years.
Ever since this long-lasting boundary was identified thanks to the introduction of radiocarbon
dating, archaeologists have speculated about
the nature of the relationship between these two
vastly different cultures. "We've always thought
hunter-gatherers would have wanted everything
that the farmers produced and that they would
have been dazzled by the range of prestige and
practical goods the farmers had," says RowleyConwy. By assuming Mesolithic people would
have had "cattle envy" and greatly desired Neolithic goods, archaeologists imagined the foragers
existing on the periphery of the farming world as
"clients" of their more sophisticated neighbors. Scholars
assumed foragers would have traded forest products such as
fur and honey in exchange for meat, grains, and stone hand
axes, which would have accorded the foragers who obtained
them great prestige. Competition for these precious Neolithic
artifacts and food products would have eventually destabilized
Mesolithic society by introducing disruptive social hierarchies
into previously egalitarian Mesolithic settlements. Some
scholars have posited that Mesolithic women would have even
deserted foraging societies to marry farmers, leading to a net
loss of population in hunter-gatherer settlements. According
to this way of thinking, Neolithic people steadily undermined
the Mesolithic way of life until it was eventually unsustainable.
"But that doesn't make much sense," says Rowley-Conwy.
He points out that while there is good evidence for Neolithic
hand axes at Mesolithic sites, they are often found broken and
in waste pits. Surely, if Neolithic hand axes were symbolically
important and brought their Mesolithic owners prestige, they
would have been buried with the stone tools. And yet, although
there are numerous Mesolithic burials dating to this period, no
46

hand axes, or any other Neolithic artifacts, have yet been
h
ffound in them. In fact, some Neolithic people were actually buried with Mesolithic-style artifacts, such as decorated
al
bone and antler objects similar to ornaments created by the
b
foragers, who relied on bone and antler technology. Another
type of Mesolithic artifact, an antler adze known as a T-ax,
has also been found in Neolithic burials. And the remains of
at least one Mesolithic bow have been unearthed at a Linear
Pottery site in Germany.
What if, asks Bogucki, it was the Neolithic people who
accorded Mesolithic objects prestige? After all, Mesolithic
hunting and fishing technology would have been much more
advanced than Neolithic practices. While settling in an uncertain new land, perhaps wild game and fish were important
sources of food when crops failed. The Neolithic people may
have eyed Mesolithic fishing nets, bows, and canoes with
considerable envy. Bogucki also points out that their skill with
watercraft may have meant Mesolithic voyagers could have
dictated the terms of contact with Neolithic settlements along
rivers upstream.
The fact that Mesolithic people began making
p
pottery around this time is another long-standing
p
piece of evidence thought to demonstrate the
in
influence of Neolithic farmers on their hunterggatherer neighbors. But more recent analysis
o
of Ertebølle ceramics shows they have more in

A Mesolithic pot (top), likely modeled on the ceramics of
foraging people to the east of the Baltic, differs markedly from
those (above) made by Neolithic farmers.
ARCHAEOLOGY * May/June 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - May/June 2018