Эпоха неолита в Европе

Era of pre history

The European Neolithic is the period from the arrival of Neolithic (New Stone Age) technology and the associated population of Early European Farmers in Europe, c. 7000 BC (the approximate time of the first farming societies in Greece) until c. 2000–1700 BC (the beginning of Bronze Age Europe with the Nordic Bronze Age). The Neolithic overlaps the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe as cultural changes moved from the southeast to northwest at about 1 km/year – this is called the Neolithic Expansion. The duration of the Neolithic varies from place to place, its end marked by the introduction of bronze tools: in southeast Europe it is approximately 4,000 years (i. e. 7000 BC–3000 BC) while in parts of Northwest Europe it is just under 3,000 years (c. 4500 BC–1700 BC). In parts of Europe, notably the Balkans, the period after c. 5000 BC is known as the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) due to the invention of copper smelting and the prevalence of copper tools, weapons and other artifacts. The spread of the Neolithic from the Pre Pottery Neolithic in the Near East to Europe was first studied quantitatively in the 1970s, when a sufficient number of 14C age determinations for early Neolithic sites had become available.

Regardless of specific chronology, many European Neolithic groups share basic characteristics, such as living in small scale, family based communities, subsisting on domesticated plants and animals supplemented with the collection of wild plant foods and with hunting, and producing hand made pottery, that is, pottery made without the potter's wheel. Polished stone axes lie at the heart of the neolithic (new stone) culture, enabling forest clearance for agriculture and production of wood for dwellings, as well as fuel. There are also many differences, with some Neolithic communities in southeastern Europe living in heavily fortified settlements of 3,000–4,000 people (e. g., Sesklo in Greece) whereas Neolithic groups in Britain were small (possibly 50–100 people) and highly mobile cattle herders. The details of the origin, chronology, social organization, subsistence practices and ideology of the peoples of Neolithic Europe are obtained from archaeology, and not historical records, since these people left none. Since the 1970s, population genetics has provided independent data on the population history of Neolithic Europe, including migration events and genetic relationships with peoples in South Asia. A further independent tool, linguistics, has contributed hypothetical reconstructions of early European languages and family trees with estimates of dating of splits, in particular theories on the relationship between speakers of Indo European languages and Neolithic peoples. Some archaeologists believe that the expansion of Neolithic peoples from southwest Asia into Europe, marking the eclipse of Mesolithic culture, coincided with the introduction of Indo European speakers, whereas other archaeologists and many linguists believe the Indo European languages were introduced from the Pontic Caspian steppe during the succeeding Bronze Age.

There is no direct evidence of the languages spoken in the Neolithic. Some proponents of paleolinguistics attempt to extend the methods of historical linguistics to the Stone Age, but this has little academic support. Criticising scenarios which envision for the Neolithic only a small number of language families spread over huge areas of Europe (as in modern times), Donald Ringe has argued on general principles of language geography (as concerns "tribal", pre state societies), and the scant remains of (apparently indigenous) non Indo European languages attested in ancient inscriptions, that Neolithic Europe must have been a place of great linguistic diversity, with many language families with no recoverable linguistic links to each other, much like western North America prior to European colonisation. Discussion of hypothetical languages spoken in the European Neolithic is divided into two topics, Indo European languages and "Pre Indo European" languages. Early Indo European languages are usually assumed to have reached Danubian (and maybe Central) Europe in the Chalcolithic or early Bronze Age, e. g. with the Corded Ware or Beaker cultures (see also Kurgan hypothesis for related discussions). The Anatolian hypothesis postulates arrival of Indo European languages with the early Neolithic. Old European hydronymy is taken by Hans Krahe to be the oldest reflection of the early presence of Indo European in Europe. Theories of "Pre Indo European" languages in Europe are built on scant evidence. The Basque language is the best candidate for a descendant of such a language, but since Basque is a language isolate, there is no comparative evidence to build upon. Theo Vennemann nevertheless postulates a "Vasconic" family, which he supposes had co existed with an "Atlantic" or "Semitidic" (i. e., para Semitic) group. Another candidate is a Tyrrhenian family which would have given rise to Etruscan and Raetic in the Iron Age, and possibly also Aegean languages such as Minoan or Pelasgian in the Bronze Age. In the north, a similar scenario to Indo European is thought to have occurred with Uralic languages expanding in from the east. In particular, while the Sami languages of the indigenous Sami people belong in the Uralic family, they show considerable substrate influence, thought to represent one or more extinct original languages. The Sami are estimated to have adopted a Uralic language less than 2,500 years ago. Some traces of indigenous languages of the Baltic area have been suspected in the Finnic languages as well, but these are much more modest. There are early loanwords from unidentified non IE languages in other Uralic languages of Europe as well. Guus Kroonen brought up the so called "Agricultural Substrate Hypothesis", based on the comparison of presumable Pre Germanic and Pre Greek substrate lexicon (especially agricultural terms without clear IE etymologies). Kroonen links that substrate to the gradual spread of agriculture in Neolithic Europe from Anatolia and the Balkans, and associates the Pre Germanic agricultural substrate language with the Linear Pottery culture. The prefix *a and the suffix * it are the most apparent linguistic markers by which a small group of "Agricultural" substrate words i. e. *arwīt ("pea") or *gait ("goat") can be isolated from the rest of the Proto Germanic lexicon. According to Aljoša Šorgo, there are at least 36 Proto Germanic lexical items very likely originating from the "agricultural" substrate language (or a group of closely related languages). It is proposed by Šorgo that the Agricultural substrate was characterized by a four vowel system of */æ/ */ɑ/ */i/ */u/, the presence of pre nasalized stops, the absence of a semi vowel */j/, a mobile stress accent, and reduction of unstressed vowels.

Some Neolithic cultures listed above are known for constructing megaliths. These occur primarily on the Atlantic coast of Europe, but there are also megaliths on western Mediterranean islands. c. 5000 BCE: Constructions in Portugal (Évora). Emergence of the Atlantic Neolithic period, the age of agriculture along the fertile shores of Europe. c. 4800 BCE: Constructions in Brittany (Barnenez) and Poitou (Bougon). c. 4000 BCE: Constructions in Brittany (Carnac), Portugal (Lisbon), Spain (Galicia and Andalusia), France (central and southern), Corsica, England, Wales, Northern Ireland (Banbridge) and elsewhere. c. 3700 BCE: Constructions in Ireland (Carrowmore and elsewhere) and Spain (Dolmen of Menga, Antequera Dolmens Site, Málaga). c. 3600 BCE: Constructions in England (Maumbury Rings and Godmanchester), and Malta (Ġgantija and Mnajdra temples). c. 3500 BCE: Constructions in Spain (Dolmen of Viera, Antequera Dolmens Site, Málaga, and Guadiana), Ireland (south west), France (Arles and the north), north west and central Italy (Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta, Liguria and Tuscany), Mediterranean islands (Sardinia, Sicily, Malta) and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, Belgium (north east) and Germany (central and south west). c. 3400 BCE: Constructions in Ireland (Newgrange), Netherlands (north east), Germany (northern and central) Sweden and Denmark. c. 3200 BCE: Constructions in Malta (Ħaġar Qim and Tarxien). c. 3000 BCE: Constructions in France (Saumur, Dordogne, Languedoc, Biscay, and the Mediterranean coast), Spain (Los Millares), Belgium (Ardennes), and Orkney, as well as the first henges (circular earthworks) in Britain. c. 2900 BCE: Constructions in Spain (Tholos of El Romeral, Antequera Dolmens Site, Málaga)
c. 2800 BCE: Climax of the megalithic Funnel beaker culture in Denmark, and the construction of the henge at Stonehenge.