Abstract
This paper argues for a change in how the concept of culture is perceived in prehistoric European archaeology. Rather than as a set of prescriptive and fixed norms, culture should be related back to the daily practice of actual communities, its prime context of reproduction. In this view, culture is an enabling medium, not a restrictive codex. We illustrate this point by comparing burial practices in settlements of the Neolithic LBK culture (ca. 5600–4900 cal bc) in Lower Bavaria and the Paris Basin. Instead of evaluating these burial episodes by how well or poorly they correspond to long-established research expectations, which were focused on defining LBK-wide “cultural norms”, we foreground the performative aspects of burial and trace the establishment of micro-traditions at specific sites. This shows that the most challenging questions connected with using the concept of culture in prehistory lie in the way in which it is enmeshed in and lends a basic framework to action at a variety of social scales, without ultimately determining its outcome.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Barnard, A. and Spencer, J. (1996). Culture. In Barnard, A. and Spencer, J. (eds), Encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology, Routledge, London, pp. 136–43.
Barrett, J. (2001). Agency, the duality of structure, and the problem of the archaeological record. In Hodder, I. (ed.), Archaeological theory today, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 141–64.
Battaglia, D. (1990). On the Bones of the Serpent. Person, memory, and mortality in Sabarl island society, Chicago University Press, Chicago.
Bentley, R.A., Price, T.D., Lüning, J., Gronenborn, D. and Fullagar, P.D. (2002). Prehistoric migration in Europe: strontium isotope analysis of early Neolithic skeletons. Current Anthropology 43: 799–804.
Bentley, R.A., Krause, R., Price, T.D. and Kaufman, B. (2003). Human mobility at the early Neolithic settlement of Vaihingen, Germany: evidence from strontium isotope analysis. Archaeometry 45: 481–96.
Bickle, P. (2008). The life and death of the longhouse: daily life during and after the Linearbandkeramik in the Paris Basin. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Cardiff University, Cardiff.
Bickle, P. and Hofmann, D. (2007). Moving on: the contribution of isotope studies to the early Neolithic of Central Europe. Antiquity 81: 1029–41.
Bickle, P. and Hofmann, D. (2009). Researching across borders. In Hofmann, D. and Bickle, P. (eds), Creating communities: new advances in central European Neolithic research. Oxbow, Oxford, pp. 1–10.
Bloch, M. (1998). How we think they think. Anthropological approaches to cognition, memory and literacy, Westerview Press, Oxford.
Bonnardin, S. (2003). La parure funéraire des 6e et 5e millénaires avant J.-C. dans le Bassin parsisien et la plaine du Rhin supérieur: traces d’usure, fonctionnement et fonction des objets de parure. In Chambon, P. and Leclerc, J. (eds), Les pratiques funéraires Néolithiques avant 3500 av. J.-C. en France et dans les régions limitrophes, Éditions Errance, Paris, pp. 99–113.
Borić, D. (2002). Apotropaism and the temporality of colours: colourful Mesolithic-Neolithic seasons in the Danube Gorges. In Jones, A. and MacGregor, G. (eds), Colouring the past, Berg, Oxford, pp. 23–43.
Borić, D. (2003). ‘Deep time’ metaphor: mnemonic and apotropaic practices at Lepenski Vir. Journal of Social Archaeology 1: 46–74.
Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (translated by R. Nice, first published 1972), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). A logic of practice (translated by R. Nice, first published 1980), Polity Press, Cambridge.
Bourdieu, P. (2002). Habitus. In Hillier, J. and Rooksby, E. (eds), Habitus: a sense of place, Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 27–34.
Bradley, R. (2001). Orientations and origins: a symbolic dimension of the longhouse in Neolithic Europe. Antiquity 75: 50–6.
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of ‘sex’. Routledge, London.
Chartier, M. (1991). Paléoenvironnements de la vallée de l’Aisne à l’Holocène. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Université de Paris 7, Paris.
Childe, V.G. (1929). The Danube in Prehistory. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Clifford, J. (1988). The predicament of culture. 20th century ethnography, literature and art. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
Constantin, C. (1985). Fin du Rubané, céramique du Limbourg et post-Rubané: le Néolithique le plus ancien en Bassin parisien et en Hainaut. British Archaeological Reports International Series 273, Oxford.
Constantin, C. and Blanchet, J.-C. (1998). Le nord de la France (Bassin parisien). In Guilaine, J. (ed.), Atlas du Néolithique Européen: l’Europe occidentale, University of Liège, Liège, pp. 585 –651.
Constantin, C., Farruggia, J.-P., Bonnardin, S., Guichard, Y. and Sidéra, I. (2003). Les tombes rubanées de la vallée de l’Aisne. Présentation. In Chambon, P. and Leclerc, J. (eds), Les pratiques funéraires Néolithiques avant 3500 av. J.-C. en France et dans les régions limitrophes, Éditions Errance, Paris, pp. 55–63.
Coudart, A. (1998). Architecture et société néolithique: L’unité et la variance de la maison danubienne. Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de L’Homme, Paris.
Coudart, A. and Plateaux, M. (1978). Le site Néolithique et Chalcolithique de Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes (Les Fontinettes- les Gravelines). Les Fouilles Protohistoriques dans la Vallée de l’Aisne 6: 35–49.
Dubouloz, J., Le Bolloch, M. and Robert, B. (1995). Historique des fouilles: Les fouilles anciennes sur le commune de Berry-au-Bac. In Ilett, M. and Plateaux, M. (eds), Le site Néolithique de Berry-au-Bac ‘Le Chemin de la Pêcherie’, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris, pp. 23–38.
Farruggia, J-P. and Guichard, Y. 1995. Les sépultures. In Ilett, M. and Plateaux, M. (eds), Le site néolithique de Berry-au-Bac ‘le Chemin de la Pêcherie’, Centre national de la recherché scientifique, Paris, pp. 157–64.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Outline of the theory of structuration. Polity Press, Cambridge.
Golitko, M. and Keeley, L. (2006). Beating ploughshares back into swords: warfare in the Linearbandkeramik. Antiquity 81: 332–42.
Gronenborn, D. (1999). Variations on a basic theme: the transition to farming in southern central Europe. Journal of World Prehistory 13: 123–210.
Gronenborn, D. (2007). Climate change and socio-political crises: some cases from Neolithic central Europe. In Pollard, T. and Banks, I. (eds), War and sacrifice: studies in the archaeology of conflict, Brill, Leiden, pp. 13–32.
Hachem, L. (2000). New observations on the Bandkeramik house and social organization. Antiquity 74: 308–12.
Harrison, R. (2004). Shared landscape: archaeologies of attachment and the pastoral industry in New South Wales. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney.
Hofmann, D. (2006). Being Neolithic: life, death and transformation in Neolithic Lower Bavaria. Unpublished PhD thesis, Cardiff University, Cardiff.
Hofmann, D. (2009). Cemetery and settlement burials in the Lower Bavarian LBK. In Hofmann, D. and Bickle, P. (eds), Creating communities: new advances in central European Neolithic research. Oxbow, Oxford, pp. 220–34.
Ilett, M., Plateaux, M. and Coudart, A. (1980). Le site néolithique et chalcolithique de Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes ‘Les Fontinettes’, ‘les Gravelines’ 1979–1980. Les fouilles protohistoriques dans la vallée de l’Aisne 8: 21–37.
Ilett, M., Constantin, C., Coudart, A. and Demoule, J.-P. (1982). The late Bandkeramik of the Aisne valley: environment and spatial organisation. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 15: 45–61.
Ingold, T. (1994). Introduction to culture. In Ingold, T. (ed.), Companion Encyclopedia of anthropology, Routledge, London, pp. 329–49.
Ingold, T. (2000). The perception of the environment: essays in livelihood, dwelling and skill. Routledge, London.
Jeunesse, C. (1987). La céramique de La Hoguette: un nouvel ‘élément non-rubané’ du Néolithique ancien de l’Europe du Nord-Ouest. Cahiers Alsacians d’Archéologie, d’Art et d’Histoire 26: 5–33.
Jeunesse, C. (1997). Pratiques funéraires au Néolithique ancien: sépultures et nécropoles danubiennes 5500–4900 av. J. C. Éditions Errance, Paris.
Jeunesse, C. (2000). Les composantes autochtone et danubienne en Europe centrale et occidentale entre 5500 et 4000 av. J.-C.: contacts, transferts, acculturations. In Richard, A., Cupillard, C., Richard, H. and Thévenin, A. (eds), Les derniers chasseurs-cueilleurs d’Europe occidentale (13000–5500 av. J.-C.): actes du colloque international de Besançon, Université de Besançon, Besançon, pp. 361–78.
Jones, A. (2005). Lives in fragments? Personhood and the European Neolithic. Journal of Social Archaeology 5: 193–224.
Jones, A. and MacGregor, G. (2002). Introduction: wonderful things—colour studies in archaeology from Munsell to materiality. In Jones, A. and MacGregor, G. (eds), Colouring the past, Berg, Oxford, 1–21.
Küchler, S. (1987). Malangan: art and memory in a Melanesian society. Man 22: 238–55.
Küchler, S. (1993). Landscape as memory: the mapping of process and its representation in a Melanesian society. In Bender, B. (ed.), Landscape. Politics and perspectives, Berg, Oxford, pp. 85–106.
Kuper, A. (1999). Culture: an anthropologist’s account. Harvard University, Cambridge.
Last, J. (1996). Neolithic houses: a central European perspective. In Darvill, T. and Thomas, J. (eds), Neolithic houses in north-west Europe and beyond, Oxbow, Oxford, pp. 27–40.
Lüning, J. (1997). Wohin mit der Bandkeramik? —Programmatische Bemerkungen zu einem allgemeinen Problem am Beispiel Hessens. In Becker, C., Dunkelmann, M.-L., Metzner-Nebelsick, C., Peter-Röcher, H., Roeder, M. and Feržan, B. (eds), Chronos. Beiträge zur prähistorischen Archäologie zwischen Nord- und Südosteuropa. Festschrift für Bernhard Hänsel, Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp, pp. 21–57.
Lüning, J., Kloos, U. and Albert, S. (1989). Westliche Nachbarn der bandkeramischen Kultur: La Hoguette und Limburg. Germania 67: 355–420.
Manen, C. and Mazurié de Keroualin, K. (2003). Les concepts ‘La Hoguette’ et ‘Limburg’: un bilan des données. In Besse, M., Stahl Gretsch, L.-I. and Curdy, P. (eds), ConstellaSion: hommage à Alain Gallay, Lausanne, Cahiers d’archéologie romande 95, pp. 115–45.
Meskell, L. (1996). The somatisation of archaeology: institutions, discourses and corporeality. Norwegian Archaeological Review 29: 1–16.
Middleton, D. and Edwards, D. 1990. Introduction. In Middleton, D. and Edwards, D. (eds), Collective remembering, Sage, London, pp. 1–22.
Mizoguchi, K. (1993). Time in the reproduction of mortuary practices. World Archaeology 25: 223–35.
Modderman, P.J.R. (1988). The Linear Pottery Culture: diversity in uniformity. Berichten van de Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodermonderzoete, 38: 63–139.
Nieszery, N. (1995). Linearbandkeramische Gräberfelder in Bayern. Internationale Archäologie 16, Marie Leidorf, Espelkamp.
Orschiedt, J. (1998). Bandkeramische Siedlungsbestattungen in Südwestdeutschland. Archäologische und anthropologische Befunde. Marie Leidorf, Rahden.
Pariat, J.-G. (2007). Des morts sans tombe? Le cas des ossements humains en contexte non sépulcral en Europe tempérée entre les 6e et 3e millénaires av. J.-C’, Interant. BAR International Series 1683, Oxford.
Pearson, M. and Shanks, M. (2001). Theatre/archaeology. Routledge, London.
Peschel, C. (1992). Regel und Ausnahme. Linearbandkeramische Bestattungssitten in Deutschland und angrenzenden Gebieten, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Sonderbestattungen. Internationale Archäologie 9, Marie Leidorf, Buch am Erlbach.
Price, T.D., Bentley, R.A., Lüning, J., Gronenborn, D. and Wahl, J. (2001). Prehistoric human migration in the Linearbandkeramik of central Europe. Antiquity 75: 593–603.
Price, T.D. and Bentley, R.A. (2005). Human mobility in the Linearbandkeramik: an archaeometric approach. In Lüning, J., Frirdich, C. and Zimmermann, A. (eds), Die Bandkeramik im 21. Jahrhundert, Verlag Marie Leidorf, Rahden, pp. 203–15.
Radley, A. (1990). Artefacts, memory and a sense of the past. In Middleton, D. and Edwards, D. (eds), Collective remembering, Sage, London, 46–59.
Robb, J. and Miracle, P. (2007). Beyond ‘migration’ versus ‘acculturation’: new models for the spread of agriculture. In Whittle, A. and Cummings, V. (eds), Going over. The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in north-west Europe, Oxford University Press for the British Academy, Oxford, pp. 99–115.
Rosaldo, R. (1989). Culture and truth: the remaking of social analysis. Routledge, London.
Rück, O. (2009). New aspects and models for Bandkeramik settlement research. In Hofmann, D. and Bickle, P. (eds), Creating communities: new advances in central European Neolithic research. Oxbow, Oxford, pp. 159–85.
Sahlins, M. (1999). Two or three things that I know about culture. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 5: 399–422.
Sahlins, M. (2000). Culture in practice. Selected essays. Zone Books, New-York.
Sangmeister, E. (1999). Zu Siedlungsbestattungen im Neolithikum Mitteleuropas. Germania 77: 661–78.
Schmotz, K. (2000). Die altneolithische Siedlung von Otzing, Landkreis Deggendorf, Niederbayern. Das Archäologische Jahr in Bayern 2000: 14–7.
Schmotz, K. (2002). Bestattungsformen des 6. und 5. Jahrtausends im Landkreis Deggendorf (Niederbayern) —Erkenntnisse aus 20 Jahren kommunaler Denkmalpflege. Archeologické Rozhledy 54: 264–78.
Schmotz, K. and Weber, W. (2000). Untersuchungen in der linienbandkeramischen Siedlung von Otzing, Lkr. Deggendorf. In Schmotz, K. (ed.), Vorträge des 18. Niederbayerischen Archäologentages, Marie Leidorf, Rahden, pp. 15–37.
Sidéra, I. (2000). Animaux domestiques, bêtes sauvages et objets en matières animals du Rubané au Michelsberg: de l’économie aux symbols, des techniques à la culture. Gallia Préhistoire 42: 107–94.
Soudský, B., Bayle, A., Beeching, A, Biquard, A., Boureux, M., Cleuziou, S., Constantin, C., Coudart, A., Demoule, J.-P., Farruggia, J.-P. and Ilett, M. (1982). L’habitat néolithique et chalcolithique de Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes: Les Fontinettes-Les Gravelines (1972–1977). Revue Archéologique de Picardie, supplément 2: 57–119.
Sommer, U. (2001). ‘Hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother’: change and persistence in the European early Neolithic. Journal of Social Archaeology 1: 244–70.
Thomas, J. (1996). Time, culture and identity: an interpretive archaeology. Routledge, London.
Tresset, A. (2005). La place changeante des bovinsdans les bestiaires du Mésolithique final et du Néolithique d’Armorique et des régions adjacentes. In Marchand, G. and Tresset, A. (eds), Unité et diversité des processus de Néolithisation sur la façade atlantique d’Europe: 6e–4e millénaires av. J.-C., Société Préhistorique Française, Paris, pp. 273–86.
Turner, T. (1993). Anthropology and multiculturalism: what is anthropology that multiculturalists should be mindful of it? Cultural Anthropology 8: 411–29.
van Berg, P.-L. (1990). Céramique du Limburg et néolithisation en Europe du Nord-Ouest. In Cahen, D. and Otte, M. (eds), Rubané et Cardial: actes du colloque de Liège, Novembre 1988, Université de Liège, Liège, pp. 161–85.
Veit, U. (1992). Burials within settlements of the Linienbandkeramik and Stichbandkeramik cultures of central Europe. On the social construction of death in early-Neolithic society. Journal of European Archaeology 1: 107–40.
Veit, U. (1996). Studien zum Problem der Siedlungsbestattung im europäischen Neolithikum. Waxmann, Münster.
Whittle, A. (1996). Europe in the Neolithic: the creation of new worlds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Whittle, A. (2003). The archaeology of people: dimensions of Neolithic life. Routledge, London.
Zvelebil, M. (2004). The many origins of the LBK. In Lukes, A. and Zvelebil, M. (eds), LBK Dialogues. Studies in the formation of the Linear Pottery Culture, British Archaeological Reports International Series 1304, Oxford, pp. 183–205.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hofmann, D., Bickle, P. (2011). Culture, Tradition and the Settlement Burials of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) Culture. In: Roberts, B., Vander Linden, M. (eds) Investigating Archaeological Cultures. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6970-5_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6970-5_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-6969-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-6970-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)