FOOD PRODUCTION MODES IN

NEOLITHIC ANATOLIA AND

THE NEOLITHIZATION OF THE BALKANS

JAK YAKAR (ISRAEL)

Lolita Nikolova, Marco Merlini and Alexandra Comºa, eds. Circumpontica in Prehistory: Western Pontic Studies

The Anatolian Neolithic, one of the most fascinating episodes inthe socio-economic history of the Near East, continues to beinvestigated in each of the four geographically distinct regionsof Turkey. The Urfa-Diyarbakir steppe country watered by theEuphrates and Tigris river systems in southeast, the Konya-Aksaray plains in the southern Anatolian plateau, the Lakes Dis-trict in west-central Anatolia, and the Marmara basin and Turk-ish Thrace in the northwest (Yakar 1991; 1994; Özdoðan, M.1999; Özdoðan and Basgelen 1999).

The process referred to by some scholars as “Neolithization”or “Neolithic way of life” could be defined as a slow socio-eco-nomic course that evolved parallel to the climatic improvementfelt during the early Holocene. As early as 10000 BP experi-mentations with sedentarization started. The reflections of theseexperimentations are hidden, among other records, in the sub-sistence related activities of the respective communities. InAnatolia, roughly delimited by the upper Tigris and lowerEuphrates, the eastern Mediterranean, the eastern Aegean, theMarmara and the Black Sea, climatic conditions favorable todry farming first transformed the eastern Taurus piedmont be-fore spreading in other directions, including the southernAnatolian plateau. The climatic improvement that started withthe early Holocene subsequently reached the Aegean coast andlater encompassed the more northerly regions of western Anatolia.

Neolithization in Anatolia may have followed different tracksfrom its incipient stages. Therefore, it is logical to assume thatits stabilization and progress may have followed a different pacein each region. For instance in Cappadocia in the central pla-teau there is a clear connection between a change in the naturalenvironment and sedentism in the late ninth millennium BC. Thestart of a change from an arid steppe to grassland vegetation inca 10800 BP was due to increased humidity, which eventuallysaw the emergence of farming villages (Woldring 2002:63).

Archaeologically often undetectable inter-communal prob-lems to unfavorable changes in the natural environment couldhave slowed down this process. One should take into consider-ation that economic and health related demographic problemsmay have caused temporary reversals, interruptions and renewedbeginnings in a different habitat.

The economic context of the beginnings of Neolithic pro-cess that eventually led to broad-spectrum farming in Anatolia isgenerally speaking well recorded in most regions of Anatolia,and especially in the south-central plateau (Buitenhuis 2002).In the southeast too, an integral part of Southwest Asia, a num-

ber of sites provide reasonably well preserved subsistencerelated documentation (Garrad 1999). These are: Hallan Çemi(Rosenberg 1999), Demirci, Çayönü (Özdoðan, A. 1999),Nevali Çori (Hauptmann 1999), Göbekli Tepe (Schmidt1998), Gürcütepe (Schmidt 1995), Cafer Höyük (Cauvin, etal. 1999), Mezraa Teleilat (Karul, Ayhan and Özdoðan 2002).Taken together they illustrate the long process of develop-ment from incipient cultivation to broad-spectrum farming.Moreover, these sites shed important light on the internaland external dynamics that sparked the Neolithization in thispart of Anatolia. Pinarbaºi, Aºikli (Esin and Harmankaya1999), Musular (Özbasaran 1999), Kösk Höyük (Öztan2002), Çatalhöyük (Hodder 1999; 2003; Yakar 1991), CanHassan III and I (French 1998; Yakar 1991), Erbaba (Yakar1991), Suberde (Yakar 1991), Hacilar (Mellaart 1970),Höyücek (Duru 1999), Bademaðaci (Duru 1999), Kuruçay(Duru 1994) are the principal sites of the southern AnatolianPlateau, including the Lakes District to its west. Yumuktepe-Mersin retains its importance as the representative site of thedensely settled Cilician plain.

As for the presence of an Aceramic phase of the Neolithicin western Anatolia, there is as yet some meager evidencefrom sites such as Çalca in the mountainous region of Caneast of Çanakkale, and Muºlu Çeºme and Tepetarla in theBandirma plain (Özdoðan and Gatsov 1998).

Orman Fidanligi, Ilipinar, Menteºe Höyük, Fikirtepe, andPendik are the main prehistoric sites that provide a ratherlimited insight into the northwest Anatolian Neolithizationprocess.

Additional sites such as Keçiçayir and Kabakli are be-lieved to represent the Aceramic phase of the Neolithic pe-riod in the Eskiºehir province (Efe 1996:217). The locationof most of these sites in high terrain away from alluvial plainsindicates that their inhabitants were more involved in hunt-ing and gathering rather than cultivation of food plants oranimals (Özdoðan 1997:18; Özdoðan and Gatsov 1998).Together with Hoca Çeºme and Aºaði Pinar in Turkish Thrace,they illustrate the nature and intensity of cultural and eco-nomic interaction between Anatolia and the southern Balkansever since the sixth millennium BC.

In Southeastern Anatolia, as in the rest of the “FertileCrescent” the beginning of the Neolithization process sawits expression in the appearance of sedentary or semi-seden-tary communities as early as in the late ninth/ early eighth

CHAPTER 3

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Jak Yakar

millennium BC (Solecki and Solecki 1983; Yakar 1991; 1994).Floral and faunal records from Early Neolithic sites in the

southern Anatolian plateau and southeast Anatolia reflect a cer-tain but not fundamental local diversity in subsistence prac-tices prior to the appearance of fully-fledged farming econo-mies. Initially, these basically hunter-gatherer semi-sedentary/sedentary communities derived their group-based subsistencerequirements from hunting and gathering a wide variety of ani-mals and wild plants. They also knew to supplement their foodstores by undertaking small-scale cultivation of pulses, as wasthe case for instance at Asikli Höyük, Çayönü and Cafer Höyük(Cauvin, et al. 1999:101).

Early agricultural villages in Anatolia were usually estab-lished on or close to hydromorphic soils and not on free-drain-ing drier terrains. Having the capacity to retain water these areparticularly suitable for cereal agriculture since they allow cropsto grow particularly in environments exposed to the Mediter-ranean climate of warm, wet winters and hot, dry summers(Harris 1996:558). Neolithic sites in the Beysehir-Sugla andKonya Basins demonstrate that they were all located on allu-vial deposits, at the margins of fans and seasonal lakes. Asalready pointed out above, these locations were no doubt se-lected by agriculturalists because of water retentive soils. Inmany parts of the Balkans too, regional archaeological investi-gations show a consistent correlation between the distributionof early Neolithic sites and floodplains, river and lake mar-gins.1

It is also possible that the earliest systems of small scaleand locally intensive cultivation in the southeast Europe, as inthe early stages of farming in Anatolia, seasonal horticulturemost likely preceded cereal agriculture.2

As far as the archaeological survey evidence goes, in Greeceand in the southern Balkans, areas that saw the emergence ofagricultural villages did not produce evidence that could beindicative of a Late Mesolithic/Epipaleolithic population sub-stratum. This picture could still change, but in the meantime,those supporting the demic-diffusion approach in explainingthe spread of farming from East to West often emphasize it.

The cultural diversity encountered in the four geo-culturalregions of Anatolia suggests that their respective Neolithic com-munities, particularly those living in the southeast were not iso-lated or entirely self-contained. In fact, recent archaeologicalinvestigations support the view that, ethno-culturally speaking,the Neolithic society of Anatolia was not a homogenous entity.The same may be presumed for societies that inhabited the geo-graphical expanse surrounding Anatolia.

Regarding the postulated movements of Neolithic farmersfrom the East towards the West, I believe that in the distantpast too village communities that were successful in maintain-ing a steady demographic and economic growth over genera-tions would not have undertaken large-scale migrations unlesssome sort of a crisis would have forced them to do so. Thereare no indications at Neolithic centers with seemingly uninter-rupted settlement sequence such as Çatalhöyük, nor in thepalaeoenvironmental records of the Konya plain ( Kuzucuoðlu2002) that suggest a major demographic or environment insti-gated crisis in the south-central plateau. Naturally, under cer-tain socio-economic conflict and stress situations not visible inarchaeological records, communities, or groups detached fromthem, would have moved out in search of new habitats to re-settle. However, to presume that such movements would have

followed a single directional path leading from socio-economi-cally/ culturally to less developed regions, could lead to mis-conceptions in evaluating the process that led to the Neolithi-zation of the Balkans and the rest of southeastern Europe.

Colonization of the southern Balkans by Anatolian farm-ers may be presumed if it can be demonstrated that the dis-semination of agriculture was in conjunction with spirituallysignificant new artistic expressions, introduction of pottery, ar-chitecture, and burial traditions, of Anatolian origin. Evenwithin the semi continent of Anatolia, a comparison betweenthe Aceramic Neolithic material culture assemblages from thewestern and central “Fertile Crescent” settlements and those ofthe southern Anatolian plateau (e.g. Hallan Çemi, Demirci,Çayönü, Nevali Çori, Göbekli Tepe, Gürcü Tepe, Cafer Höyükversus settlements such as Aºikli Höyük or Can Hassan III),shows some outstanding differences in social organization, pro-duction techniques and in the artistic expressions of spiritualconcepts. Moving in the direction of northwest Anatolia, ar-chaeological records from Demircihöyük, Findik Kayabaºi,Orman Fidanliði, Ilipinar, Menteºe Höyük, Fikirtepe, Pendikindicate that despite varying forms and intensity of interactionwith the central Anatolian Neolithic farmers, the latter did nothave at least initially an outstanding cultural influence overtheir northern neighbors in the Marmara basin. In view of therather varied cultural entities so far recorded in Anatolia, onewonders if the emergence of farming communities in theBalkans should be exclusively attributed to a westward dis-placement of central Anatolian farmers. In view of the rela-tively late appearance of farming communities in the north-west, it is doubtful that the area extending from the Marmarabasin to the Troad could be considered a parent or staging areathat initiated the Neolithization of the Balkans. Yarimburgazcave in eastern Thrace, is so far the only site that producedevidence for the existence of a Fikirtepe culture affiliated com-munity involved in farming (Özdoðan, Miyake and Özbasaran1991).

As for hunter-gatherer communities of the early Fikirtepeculture phase that sparsely inhabited the southeastern Marmaralittoral, it is highly doubtful that they could not have played adecisive role in the diffusion of farming in a westerly direction.Their fishing, mollusk collecting, hunting and foraging activi-ties, as well as their settlement pattern, does not indicate a so-ciety in an advance stage of cultivation.3

The occupation sequence revealed at the mound of Ilipinarwest of Lake Iznik provides a good insight into the culturaldevelopment during the sixth millennium BC (Roodenberg1995; 1999b). The stratified pre-EBA remains at this site com-bined with those from other well-known and partly contempo-rary settlements such as Fikirtepe (Özdoðan 1999:212-217),Pendik (Özdoðan 1983), Mentese (Roodenberg 1999a) andDemircihöyük (Seeher 1987), in a sense reflect the cultural andeconomic inclinations of late prehistoric communities in north-west Anatolia . For instance, the inhabitants of Fikirtepe-typesites in the eastern Marmara coast, although they seem to haveembraced farming probably from their southern neighbors, theirprincipal subsistence activities was based on foraging and hunt-ing (Thissen 1999:38; Özdoðan 1983). The type and simplic-ity of their domestic architecture reflect a socio-economic con-servatism no doubt derived from their Late Epipaleolithic rootsin the region. Despite some differences in subsistence econo-mies, certain material culture parallels, in certain type of ce-

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Food Production Modes in Neolithic Anatolia

ramics in particular exist between Ilipinar and cluster ofFikirtepe culture sites on the Eastern Marmara coast (Thissen1999:32). Pots with four vertically pierced knob handles andpots with two horizontal lugs (Thissen 1999:Fig.2:2-3 and 1,4) occur at both Fikirtepe and Ilipinar. Thissen believes thatpots with vertically pierced knob handles were used in the cook-ing of pulses such as lentils and bitter vetch, which both appearto have been major food stuffs at early Ilipinar. Pulses after aninitial cooking-stage, require only a limited supply of heat dur-ing cooking, just enough to keep boiling. The possibility ofregulating the distance between fire and pot by means of strings,so as to control the degree of intensity, makes pots with piercedknob handles well adjusted in this respect. The two handledpots, on the other hand, could have been directly placed overthe fire, the large handles providing easy grip when lifting themfrom it (Thissen 1999:32). The inferred structural relationshipin the dominant cooking pots between Iznik and the EasternMarmara coast is present also in at least at two sites situatedfurther south and southeast; Mentese Höyük, Marmaracik andYenisehir II in the Yenisehir basin and Demircihöyük.

There is no absolute certainty the founders of the first farm-ing villages in northwestern Anatolia were of central or west-central Anatolian origin. At Ilipinar, the first village (Phase X)was founded at the beginning of the sixth millennium BC(Roodenberg 1995; 1999b). The economy of the inhabitantswas fully agricultural, and among the domestic species sheepand goat were dominant (Thissen 1999:30).

In the six phases following the Phase X village althoughno visible signs of disruptions in the settlement activity havebeen observed, some demographic and ethno-cultural changesduring the nearly 600 years of occupation (ca 24 generations)are well marked in the material culture. During the first 12generations of occupation at Ilipinar, freestanding single roomhouses in average measuring ca. 30m2 were constructed in “post-wall” architectural tradition. In addition to these post-wallhouses with gable-shaped roofs of reed, the presence of a fewmud-slab constructions in the early phases of the village leavesno doubt that these two rather dissimilar building traditions co-existed. The post-wall architecture and the fact that in phase Xthe dead were buried as primary burials outside the houses, atradition rather alien to contemporary central Anatolian com-munities, raise the possibility that the original inhabitants ofthis village or at least some of them may have been Balkanaffiliated. Indeed, the ethno-cultural origin of the founders ofthe village is not entirely clear. When considering only thearchitectural characteristics and mortuary practices recordedin Phase X, it is hard to say that they were of central Anatolianaffiliation. Generally speaking, they rather give the impres-sion of sharing affinities with ethno-cultural entities that in-habited a more northwesterly territory extending beyond theSea of Marmara and delimited in the east by the Porsuk valley.By this, it is not implied that the founders of the village arriveddirectly from the Balkans. Presuming that the initial settlerswere not of central Anatolia affiliation, we may assume thatsoon after the foundation of the village the gradual process ofacculturation within the existing ethno-cultural environmentwould have started. The time that elapsed for this process tocomplete would have depended on the nature of relations ei-ther with the indigenous inhabitants or with already accultur-ated neighboring groups. The fact that in architecture and burialmode, the so-called non-Anatolian characteristics were main-

tained for a few generations indicates that the process of accul-turation may have been rather slow. Anthropological modelsindicate that in some migrations, the migrating split-off groupseventually fuse with local groups (Yakar 2003:12). In suchcases, the speed and rate of acculturation would have dependedon the social structure and size of the split-off intrusive group.A minimum of 25 kin related persons could be sufficient toform a short-term viable nucleus for an endogamous commu-nity. In the medium or long-term, small communities number-ing less than 100 persons would have faced difficulties in main-taining endogamy. A shortage of potential marriage partnerswithin an endogamous group naturally necessitates marital ex-change with other communities (Fix 1999:210-211).

Thissen’s evaluation of Ilipinar archaeological records pro-vides a different identity for the founders of this village. Thissenbelieves that “despite the wide divergences between the Konyaarea and the Marmara basin in the settlement pattern, buildingmethods and stone industry, the underlying concepts as appar-ent in the manufacture, appearance and use of pottery of bothareas relate the Anatolian northwest to the Central Plateau. Thisselective parallelism in material culture is then either a func-tion of the observed discrepancy in time between both regions,or else directly related to the specific material culture variableitself, viz. pottery, to its producers, and to patterns of traditionand to know-how involved. The same selection would precludemigration from the Plateau to the Northwest, but it might re-flect exogamous marriage practices. Simultaneously, the trans-mission out of the Plateau of knowledge concerning farmingwas possibly another parallel feature of culture contact betweenÇatalhöyük and the Mesolithic population further north.”(1999).To conclude, he proposes that the first farming villages in theEskiºehir Basin such as Demircihöyük and Findik Kayabaºi(Efe 1995) were the result of Mesolithic culture contact withthe Konya area or, more probably, given the large interveningarea, were themselves settled from villages lying between theKonya and Eskisehir basins (Thissen 1999:38). The establish-ment of the three early farming sites in the Yeniºehir basin waslinked to the Eskiºehir plain although presently available datapreclude any further assessment. Thissen is in the opinion thatthe settlement of Ilipinar was settled by non-locals, perhaps byfarmers moving north from the Yeniºehir basin. Moreover, ac-cording to Thissen, there is no evidence that the initial settlerswere hunter-gatherers.

During phases VII-VI to VA (ca. 5700-5500 BC) at Ilipinar,the village architecture shows changes not only in plan but alsoin construction materials; mud-brick architecture replacing thepost-wall and mud-slab constructions (Roodenberg 1999b:195). The use of mud-bricks allowed the construction of largerhouses with internal division. The question is should we at-tribute the introduction of mud-bricks and the new type ofhouses appearing in the second quarter of the sixth millenniumBC to a influx of central Anatolians into this region, or simplyto internal socio-economic development?

In the final phase of the prehistoric village (VB), there areundisputable indications of changes both in architecture andceramic assemblages. The semi-subterranean architecture ofthis phase bears no resemblance to phase VA houses. More-over, the black or dark burnished rippled pottery dated to theKaranovo III period point to intrusive elements perhaps arriv-ing from the Balkans. Past migration models lead us to assumethat the territorial distance factor between geographically sepa-

37

rated communities would not have brought about a total cessa-tion of social contacts between them. Therefore, we may pre-sume that additional groups could have been occasionally drawnto territories already populated by their ethno-cultural affili-ates during earlier migrations. Such population intrusions inarchaeological records could be further substantiated when alink between cultural transformations and human inducedchanges in subsistence economy and dietary practices can bedemonstrated. At Ilipinar as at Hoca Çeºme in Thrace, theanimal bone records suggest that goat and sheep were initiallypreferred to cattle (Buitenhuis 1995). At Ilipinar following theestablishment of the village, in phase IX there seems to havebeen a shift in preference in meat consumption; at this timepigs were favored. In Ilipinar phase VB, there occurred an-other change in the animal husbandry; cattle were preferred topigs. In the flora assemblage, it is not clear if the absence offield pea and naked barley at Ilipinar as opposed to the pres-ence of flax (van Zeist and van Rooyen 1995:162-165) reflectsethno-cultural preferences in the local diet.

In addition to Ilipinar, Mentese Höyük further south in theYenisehir basin provides a glimpse of a relatively similar de-velopment of a farming community from an advanced stage ofthe Neolithic onwards. Stratum 3 at this site which is corre-lated tentatively with Ilipinar Phase X is the earliest occupa-tion, and according to the depth of the occupation level it mayhave been founded slightly earlier than Ilipinar.4

The earliest among the 8 burials recovered from MenteseHöyük, from the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic levels, aredated to Ilipinar VA period (Alpaslan-Roodenberg and Maat1999). The primary flexed burials were found lying on theirright side. Two of the burials where accompanied with a pot,and one child burial produced the remains of a necklace. Tracesof wooden planking under an adult female skeleton is remark-able. The individuals of all age groups showed carious teeth.Since dental attrition and caries rate in a population depend ondietary factors, one may assume the reason here consumed con-siderable quantities of soft and sticky carbohydrate sources suchas cereals (Alpaslan-Roodenberg and Maat 1999:42).

Despite the wide divergence between the Konya area andthe Marmara Basin in the settlement pattern, building meth-ods, mortuary practices and some aspects of the stone industry,the underlying concepts as apparent in the manufacture, ap-pearance and use of pottery of both areas is considered as re-lating somehow the Anatolian northwest to the central plateau.According to Thissen, this selective parallelism in materialculture could be either a function of the observed discrepancyin time between the two regions, or reflects a variant of thespecific assemblage. The same selection would, in Thissen’sview preclude migration from the plateau to the northwest, butit might reflect exogamous marriage practices (1999:30).

Simultaneously, the transmission out of the plateau ofknowledge concerning farming was possibly another parallelfeature of culture contact between the Neolithic farmers andthe hunter-gatherers in the northwest.

The foundation of Ilipinar roughly coincides in time withthe Early Chalcolithic Hacilar V-III phase in the Lakes Distric,the beginnings of the Middle Neolithic Sesklo culture whichwas based on two centuries long village life in Thessaly, andAnza and Vršnik Neolithic farming settlements in easternMacedonia. In the Giannitsa plain of Greek Macedonia, farm-ers were already cultivating their land for a number of genera-

tions.Among the excavated Neolithic villages in Anatolia, those

that were inhabited during certain phases of the Neolithic pe-riod, and sometimes not continuously, are more numerous thansettlements with long and uninterrupted occupations. This isindicative of recurring mobility among sedentary communitiesas in other parts of the Near East. Naturally, among the groupswho subsisted mainly from foraging and hunting, random mo-bility would have been a phenomenon causing little socio-eco-nomic repercussions, if at all. On the other hand, one wouldexpect communities subsisting mainly from farming to be lessprone to mobility, except perhaps those who maintained morethan one settlement to pursue a broad-spectrum surplus yield-ing subsistence economy. The evidence from Thrace substan-tiates this view. The preliminary results of a field survey whichstudied the settlement pattern and mobility of prehistoric settle-ments in the Edirne province suggest that the prehistoric vil-lages in the region were not long-term permanent (Erdogu1999). According to Erdogu, the survey findings indicate thatthe abandonment and reoccupation of settlements are dispersedeither over a large landscape unit(extensive mobility), such asthe Tunca River, or over small and almost identical landscapeunits(restricted mobility), such as Ortakçi-Kavakli and YumurtaTepe, but are not overlapping settlements.5

The ongoing debate on the gradual spread of farming fromEast to West cannot be entirely detached from entrencheddiffusionist or indigenist views.6

Given the information explosion and ever-increasing spe-cialization, the mastery of even a small sub-discipline is ex-tremely difficult in our time. Consequently, as Blumler ex-pressed it “one of the more intractable problems in interdisci-plinary research is transdisciplinary communication (Blumler1996:25). He further states the obvious that it is becomingincreasingly difficult to stay abreast of developments outsideone’s own sub-field, and almost unavoidably, complexities areneglected while theories become out of date.

Of the two main models of the Neolithization process inSoutheast Europe and Europe which strongly dominate currentdebate, the first is motivated by research into the genetic map-ping of present-day Europe. In the opinion of its followers,genetic mapping supports the theory of demic-diffusion as re-sponsible for the spread of the “Neolithic package” from Eastto West. This would have been a quick and smooth process inthe form of a mass migration of population. The promoters ofthis model argue that if agriculture spread by means of culturaldiffusion, it would not have affected the gene distribution inEurope. However, if it spread entirely as a result of a demicdiffusion, the European gene pools would contain or be domi-nated by genes from Southwestern Asia. Whereas a mixture ofcultural and demic diffusions would have probably generateda gradient pointing in the direction of migratory movement. Inother words, the genes of original farmers would decrease pro-portionally as one proceeds from Southwestern Asia towardEurope (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984:85).7

The results of another study on genes, this time dealingwith the female side of the picture suggest that the ancestors ofthe great majority of modern lineages in Europe would havemigrated from the Middle East much earlier than the estimated7500 BP, most likely in the Upper Paleolithic period.8

The second model, defined as the “availability” model, doesnot entirely oppose the demic-diffusion view. It transposes the

Jak Yakar

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idea of existing frontiers between foragers and farmers and theirco-existence for certain periods of time. This model proposesa combination of limited colonization in Southeast Europe andthe active participation of foragers interacting with farmers inthe process of Neolithization. New breeding networks for thecontinuous spread of agriculture would have been the outcomeof such a process (Zvelebil 1986; 1995:116-120; Boriæ 1999:46).9

It is important to note that the rate at which genetic differ-entiation proceeds is inversely proportional to the size of popu-lations and also on the migration rate between neighboring re-gions which is accepted at 4% per generation. Under theseconditions, it takes between 120 to 150 generation or ca. 3000years for the variation between gene frequencies to rise to thedesired level. With some exceptions, neighboring populationsusually have gene values that are similar.

As for “wave of advance” model, it is still considered rel-evant as is also supported by the genetic pattern records. Thephysical expansion of the agricultural frontier towards Europethrough the colonization of Neolithic farmers from the NearEast, at a postulated annual rate of 1 km, is supposed to havehad a dramatic effect on the European gene pool (Ammermanand Cavalli-Sforza 1984: 60-84, Cavalli-Sforza 1996). How-ever, referring to this model simply in terms of annual distancethat could be covered by farming communities runs the risk ofmisleading. Obviously, offshoots of demographically fast ex-panding exogenous agro-pastoral communities would have onoccasions felt the need to form new satellite villages prefer-ably in areas not to distant from their root village and in anenvironment they were acquainted with.

There are some scholars who believe that diseases couldhave had an impact upon the emergence of agriculture as well(Groube 1996). Warming temperatures activated many dormantparasites. Coastal changes, swamp formations with the risingsea levels created ideal conditions for anophelene mosquitoes,the vector of vivax malaria would have take its toll on hunter-gatherers. After Africa, Southwest Asia and the Mediterraneanregion too would have witnessed increasingly frequent epidem-ics of malaria. Stable endemic malaria (the least destructiveform) would have taken longer to develop, requiring not onlyrelatively high host densities near the saline swamps but alsouniform temperatures (Groube 1996:123). In addition, it isassumed that perhaps less fatal but more numerous and fastspreading viral and bacterial diseases could have caused de-mographic crisis in certain locations unrelated to resource limi-tations. So at least in theory, the solution would have been toincrease reproduction by settling down in a new healthier loca-tion and switch to farming, in order to reduce the time of birthintervals.

The “indigenist” model, which I support as an additionalplausibility, allows us to presume that local hunter-gatherergroups, particularly those already in the early stages ofsedentarization, would have been quite capable of experiment-ing with the cultivation of endogenous food plants in or neartheir natural habitats. The need to increase or at least controlthe supply levels of food plants would have been a choice dic-tated by various considerations, and not necessarily by short-ages in wild food plants or games. Population growth is con-sidered to take place separately for farmers and hunter-gather-ers according to logistic models where the parameters definingthe initial growth rate and density level at saturation may differ

for two populations, for farmers believed to be higher. The tran-sition from hunting and foraging to experimentations with se-lective cultivation may have been a long. It is logical to as-sume that experimentations with cultivation started when com-munities felt the need to intervene in order to increase/supple-ment their undomesticated food plant stocks. Considering thedifferences in the chronological setting of village communitiesinvolved in the incipient stages of agriculture in the “FertileCrescent”, the entrenched concept of “isochronic line of agri-cultural expansion” from the East, proposed over two decadesago by Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza (1984:58-62, fig.4.5),should be reassessed with regard to the Balkans and the rest ofsoutheast Europe.

The results of genetic studies do not really explain inde-pendently the reasons that bands of hunters and gatherers fromthe Middle East, some perhaps experimenting with the cultiva-tion of certain wild food plants, found necessary or appealingin the 13th millennium BP to cross the Mediterranean at lengthin order to reach the Iberian Peninsula!

Since models of farming that existed in Anatolia, in .Greeceor Macedonia including Thrace in the sixth millennium BCvaried in organizational and production complexity, the typeof farming villages that emerged in the southern Balkans forinstance could provide the direction and distance of the localhunter-gatherers interaction with agro-pastoral communities.Unfortunately, contacts of this nature rarely surface in archaeo-logical records. Therefore, Neolithic and Mesolithic artifactassemblages are treated as culturally and sometimes chrono-logically unbridgeable separate entities. However, it could bepostulated that through mutually beneficial contacts with farm-ers, hunter-gatherers could have become familiarized with theadvantages as well as the disadvantages of this food produc-tion strategy that required a different mode of settlement andsocial organization.

The Lepenski-Vir Late Mesolithic/Epipaleolithic culturein the Danube Gorges provides one of the best-documentedexamples of the nature of long-term forager-farmer interaction.Hunter-gatherer groups continued to reside in the region forseveral hundred years after the appearance of the local EarlyNeolithic and still did not adopt farming practices they encoun-tered during their short as well as long distance expeditions(Budja 1999:134). It is very likely that as a result of these ex-peditions, they did adopt the production and/or use of pot-tery.10

The continued interaction between the two groups may haveconvinced the local hunter-gatherer groups to adopt certainsocial and eventually dietary practices of the farming commu-nities inhabiting areas outside their region (Chapman 1993:115;Budja 1999:134; Bonsall, et al. 1997:85-87). Stable isotopic(carbon and nitrogen isotopes) and dental evidence collectedfrom Lepenski Vir, Vlasac and Schela Caldovei burials sug-gest that Mesolithic people in the Iron Gates region had highprotein diets mainly derived from riverine food sources(Bonsall, et al. 1997:85). This diet based largely on fish ap-pears to have contributed to the healthy physical nature of theMesolithic communities. Osteological data indicate thatMesolithic people were tall, physically robust and generally ingood health. Nevertheless, there are significant differencesbetween the isotopic signals of Mesolithic males and femalesburied at Vlasac and Lepenski Vir, indicating differences inoverall diet. These differences could indicate that in such small

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groups, women for the formation of new families may havebeen acquired from other communities, not excluding the farm-ers (Bonsall, et al. 1997:85). The fact that farmers suffer morefrom tooth decay than hunter-gatherers, should also serve as aguide in establishing the beginning of the introduction of ter-restrial food into the diet of the Balkan population.

Nevertheless, it is important to stress that among theNeolithic population at Lepenski Vir there are no significantdifferences between males and females. The shift in the di-etary pattern occurred at Lepenski Vir between ca 7600 and7300 BP (or in the second half of the seventh millennium calBC). Collagen samples from burials post-dating the 7300 BPsuggest the intake of significantly higher proportions of terres-trial foods. This change may reflect the introduction of stockraising and/or cultivation in the Iron Gates. If this was thecase, then one may presume that the transition from LateMesolithic to Neolithic at Lepenski Vir was not characterizedby a wholesale shift in subsistence from foraging to farming;the earliest Neolithic inhabitants of the site continued to obtaina significant proportion of their dietary protein from riverineresources.

Nikolov, referring to the question of interruptions in thedevelopment of the Neolithic and later period in Thrace, statesthat there is much internal continuity (2003) The Neolithicpottery repertory from Tell Karanovo (Nikolov 1998) reflectscontinuous dynamic development of artifactual assemblagesin northeastern Thrace, with continuity and innovations co-ex-isting. A more notable change is observed at the transitionbetween the Karanovo I and II periods, when the admixture ofpaste change, and the red slipped and painted pottery disap-pear as a technological group. All other elements, however,continue to exist unchanged. Therefore, one may suppose thatexternal contacts did not bring about demonstrable cultural ordemographic changes throughout the Neolithic sequence.11

Nikolov is persuaded that the origin of the Early Neolithicpainted pottery cultures in the central Balkans should be soughtin the south and especially in southwest Anatolia (2003:40).

As corroborative evidence supporting this, he emphasizesthe typological correlation between the regional ceramic as-semblages within the wide geographical arch extending fromthe southeastern Aegean islands to the Carpathian basin. In hisreconstruction, the valleys of the Mesta and Struma were usedfor the introduction/distribution of Anatolian elements into thecentral parts of the Balkans (Nikolov 1989).

In addition to Nikolov and others before him, the possibleorigins of the Karanovo I culture in Thrace has also been in-vestigated by Nikolova (1998).12

She proposes a number of possibilities. Her first assump-tion is “autochthonous development from the monochromicpottery along with synchronous cultural contacts.” The sec-ond explanatory model, similar to her first assumption doesnot preclude the possibility of “the appearance in the Balkansof migrating groups from western Anatolia.” Then comes thepossibility of “a mass migration of Anatolian people into theBalkans and the occupation of the areas that remained free af-ter the initial monochromic stage of migration” (1998:107).The problem in my view is that none of the migration hypoth-eses can be substantiated by archaeological evidence beyondany doubt. In fact, even Nikolova admits that her hypotheses“are based mainly on a lack of archaeological evidence of theearliest Neolithic in Bulgarian Thrace” (1998:113).

This theory brings us to the site of Hoca Çeºme situated onthe Maritsa estuary is often referred to as undisputable proofthat the origin of farming in Neolithic Thrace (and in southeastEurope as well) should be sought in western Anatolia. Someof the cultural and subsistence related records of the initial set-tlers at this site leave no doubt that this small community wasalready involved in farming prior to the emergence of theKaranovo I cultural horizon. The first two occupations (Phases4-3) revealed a village of small round houses of stone or stoneand timber construction and surrounded by a massive stoneenclosure wall. The village layout and architectural character-istics do not point in a particular direction of inspiration. Onthe other hand the monochrome ceramic vessels with their par-ticular typology and technology, the lithics and bone tools dopoint in the direction of the Lakes District in Anatolia. Thefact that from the start, the villagers felt the need to surroundtheir village with massive wall suggests that they did not feeltotally secured. Is it possible that hunter-gatherers inhabitedthis part of the Aegean Thrace? Perhaps the enclosure wall wasagainst the intrusion of small sea faring groups. In Phase 2, thelayout and character of the village assumed a character encoun-tered in the Thracian inland, but regardless the enclosure wallremained in use. Houses were now rectangular in plan withwalls made of wattle-and-daub. Together with this new stylein architecture, appeared red slipped and white painted ves-sels-typical of Thracian inland (Özdoðan 1998).13 A clay figu-rine fragment presumably in Anatolian style recovered at Makrion the Aegean coast of Thrace and dated to late Karanovo I(Efstratiou 1993:fig.10C) suggests some sort of interaction withcommunities in the eastern Aegean.

The distribution pattern of certain types of Balkan potterycould provide some indications of population movements fol-lowing the emergence of the early farming communities in theBalkans. The painted Early Neolithic pottery in Thrace is dis-tributed from west to east and reaches the Tundzha (Tunca)and Maritsa (Meriç) valleys with a certain delay in comparisonto the Balkan zone. Compared to northeast Bulgaria, this waregroup lasted longer in the western provinces. It disappearedgradually this time starting in the west. As for the dark Neolithicpottery, whose origin is sought in the Circumpontic zone(Nikolov 1998), it appears first in the northeastern parts ofnorthern Thrace where it outlives its western counterparts(Nikolov 2003:42). The gradual expansion of this ware groupin northern Thrace is not related according to Nikolov, to eth-nic and demographic changes (2003:42).

In addressing farming related socio-economic changes insoutheastern Europe in the second half of the seventh millen-nium BC, it is necessary to refer to different and sometimescontemporary trends in domestic architecture such as pit-hutsand surface-level structures (Bailey 1999). Such trends mayreflect the simultaneous existence of two different types of sub-sistence economy and their respective social organization. Theround and oval pit-huts come from late seventh and early sixthmillennia campsite like villages with no particular planning (e.g.Divostin in Serbia, Usoe in northeastern Bulgaria). In fact, atboth sites they lack a clear pattern of spatial relationship. It isstipulated that the people who inhabited such campsites, main-taining a subsistence strategy of earlier times were probablykin-related members of small rather mobile communities. Asfor the internally divided surface-level rectilinear structures onthe other hand (e.g. from Divostin in Serbia and Ovcharovo-

40

Gorata in northeastern Bulgaria) they reflect a more complexsocio-economic organization found among sedentary farmingcommunities (Bailey 1999).

In the Carpathian basin, traces of Early Neolithic occupa-tion have been found at very different locations, ranging frommarshes that have been occasionally flooded in the lowlandsof the Carpathian basin (Boriæ 1999:fig.25) to cave occupa-tions in the central Balkan region. Continuity with the past isoften reflected in the mortuary practices of Neolithic commu-nities, as at Lepinski Vir, Padina, Vlasac, Topole-Baè. More-over, the variety of rituals practiced indicates localized beliefsmaintained from earlier times. In other words, the lack of uni-formity in the expression of beliefs suggests that rituals werenot transplanted as a result of demic-diffusions. One of thedouble burials at Topole-Baè in Vojvodina, dated to a time seg-ment of 7300-6800 cal BC, seems to connect the first users ofpottery at this site with their local forebears (Boriæ 1999:65,n.6, fig.28). The age of this skeleton indicates the same prac-tice of relation to ancestral traces seen at Lepenski Vir, Padinaor Vlasac.14

In conclusion, I would not exclude the possibility thathunter-gatherer groups in the Balkans, as in the Near East, wouldhave been capable of choosing different options, in coppingwith demography and/or environment related economic stresssituations. Ethnographic studies show that fertility of hunter-gatherers is low in comparison with that of farmers. Typicallyhunter-gatherers have a spacing of four years on average be-tween successive births and a completed fertility of five chil-dren. With the mortality rates that are prevalent among hunter-gatherers, births and death tend to balance one another so thatsuch mobile populations are basically stationary from demo-graphic point of view (Howell 1979; Lee 1972). The shift tosedentism with agriculture removes this constraint and makesit possible to shorten the spacing between births to about aninterval of 2.5 years and thus have a larger number of offspring(Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984:65-66).

Regarding migratory movements by hunter-gatherers, onemay assume that those occupying favorable locations for broadspectrum subsistence activities, including foraging for wildpulses and cereals would not have moved out so readily evenunder certain demographic or socio-economic stress situations.As suggested by Hillman, an obvious solution would have beento try to increase yields from local stands of key staples(1996:192-193). Acquiring such staples through the exchangemechanism with those already pursuing farming would havebeen an option.

In short, for hunter-gatherers options for changes entailingshifts in location and subsistence economy would have included:a) a temporary shift from broad to narrow spectrum exploita-tion, and if necessary in a different ecological niche, b) shiftingfrom narrow to broad-spectrum exploitation, c) decreasing mo-bility and thus preferring permanent settlement to seasonal ones.The first two options could have resulted in the establishmentof dispersed and seasonally inhabited villages, with some per-haps occupied for most part of the year. We may reasonablyassume that the first option too could have eventually led to apopulation stabilization sometimes followed by an acceleratedincrease among the exogenous communities. A population in-crease could have resulted in one of the following economicstrategies: a) broad-spectrum exploitation in an optimal zone,b) a shift to a marginal zone. Such a move would have required

a larger measure of mobility. But at the same time would haveallowed for a variety of economic activities; from selectiveexploitation of animal and plant resources to trading in spe-cialized commodities, c) sedentism in an optimal zone wouldhave stabilized the subsistence economy at least for a few gen-erations without recourse to cultivation on condition that thewild life and vegetation were not over-exploited. Decreasingwild food resources reaching critically low levels would havepromoted cultivation and domestication as the most logical al-ternative for most sedentarized hunter-gatherers. Naturally thechoice and success of this economic strategy would have de-pended on a number of interlinked preconditions, namely; thechoice of settlement location, the measure of social complex-ity, a demography with a majority of healthy youngsters andeventually an economic organization with emphasis on resourcemanagement and surplus production.

For the Balkans, one aspect of the spread of early farmingthat requires further attention is the interaction between hunter-gatherer and farming populations. In a sufficiently large areatwo populations occupying slightly different ecological nichescould have co-existed, and inevitably interacted (Ammermanand Cavalli-Sforza 1984:16-17). Such interaction could haveresulted in a number of developments such as acculturation,mutualism, and so on. The process of acculturation involvesthe transition from one type of economy and set of customs toanother, in other words hunter-gatherers eventually becomingfarmers. On the negative side of interaction one cannot ruleout ethno-cultural friction, or even the spread of disease, sayfrom sedentary farmers to more mobile and isolated communi-ties of hunter-gatherers.

The mechanisms responsible for the spread of agriculturecan hardly be explained in terms of its origins alone. To under-stand this process other issues should be tackled, including thestructures that emerged from its continuing spread. Until ratherrecently, agricultural spread was discernible only indirectly,through various components of material culture in conjunctionwith pertinent plant and animal remains. Largely still in theoryat least, it is possible the spread of plants and animals directlythrough their molecular composition (Jones, et al. 1996:96).Of particular interest in this respect is the survival of ancientDNA in these tissues, as they are in humans. In the meantimewheat DNA results are more reliable when studying specimensno older than 3300 BP.

Finally, it is difficult to construe a situation for the Balkansthat hunter-gatherer groups were separated from farming com-munities by clear-cut territorial and social boundaries. Amongthem, those who mainly subsisted on food sources derived fromrivers, lakes and sea would not have been very envious of farm-ers working hard cultivating the land to grow cereals and pulses.On the other hand, they would not have hesitated to do so un-der hypotethical circumstances described above. Similar tothe dissemination of raw materials, or regionally developed spe-cialized lithic or other technologies, the introduction of certainspecies of food plant and animals too could simply point tointeraction between ethno-culturally diverse groups and notnecessarily to colonization, except for archaeologically sub-stantiated examples, as in the case of Hoca Çesme in Thrace.

The early Neolithic site distribution in Anatolia and south-eastern Europe demonstrate that seed-crop agriculture beganin both regions as a small-scale activity that focused on hydro-morphic soils, and would have involved the cultivation of not

Food Production Modes in Neolithic Anatolia

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continuous but small patches of fields. Moreover, the prehis-toric site of Pinarbaºi B in the Konya plain suggest a pattern offood plant exploitation during the Early Neolithic, said to becharacterized by a tradition of diversification and mobility. Theterritorial dispersion of food resources and their seasonal ex-ploitations must have been at the core of this mobility of hunter-gatherers, which in central Anatolia seems to have persistedinto later Neolithic periods.

This subsistence mode would not have been exclusive tocentral Anatolia. In fact it can be postulated that it existed inthe regions further west and across the Aegean that enjoyedrather similar environmental conditions. The Thessalian flood-plain in Greece may have been a primary or secondary parentarea in the Neolihization process which took place in theBalkans. Judging by the gradual increase in the number andaverage size of sites in the Larissa Basin during the EarlyNeolithic, population growth is assumed to have been low un-til the later phases of this period, when the number of sitesincreased rapidly beyond the floodplain- a process that, ac-cording to van Andel and Runnels may have led to agriculturalcolonization of southern Balkans north of Thessaly (1995:497).This explanation although appealing proposes a chronologi-cally untenable late start for the south Balkan Neolithic. Forthe Balkans, the more likely model in my opinion is the onewhich incorporates multi-directional small-scale migratorymovements from northwest Anatolia, northern Greece and theeastern Aegean (probably not before the late seventh or earlysixth millennium BC), and economic co-existence between lo-cal farmers, herders and hunter-gatherers.

NOTES

1 For more discussion on Early Neolithic site locations see also vanAndel and Runnels 1995.2 See also Sherratt 1980:313-316.3 For the Fikirtepe culture and related sites see Özdoðan 1983;1997:19-23.4 It is small mound ca 100 m in diameter with a height of 4 m and wasoccupied during the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic period(Roodenberg 1999a).5 For reasons of mobility among Neolithic communities see Whittle1997.6 On current views on the subject, see also Budja 1999:119.7 The genetic pattern records produced by DNA from the Y(male)chromosomes (Cavalli-Sforza and Minch 1997) leads to the convic-tion, as pointed out by Budja (1999:121), that the major componentof the European gene pool might have derived from Near EasternNeolithic farmers rather than indigenous Mesolithic foragers. Thesestudies based on the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA varia-tions in human populations propose two demic-diffusion events sepa-rated in time.8 The investigations concentrated on the mitochondrial DNA geneticgradients based on five major lineage groups with different internaldiversities and divergence times. In other words, this gene pool isbased on the results of phylogenetic and diversity analysis of the mi-tochondrial DNA sequence variation in the control region of Europead the Middle East (Richards et al. 1996).9 According to Boriæ, this model is not necessarily applicable to South-east Europe (1999:46).10 For the modes of exchange see (Voytek and Tringham 1989,Radovanoviæ and Voytek 1997:21).11 At least four transformations of the Neolithic assemblages could bedifferentiated in Northern Thrace: The Karanovo variant with six stagesof development is characteristic in the northeastern parts of the Thrace.

The Kazanlik variant has four stages of development. The KapitanDimitrievo variant has four stages of development and covers thewestern part of Northern Thrace. Although there is not enough evi-dence to demonstrate, a variant with three stages of transformationmay have existed in the Eastern Rhodope area (Nikolov 2003:40).12 She investigated the Neolithic sites in the upper Stryama valley inwestern Thrace (1998:107-113).13 The neareast sites of Karanovo I culture to Hoca Çeºme areKrumovgrad and Kardjali in the East Rhodope area. According toStefanova two sherds similar to the ones from the Hoca Çeºme phasesI-II were found at Krumovgrad (1998:2:2-3). 14 Some dated graves from Padina give results that put the absoluteage of the human remains associated with the stone construction atthe end of the 10th millennium cal BC (Boriæ 1999:57).

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Food Production Modes in Neolithic Anatolia

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New book on the Early Neolithic in the Balkans, edited byMichela Spataro and Paolo Biagi (2007)

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ANNEX 1

INTERVIEW WITH PROFESSOR JAK YAKAR

Available online at http://en.journey.bg/news/?&ntype=1&year=2007&news=3688(Date: 20-11-2007)

In March 2007 Professor Jak Yakar visited Salt Lake City receiving the Marija Gimbutas lecture grant – an initiative of the InternationalInstitute of Anthropology, Salt Lake City, which was accomplished in 2007 in collaboration with the Middle East Center at the University ofUtah. After his lecture on Enthoarchaeology in Anatolia, Professor Jak Yakar was also a special guest of the Bulgarians in Utah and theirFriends at Belvedere, Salt Lake Downtown. During the discussion about the role of folklore in the everydayness of different cultures welearned that Professor Jak Yakar had Balkan roots in his genealogy. Details and his understanding of prehistoric archaeology follow below.

L. Nikolova: Professor Yakar, first of all I would like to thank you for coming to Utah as an academic guest of the University of Utah and theInternational Institute of Anthropology. The lecture at the University of Utah and the following seminar were exciting. We learned thatenthoarchaeology was a subject involving your student interests and later field experience. Your studies always show that you are moreinterested how the people lived in Prehistory than what typology they reproduced of the material culture. How do you feel yourself as aspecialist – more archaeologist or prehistoric cultural anthropologist?

J. Yakar: Regarding your question, I would like to elaborate. My field of interest is pre-classical Anatolian archaeology. In other words, myresearch involves the ancient Anatolian society from its prehistoric beginnings to the end of the Middle Iron Age. I believe that modernarchaeology as an interdisciplinary and multi-dimensional scientific research field is increasingly successful in investigating various social,economic and spiritual aspects of prehistoric cultures, as well as those pertaining to the Anatolian society of early historical times. Naturally,dealing with the latter, textual data from local and non-local sources do help considerably in clarifying the historical and cultural backgroundof various Anatolian ethnicities and polities. Since I strongly believe in the importance of multi-disciplinary collective research in archaeologicalfield projects, including ethnography and ethno-history, I define myself as an archaeologist interested in investigating, among other things,the possible reasons for cultural variations among some past contemporary communities inhabiting environments sharing the same geographicand climatic characteristics.

LN: What is your new book about?

JY: It is titled: Reflections of Ancient Anatolian Society in Archaeology: From the Emergence of Villages to the Formation of City States-from the tenth to the end of the third millennia BC. It should be out by mid-2008.

LN: How do you like the USA and how do you remember Utah?

JY: I like the USA ever since 1965, when I started my graduate studies at Brandeis University in Massachusetts. I believe despite all criticismat home and abroad, it is the only country in the world with equal opportunities to all regardless of race, religion and color. I can understandwhy people do not spare any effort to make it their home. Especially the socially, ethnically and economically oppressed that keep comingfrom lesser democracies. I don’t think Utah was in my itinerary until I heard from you again some years ago. I could not say no to yourinvitation to give lecture at the University of Utah. I am very glad I came. I very much enjoyed my stay, meeting your colleagues, friends andstudents. It gave me the rare opportunity to see another facet of the multi-cultural American Society.

LN: Tell us something about your Balkan genealogy roots?

JY: I only know that my father was born in Strumitsa(Macedonia) and came to Turkey at the age of 6 in 1912. His father who fought at thehead of a militia on the side of the Ottomans against the invading armies was by that time a wanted man with a price on his head. He fled hisfarmstead on horseback taking his son and rode to the Port of Salonika. According to what he told me( I was 6 years old at the time) his planwas to sail to New York. He was dressed like a Greek priest in order not to be recognized and had to hid my father inside his long coat. Butseeing his picture on a wanted poster at the port and at the same time seeing two approaching Bulgarian soldiers, he panicked and boarded thefirst ship on port. So instead of arriving in New York, he ended up in Izmir! Once there, and with things cooling down, he brought his wifeand young daughter over as planned beforehand. Although they too must have been surprised that the destination was not the USA butTurkey!

LN: Do you believe in global archaeology and how do you see the future of global archaeology?

JY: Global archaeology is a fact as far as sharing knowledge relating to dating methods, excavation and survey techniques, and variousprocessing procedures necessitating the use of laboratories and computer systems. We learn a good deal from each other without gettinginvolved too much in each others respective projects. I think things would remain the way they are now. However, more effort should bemade separating politics and nationalism from influencing archaeological research and results, whether it is in the Middle East, Near East orthe Balkans. One way of doing this isjoint projects and the exchange of temporary exhibits regardless of national borders and politicalconsiderations.

LN: What is the future of archaeology as a profession and social practice?

JY: It is going from bad to worse.

Jak Yakar

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