Did Anatolia contribute to the Neolithization of Southeast Europe?
Abstract
In the Near East, the process of “Neolithization” highlighted by sedentarization or semi-sedentarization could be defined as a slow socio-economic course that evolved parallel to the climatic amelioration with milder temperatures and increased humidity during the early Holocene. Climatic changes having a certain impact on the local flora would have affected the composition of the local fauna. Shifting migration patterns and feeding zones of animal species hunted for their meat due to environmental changes no doubt necessitated certain economic adaptations requiring lesser or more selective mobility on the part of hunter-gatherer communities. Recognizing the archaeological implications of social changes during the process of sedentarization is a difficult task, in most instances attainable only by way of an interdisciplinary approach. In Anatolia, the chronological sequence of this process indicates an early start in the southeast, gradually spreading to areas of grassland vegetation in the southern Anatolian plateau. It subsequently reached the Aegean coast and slightly later spread to the more northerly regions of western Anatolia.
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References
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