Session: #96

Content:

The early sedentary communities were mainly focused on the banks of rivers and lakes to meet their vital needs for water. For a long time, this was the dominating paradigm within the Central European settlement archaeology, if not worldwide. In regions with centrally organised states, one must think of complex irrigating systems that bring the water to the settlement. In prehistoric Central Europe, it was not until recently, that human-made sources of water like wells or even potential cisterns were discovered. These findings initially caused a lot of irritation and astonishment among researchers. But since then excavations of wells have increased rapidly for the early sedentary communities, such as the Linear Pottery Culture in Central Europe. We know today more than four dozens of cases. These new discoveries happened mostly by chance or, in the best case, by a very intensive and systematic research in peripheral settlement areas mainly due to very large scale construction or extraction projects.
In this session we do not want to restrict our view to a specific region but as we are interested in early settled societies, we would like to concentrate on the Neolithic Period. The presentation of new finds should not be in our focus. Even if the knowledge gained by each new case is very important and can alter the relatively recent understanding of human-made constructions for this vital resource anytime. The speakers should mainly concentrate on the understanding of the use and distribution of wells and cisterns within the settlements. Their presentation should demonstrate theoretic reflections as well as the manifold analysis of the natural sciences, which can be applied to the often exquisitely preserved organic material in water-logged features.

Session: #96

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