Session: #297

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In many regions, explanations for the spread of farming often focus on key sites in the region where the culture first develops or spreads out. These areas are often well researched and the target of multi-method approaches. For example, in the area of research we focus on, the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), the core areas of its origin, in Central Europe, and its spread westwards across central Europe have been the subject of many years of detailed and innovative research. Areas where the LBK later arrived - on the periphery of the culture’s geographical distribution - are now beginning to see parallel research agendas being developed. This means we are currently in an excellent position to compare the “centre” and “periphery” (or marginal and border areas). The aim of this session is to debate and explore the similarities and differences we see arising from the processes of Neolithisation, presented in subsistence strategies, social structures, settlement patterns and material culture exchanges, between central and peripheral areas during the spread of agriculture, noting that once peripheral areas can become core over time. We invite papers that explore these themes in a wider range of early Neolithic cultures in Europe and further afield; and multiple methodological approaches (including those from the natural and social sciences). Our aim is, through discussion, to develop an idea of the general trends we see in research, and how we might further develop research agendas in these periphery - but no less important - regions of study.

Session: #297

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