There are two Neolithics in South-west Asia. One is the long Neolithic that emerged from the Epipalaeolithic, as the Pleistocene gave way to the Holocene; for seventy years, that Neolithic has been investigated diachronically as life in permanent settlements developed alongside the gradual increase in cultivation of crops, leading to the domestication of plants and animals. This book is the latest in a series of volumes originating from workshops on the other Neolithic (the Late Neolithic and into the Chalcolithic, in terms of South-west Asia; and plain Neolithic in terms of the Aegean, Greece and the Balkans). For the editors, “the process of Neolithization stands for the spread of the Neolithic as a discontinuous, leapfrogging process … out of its core area … in the Fertile Crescent” (p. 4). The contributors were asked “which changes and continuities can we see around 6000 cal BC in your region?” (p. 1), and a secondary question concerned the rapid climate change event in the late seventh millennium: were there changes and transformations in the archaeology that might be attributed to the impact of climatic deterioration?
An introductory chapter by the organisers of the 2011 conference conveniently summarises the issues that recur in the core of the chapters, many of which have a particular site as their focus. The place of Anatolia may still be debated. South-east Anatolia is at the northern end of the Levant and is part of the core area of the ancient Neolithic, while Central Anatolia is emerging as an eastward extension of that core. Beyond that point, it is an accepted fact that the ‘Neolithisation’ of western Anatolia, the Aegean and beyond was a result of culture transfer. In some respects, each of the sites, or groups of sites, do not closely resemble one another in material culture; but on the other hand, pottery began to be made and used in the seventh millennium BC, and in the second half of that millennium, well-made painted ceramics were in plentiful use all the way from western Iran, across North Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the Aegean, to mainland Greece, at least. Across a very wide and diverse region, pottery containers for storage and fine, decorated bowls, cups and plates for the serving of food and drinks appear almost synchronously, documenting significant changes in domestic practices and customs.
There follow chapters grouped by geographical region. The sequence opens with four chapters on upper Mesopotamia and the Levant. The chapter by Olivier Nieuwenhuyse (who sadly died in 2020), on the social and material innovation represented by ceramics across North Mesopotamia, is a masterpiece by an archaeologist who had worked on the subject from his base in the Dutch team working at Tell Sabi Abyad in north-east Syria. It is a brilliant summary of Nieuwenhuyse's research on the extraordinary transformation of economy, society and culture around the titular 6000 BC. That section is followed by seven chapters on Anatolia, four of which are directly related to the site of Çatalhöyük (which, not surprisingly, forms the platform from which Ian Hodder surveys the workshop papers). The next section includes three chapters on sites on the Aegean and Sea of Marmara coasts and one chapter on mainland Greece. The geographical series ends with a three-chapter section on South-east Europe. The last part of the book consists of two chapters on ‘modelling the change’, and, finally, commentaries by Ian Hodder and Mehmet Özdoğan.
It was surprising to find the chapter ‘The Neolithic colonization of Balkanic Europe: chronology and process’, by Jean-Paul Demoule and Laurence Manolakakis explaining the old debate between champions of autochthonous development and the diffusionist view of the Neolithic, leading to a summary of the arguments for diffusion. It was equally surprising to find that Wolfram Schier's chapter, titled ‘Modes and models of Neolithization in Europe: comments to an ongoing debate’, opened with the 1865 invention of the term Neolithic by Lubbock and its modification by Morgan in 1877, before it was defined by Gordon Childe in the 1930s. Finally, the main subject was revealed as a review of the developing understanding of the Neolithisation of Central Europe (back to the LBK) since 1960. Schier concludes that Jean Guilaine's ‘hypothèse arhythmique’, developed from his study of the Western Mediterranean and France, applies also in Central Europe: the spread of the Neolithic was a nonlinear and heterogeneous process, varying in speed from region to region.
Having read through the core chapters, Ian Hodder's commentary chapter says everything that I would want to say. He makes his Çatalhöyük experience the paradigm, illustrating the transformation of the last few centuries of occupation on the East Mound based on the work of Arkadiusz Marciniak and the Polish team. Viewed in the context of the wider perspective of the conference papers, Hodder concludes that it was “a complex and locally diverse process involving migration, exchange, diffusion and autochthonous development”, with “so much going on at different times, at different rates and in different ways locally that any attempt to build a grand narrative seems doomed” (p. 395).
As a long-term resident among those who focus too closely on the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of South-west Asia, I found the core chapters illuminating, informative and well written for a non-specialist readership, illustrating what seems to me a second transformation within (and expanding dramatically from) the longer Neolithic of South-west Asia. All the contributors were asked to consider whether the late seventh millennium rapid climate change event might have been responsible for driving change and adaptation; none found climate change a significant factor. Given that the workshop took place in 2011 and the publication is dated 2022, it is good to find that most of the authors kept their draft chapters up to date in what is a rapidly developing period. Finally, the editors and the publishers are to be congratulated on a finely produced, large-format book.
