Dr Marta Andriiovych
Off the beaten track: The Significance of the Black Sea Regions for European Neolithization. Due to the historical and geographical circumstances, the Black Sea Regions form a unique research area between Europe and Asia (Ivanova, 2013, p. 3-6). Today, the coasts of the Black Sea belong to the modern states of Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania. The different political pathways of the former Soviet Union and Western Europe during the XXth century did neither allow holistic investigations nor a comprehensive exchange of archaeological investigations across the area. This disjointed situation occurred not only as a result of the different political regimes of the relevant countries, but also because of different languages, and the lack of international researchers feeling at home in both worlds.
The mainstream theory assumes that the Neolithization process of Europe started from the core area in the Levant, Upper Mesopotamia, and Anatolia, then spread to the Aegean, and from there entered Europe via southeastern Europe (Danube axis) and south-western Europe (Mediterranean axis). The question of the Neolithization of Eastern Europe and the Caucasian regions has remained largely unaddressed in the (Western) European consideration of the spread of the Neolithization. As a result, most maps visualizing the Neolithization of Europe only indicate one direction from Anatolia to Europe. The role of the Black Sea regions is usually completely ignored. A spread of the Neolithic from the core area of the Neolithization in the Levant, Upper Mesopotamia, and Anatolia through the Caucasian and Caspian regions to the steppe and forest-steppe zone of Ukraine is practically never considered. Until now, the focus of European Neolithization has always been on a dispersal across the Balkans and the Danube axis or across the western Mediterranean. Recent research underlines the importance of the Caucasus region for the spread of the Neolithic from the core area in the Levant, Anatolia, and Upper Mesopotamia. With my postdoctoral mobility project, I would like to contribute to testing this hypothesis.
The discourse of Neolithization has so far primarily considered the development of agriculture, pottery, and settlement forms. In my dissertation on the Mariupol-type necropolises of the Middle and Lower Dnieper region, I was able to demonstrate the uniqueness of the burial rituals. The rapid changes in the burial ritual consist of a change in the position of the dead: from the contracted position of the skeleton in the Late Mesolithic to the supine position in the Neolithic and Early Eneolithic and a renewed change to the contracted position of the side again during the Eneolithic period. This large-scale consideration of changes in burial rituals offered a new contribution to the study of Neolithization in South-Eastern Europe.
My postdoctoral project aims to improve the research on Neolithization around the Black Sea, as well as to collect data on the development of burial traditions. Also, it is important to stress, that the investigation of the prehistoric periods is relatively underdeveloped in comparison to the Bronze age and Classical periods of the Black Sea region (Özdoğan, 2014, p. p.1509). On this basis, a synthetic compilation, study and mapping of numerous Neolithic sites will be created. Using a combined database, GIS methods will be employed to visualize traditions and track migrations associated with Neolithization. My basic hypothesis is that these population shifts were triggered by climate changes. In particular, the brief but intense climate setback 8,200 years ago comes into question.
