Conference "Culture Contact, Cultural Boundaries and Innovations in the 5th Millennium"

Basic data for this project

Description

The fifth millennium is characterized by far-flung contacts and a veritable flood of innovations. While its beginning is still strongly reminiscent of a broadly Linearbandkeramik way of life, at its end we find new, inter-regionally valid forms of symbolism, representation and ritual behaviour (including possible prestige goods such as jadeite axes and copper objects, but also the deposition of human and animal bodies as well as artefacts), changes in the settlement system (for instance the colonisation of wetland habitats and the establishment of new settlement structures), in architecture and in routine life (e.g. in domestic dwellings, earthworks, or pottery). Yet, these inter-regional tendencies are paired with a profusion of increasingly small-scale archaeological cultures, many of them defined through pottery only. This tension between large-scale interaction and regional or local developments remains to be adequately addressed. In how far can ceramically-defined ‘cultures’ be seen as spatially coherent social groups with their own way of life and worldview? Which role did ‘outside’ influences play in social change, for instance the emergence of hierarchical relations? Which artefacts and, perhaps more crucially, behaviours are appropriate for defining social boundaries and identity groups? And what impact do permeable boundaries and polythetic models of culture have on our chronologies (e.g. innovation speed) and our views of Neolithic societies? The second Münster conference on the 5th millennium focusses on the inter-relationships of the various archaeologically defined culture groups and address two connected aspects: First, the role of innovation in these societies: are new objects and practices simply copied, or are they adapted to their new contexts? Can we draw direct connections between the appearance of innovations and social change? Are the latter comparable at the large scale? And if so, why is this the case (structural similarities, environmental conditions, similar historical trajectories, general developmental trends...)? Second, strategies of boundary creation: which objects are being used to divide social groups from each other (spatially and otherwise)? What was their social significance? At which scale are groups defined? And to what extent do different kinds of objects share the same spatial distribution?