This book investigates how local communities across Europe adopt the Bell Beaker phenomenon during the 3rd millennium BC.

This book investigates how local communities across Europe adopt the Bell Beaker phenomenon during the 3rd millennium BC.

The Neolithic --a period in which the first sedentary agrarian communities were established across much of Europe--has been a key topic of archaeological research for over a century. However, the variety of evidence across Europe, the range of languages in which research is carried out, and the way research traditions in different countries have developed makes it very difficult for both students and specialists to gain an overview of continent-wide trends. The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe provides the first comprehensive, geographically extensive, thematic overview of the European Neolithic --from Iberia to Russia and from Norway to Malta --offering both a general introduction and a clear exploration of key issues and current debates surrounding evidence and interpretation. Chapters written by leading experts in the field examine topics such as the movement of plants, animals, ideas, and people (including recent trends in the application of genetics and isotope analyses); cultural change (from the first appearance of farming to the first metal artefacts); domestic architecture; subsistence; material culture; monuments; and burial and other treatments of the dead. In doing so, the volume also considers the history of research and sets out agendas and themes for future work in the field.

Could the circulation of objects or ideas and the mobility of artisans explain the unprecedented uniformity of the material culture observed throughout the whole of Europe? The 17 papers presented here offer a range of new and different perspectives on the Beaker phenomenon across Europe. The focus is not on Bell Beaker pottery but on social groups (craft specialists, warriors, chiefs, extended or nuclear families), using technological studies and physical anthropology to understand mobility patterns during the 3rd millennium BC. Chronological evolution is used to reconstruct the rhythm of Bell Beaker diffusion and the environmental background that could explain this mobility and the socioeconomic changes observed during this period of transition toward Bronze Age societies. The chapters are mainly organized geographically, covering Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean shores and the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, includes some areas that are traditionally studied and well known, such as France, the British Isles or Central Europe, but also others that have so far been considered peripheral, such as Norway, Denmark or Galicia. This journey not only offers a complex and diverse image of Bell Beaker societies but also of a supra-regional structure that articulated a new type of society on an unprecedented scale.

The issue of the social dimension of technology and transformation, seen from the perspective of 'Habitus', has repeatedly been discussed in the scientific discourse exploring prehistoric and archaic communities. However, the complexity of related phenomena constantly provokes new approaches in different archaeological contexts, which leads to interesting findings.By presenting the latest studies on the social dimension of technology and transformation, this book contributes to a better understanding of a system of embodied dispositions hidden within Bourdieu's concept of 'Habitus'. These studies mainly cover European areas; from Scandinavia to Italy, the Balkans to the British Isles, and Ukraine to the Northern Caucasus. In addition, ethnoarchaeological field studies from distant Indonesia are used to interpret the Hallstatt Culture in Europe. The papers span a chronological dimension from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Iron Age and in summary include a diachronic perspective. Rock art, Trypillian megasites, stone axes and adzes, metallurgy, wagons, archery items, ceramics produced on potter's wheels, mechanisms of cultural genesis and dualistic social systems are examples of the topics discussed. This book also provides comments on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice, including the concept of 'Habitus'.This book is addressed to international academia, presenting an important set of information and interpretations for archaeologists and readers interested in European prehistory. It comprises contributions to the CRC 1266 International Workshop 'Habitus? The Social Dimension of Technology and Transformation', held in 2018 at Kiel University.