Session Organisers: Aleksandr Popov, Junzo Uchiyama

Category: Conceptual - Theory

Session Abstract: Archaeologists continue to define and frame the Neolithic in terms of a progressive step towards new forms of economy (farming). In turn, these developments are linked to other phenomena, chiefly domestication, but also storage, sedentism and increasing social complexity. Recent decades have seen growing critique of these stadial perspectives, with acceptance of an expansive and persistent ‘middle-ground’ between foraging and farming. This typically involves a range of deliberate interventions to achieve ‘low-level food production’ across plant, animal and also aquatic resources. However, the dynamics and long-term potentials of these divergent trajectories are poorly understood and would benefit from renewed efforts at global comparative analysis. This session focuses on the theme of ‘Long Neolithics’ in different world regions. Papers are invited to focus on the complexity, duration and internal diversity of local Neolithics, and especially on the characteristics of ‘alternative’ social-ecological trajectories that do not culminate in intensive agriculture, including their demographic potentials, ecological sustainability and cultural resilience. Focal themes include (but are not limited to) emergence and displacement of ‘lost crops’, diverse human-animal interventions, and especially the modification and cultivation of ‘wild’ landscapes, forests, wetlands, grasslands and coastal zones in ways that generate distinctive place-based food systems that in some regions have persisted into historical times.

Room: A

08/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:15	Peter Jordan	The Neolithization of Northeast Asia: Explaining Innovation, Collapse and Transformation
10:15 - 10:30	Aleksandr Popov	Features of the Neolithization process in the coastal territory of the Russian Far East in the Early and Middle Holocene (12000 - 5000 years BP).
10:30 - 10:45	Vyacheslav Grishchenko	The main stages and trajectories of the neolithization in the island world of northeast Asia
10:45 - 11:00	Masahiro Fukuda	Neolithic development with river fishery resources: A case from the Eastern Amur region and surrounding areas
11:00 - 11:15	Irina Ponkratova	A Man in the Art of the Stone Age of Kamchatka (Far East, Russian Federation)

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	Henny Piezonka	Untying the bundle: Neolithic cultural traits seen from a (global) hunter-gatherer perspective
13:15 - 13:30	Junzo Uchiyama, Mitsuhiro Kuwahata, Peter Jordan	Neolithisation and natural disasters: Jomon settlement pattern shifts in Kyushu, Japan (ca. 11,500-7,000 cal BP)
13:30 - 13:45	Viktor Diakonov	Understanding “Long Neolithic” in the Far Northeast of Asia
13:45 - 14:00	Elena Sergusheva	Small-scale Millet Agriculture as Possible Marker of the Life Support Sustainability in the Late Neolithic of the southern Russian Far East
14:00 - 14:15	Mikael Fauvelle	No Farming Needed? Resource Intensification, Social Complexity, and Long-Term Resilience in Maritime Hunter-Gatherer Societies

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:00	Mathilde Van Den Berg	Hormonal intervention as a mediator in human-reindeer relations beyond the wild
15:00 - 15:15	Margarita Kholkina, Roman Muravev, Yulianna Radaeva	Between North and South: Borders and Contacts Between Early Neolithic Cultures in the Gulf of Finland Region
15:15 - 15:30	Dmitriy Gerasimov, Margarita Kholkina, Alexander Zhulnikov, Marianna Kulkova, Aleksey Tarasov, Dmitriy Blyshko, Roman Muravev, Tatyana Vasilyeva, Tatyana Gusentsova, Alexander Kulkov, Nadezhda Nedomolkina	Phenomenon of the Neolithic Asbestos Ware in the Eastern Europe forest zone
15:30 - 15:45	Gertrud Neumann-Denzau	Neolithic saltmaking - a booster for transformations.
15:45 - 16:00	Guilherme Zdonek Mongeló, Fernando Ozorio Almeida, Jennifer Watling, Myrtle Shock, Thiago Kater	Should the historical process in the Amazonian SW during the medium Holocene be called Neolithization?

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:45	Daniel Garcia-Rivero, Ruth Taylor	Subsistence patterns and cultural shifts in the Neolithic sequence of Dehesilla Cave (Southern Spain)
16:45 - 17:00	Leonor Rocha	Neolithic territories of Central Alentejo (Portugal): settlement strategies
17:00 - 17:15	Tim Kerig	Labour and social Inequality in the Neolithic of the Northern Alpine Foreland
17:15 - 17:30	Levent Yılmaz	The Use and Abuse of Neolithic
17:30 - 17:45	Jacob Freeman	Understanding the emergence of alternative social-ecological regimes of food production

Session Organisers: Hans Georg K. Gebel

Category: Conceptual - Theory

Session Abstract: The session invites us to test the term Neolithic and conventional understandings and models of Neolithisation processes from regional and global perspectives by reflecting on new findings (such as productive foraging) and confronting them with evidence not fitting. We always come up against the applicability limits of these terms when they inappropriately reflect the complexity and intricacy of phenomena or evoke misleading generalisations for their local, regional, supra-regional and global variabilities. "Neolithic" phenomena and processes also occurred before or after Neolithic "core periods", were polycentric and polycyclic in various ways and geographically shifting, reversible, failing, behaved acyclic/asynchronous. The tendency of research to prioritise individual stimuli and/or to negate multidisciplinary holistic approaches reinforces the conceptual problems with the terms. The session aims to open a global academic discourse to highlight the potential pitfalls of "reductionism" in Neolithic research and to discuss if the world's Neolithics share basic traits and a common nature in creating the new social phenotype characteristic for productive lifeways (as opposed to foraging lifeways). The productive use of natural and human resources - including the cognitive territories with their skills and dispositions created to serve these purposes – was aimed at control towards security, growth/reproducibility, and defence. Do these characterise all Neolithics to varying degrees, without foraging elements ever disappearing completely? Each contribution should attempt to give a brief outline of the relevant traits of the regional/ supra-regional Neolithic trajectories (Subsistence modes, Environmental technologies and adaptations, Built territories, Technologies and consumption, Social organisation, Belief/ Cognitive systems, Exchange networks) and outline which research approaches shaped these results. This is in order to approach the question of which interacting systems enabled the sustainable establishment and adaptation of productive environments, impaired them or caused them to fail. Was productive behaviour the common denominator and momentum of these processes, or do the globally different permanent transitions from foraging to producing - from taking to making - include substantially different human dispositions and ontologies? All these questions are intended to depict the polycentric and asynchronous panorama of early productive humans.

Room: A

04/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Hans Georg K. Gebel	Introduction to the Session: Early Productive Behaviour, or the Regional and Global Problems with the Terms Neolithic/ Neolithisation
13:20 - 13:40	Julian Thomas	The Neolithic as an Assemblage
13:40 - 14:00	Felipe Criado-Boado, Luís Martínez, Jadranka Verdonkschot	Cognitive and neurological bases of the domestication of Mind
14:00 - 14:20	Bill Finlayson	Searching for a beginning

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Maxime Brami	Childe’s ‘neolithic revolution’ and its relevance to the archaeology of Southwest Asia
15:05 - 15:25	Gary Rollefson	Neolithic Food Production Hunting Technology in Arid Landscapes Across the World
15:25 - 15:45	Alison Betts	Neolithic Foundations and Neolithic Dispersals Across Asia: Some Comparative Considerations
15:45 - 16:05	Andrey Tabarev, Alexander Popov	""Neolithic Eve"": Personal view on the local and global perspective

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Tanja Schreiber	Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers? Rethinking “Neolithic trajectories” through a Siberian case study
16:50 - 17:10	Chao Zhao	When Neolithic began in North China: A Debate on Divergent Interpretations of Early Neolithic
17:10 - 17:30	Cédric Bodet	Production and Reproduction: the mingled infrastructures of the Neolithic Social (R)evolution
17:30 - 17:50	Frédérique Brunet	Long-Term Neolithisation Processes in Central Asia: The Key Role of Mobility, Territories and Interactions

05/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Alexander Wasse, Joanne Clarke	Choice in the Face of Change. How 'Neolithic' Were Cyprus and the Greater Syrian Desert in the 7th and 6th Millennia BC?
10:20 - 10:40	Hamil Samira	The Neolithic in north-west Algeria
10:40 - 11:00	Arkadiusz Marciniak	The Central Anatolia Neolithic – a globalization perspective
11:00 - 11:20	Xiaoran Wang	Reassessing Regional Economy During the Neolithization: Nevali Cori and Yumin from the Fertile Arcs of Western and Eastern Asia

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Mingjian Guo	The Neolithisation in Northwestern Hebei Area, China
13:20 - 13:40	Yoshihiro Nishiaki	Is the Jomon culture “Neolithic”?
13:40 - 14:00	Jian-Ye Han	New Discoveries at Nanzuo Site and the Dawn of Early State in the Loess Plateau, China
14:00 - 14:20	Claudia Speciale, Domenico Lo Vetro, Carmine Collina, Vincenza Forgia, Maria Rosa Iovino, Domenica Gullì, Giuseppe Bazan, Enrico Giannitrapani	New insights on the cultural, social, and economic domestication of Sicily

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 16:15	All Participants (Peer-Moderated)	Final Session Discussion: Lessons for Future Regional and Global Neolithic Research

Session Organisers: Peter Bellwood, Hsiao-chun Hung

Category: Domestication / Subsistence Economy

Session Abstract: This session examines six major regions, located around the globe, of transition from foraging to food production. Presenters are asked to give their current opinions, for their regions of expertise, about the following basic issues: a) trajectories of animal and plant domestication; b) trends in settlement sedentism and patterning; c) changes in human population density; d) trends in human population history, acknowledging current debates in genetics and linguistics. Were the transitions driven mainly by indigenous enterprise, or did they involve contact with, or immigration by, food producing populations from external sources? Presenters should outline what we think we know at present, and suggest important goals for future research. The aim of the session is to generate broad multidisciplinary and comparative perspectives. Taking stock is important, and we will invite speakers both from the Scientific Committee and from beyond to express succinctly (in 20-minute bursts) how they perceive their region of expertise. Suggested regions: 1. Southwest Asia 2. East Asia 3. Africa 4. New Guinea 5. Mesoamerica 6. South America

Room: A

05/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Peter Bellwood, Hsiao-Chun Hung	Introduction to Session G03: Foraging to food production, and the consequences: a global review and perspective.
16:50 - 17:10	Henny Piezonka, Natal’ya Chairkina, Ekaterina Dubovtseva, Lyubov’ Kosinskaya, Tanja Schreiber	The world’s oldest forts? Amnya and the acceleration of hunter-gatherer diversity in Siberia 8000 years ago.
17:10 - 17:30	Joaquim Fort	Interbreeding and demic diffusion in the spread of the Neolithic in Europe.
17:30 - 17:50	Jean-Denis Vigne, François Briois, Jean Guilaine	The Southwest Asian Neolithic transition scrutinized from the island of Cyprus.

07/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Hans Georg K. Gebel	Marginal? The roles of grasslands in the establishment of Middle Eastern Neolithic lifeways.
10:20 - 10:40	Koen Bostoen, Peter Coutros, Jessamy Doman	The Bantu expansion and low-level food production in central Africa.
10:40 - 11:00	Donatella Usai	Thinking globally: the Neolithization of the Nile Valley.
11:00 - 11:20	Steven Brandt And Roger Blench	Late Pleistocene Ethiopian hunter-gatherer origin of Afroasiatic peoples and the role of food production in their Holocene dispersals.

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Amaia Arranz-Otaegui	The origins of agriculture in southwest Asia: a regional overview
13:20 - 13:40	Zhenhua Deng	The formation and early development of farming society in the Yangtze Valley, southern China.
13:40 - 14:00	Qin Ling	The neolithization process in northern China: emergence of pottery, sedentary societies and millet agriculture.
14:00 - 14:20	Dongdong Tu	Rethinking the emergence of early village life in North China: perspectives from the recent archaeological discoveries.

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Ben Shaw, Glenn Summerhayes	A Neolithic of the New Guinea region and its relevance to global discussions of the human past.
15:05 - 15:25	Dolores R. Piperno	The origins and spread of agriculture in Mesoamerica, Central, and South America: where are we now?
15:25 - 15:45	Douglas Kennett, Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra	Maize domestication and dispersal in the Americas.
15:45 - 16:05	Keith M. Prufer, Dolores R. Piperno, Nadia C. Neff, Mark Robinson, Richard J. George, Douglas Kennett	New advances in understanding the early adoption of plant-based diets in the northern neotropics.

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Richard G. Lesure, Reuven J. Sinensky	On the two-step Agricultural Demographic Transition in Mesoamerica.
16:50 - 17:10	Jose Iriarte	Forest islands, anthrosols, and drained fields: foraging to food-production trajectories in Amazonia.
17:10 - 17:30	Mike Heckenberger	Domestication of earth and sky in later Holocene Amazonia.

Session Organisers: Peter Turchin, Daniel Kondor

Category: Population - Network

Session Abstract: While theorists originally assumed that population dynamics of early farmers can be described by a logistic S-shaped curve, evidence is accumulating that initial increases were often followed by population declines. This pattern is evident both in population proxies based on archaeological indicators, and in regional and continental-scale studies of aggregated radiocarbon (14C) dates. In the session we want to address the question whether boom/bust cycles are a universal feature of early farming societies, and if not, what is the relative frequency of such dynamics? We welcome comparative studies, either among different regions, or among different population proxies in the same region. To facilitate a meaningful discussion and debate, we also highly encourage the participation from scholars whose work shows evidence against boom/bust patterns in any region. In line with the above, we aim to have a session that covers the following topics in a balanced way: - Case studies of estimating population numbers and main conclusions. - Case studies from outside of Europe specifically Africa would be very welcome. - Studies that perform a systematic comparison among world regions and argue for or against universal patterns. - Studies that compare 14C-based results with other proxies; studies that take a multi-proxy approach and estimate population numbers from a combination of evidence. - Studies that build and present large-scale databases of available evidence and develop methodology for preprocessing, processing and analyzing the data in them. - Studies that present and evaluate possible causes of population declines.

Room: C

08/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Peter Turchin	A Paradigm Shift in Understanding Human Population Dynamics
10:20 - 10:40	Jacob Freeman, Judson Finley, Erick Robinson, Adolfo Gil	A multi-scalar study of population growth dynamics in small-scale societies
10:40 - 11:00	Joe Roe, Martin Hinz	Estimating the Prevalance of Post-Agricultural Population Declines through the Global Radiocarbon Record
11:00 - 11:20	Johannes Müller	Population densities and social levelling mechanisms: from small to mega-sites

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Hinz Martin, Roe Joe	ESTER: Estimation of the prehistoric population of Eurasia based on a large number of records
13:20 - 13:40	Daniel Kondor, Peter Turchin	Approaching population proxies from a modeling perspective
13:40 - 14:00	Ian Kuijt, Arkadiusz Marciniak	Reconsidering arguments for Near Eastern Neolithic high population density, population growth, and early urbanism
14:00 - 14:20	Michael J. O’brien, Simon Carrignon, Bisserka Gaydarska, John Chapman, Brian Buchanan	Modeling Cultural Responses to Disease Spread in Neolithic Trypillia Mega-settlements

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Giacomo Bilotti	Population dynamic in the southwestern Baltic during the Neolithic and Bronze Age
15:05 - 15:25	Hilpert Johanna, Fischer Anna-Leena, Scharl Silviane, Kern Oliver A., Wegener Christian	Moving on? Early Neolithic Population and Settlement Potential in Central Europe (LBK; 5400 – 4950 BCE)
15:25 - 15:45	Detlef Gronenborn, Daniel Kondor, Peter Turchin	A multiscale approach to understanding boom-bust dynamics in European Neolithic societies
15:45 - 16:05	Kaarel Sikk, Aivar Kriiska, Valter Lang, Mari Tõrv	Exploring the population gap of the transition period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age in Estonia with radiocarbon data

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Frantisek Trampota, Vaclav Hrncir, Petr Kvetina	Reconstruction of population dynamics in early farming societies using Bayesian modelling of C14 settlement data. Case study from Morava River basin, Central Europe
16:50 - 17:10	René Ohlrau	Prehistoric Progress: Innovations, Population Growth, and Human Well-Being among Cucuteni-Trypillia Societies
17:10 - 17:30	Timothy Kohler, Darcy Bird	Population, subsistence, and wealth dynamics in three precocious, non-state North American societies: Exploring and Enhancing Malthus-Boserup models
17:30 - 17:50	Robert Drennan, Adam Berrey, Christian Peterson	Demography in Non-state Farming Societies Is More than Just Population Size

Session Organisers: Neil Roberts, Catherine Kuzucuoğlu

Category: Natural Environment

Session Abstract: The idea that changes in climate have acted as a stimulus for events in human history is a long-standing one. Some of this work sees the relationship as a deterministic one, in which climatic adversity prompted societal decline or collapse, often inferred from archaeological evidence of regional site abandonment. But whether determinist or possibilist in character, the relationship between climate and society has generally been envisaged as one in which periods of favourable climate would expand the food supply and hence allow human populations to grow. By the same logic, adverse climatic conditions, such as major droughts, have been linked to societal and demographic crises, as the food supply shrank and human populations exceeded the available resources. In regions such as southwest Asia it has long been hypothesized that the beginnings of Neolithic agriculture were connected to the major shift in global climate at the end of the last Ice Age from cold (and generally dry) to warmer and generally wetter. This session will explore the links between climatic changes and the emergence and spread of early farming societies in different geographical settings where agriculture and sedentary life developed, from Mesoamerica, through Africa and Europe to South and East Asia. It seeks to explore research that critically evaluates the available evidence and is genuinely interdisciplinary in character.

Room: D

04/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Liviu Giosan	Noah’s Flood in the Black Sea and the Spread of Neolithic into Europe: Quo Vadis?
13:20 - 13:40	Marta Andriiovych	Around the Black Sea: the spread of Neolithic settlements before and after the cooling event 8.2 KY BP
13:40 - 14:00	Caroline Heitz, Joe Roe	3000 years of climate change impact on early ‘pile-dwelling’ farming communities around the Alps: New tree-ring-based archaeological and paleoclimatic proxies.
14:00 - 14:20	Lech Czerniak, Joanna Święta-Musznicka, Anna Pędziszewska, Agnieszka Matuszewska	Changes in LBK settlements correlate with fluctuations in climatic conditions. A palynological view on the Neolithisation of Central Europe

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Arman Tekin	Paleoclimatic Changes on The Southern Kahramanmaraş Region During The Neolithic Period: The Macrophysical Climate Model Approach
15:05 - 15:25	Neil Roberts	Climate as a driver of Neolithic human-environment dynamics on the Konya plain, south central Anatolia
15:25 - 15:45	Peter F Biehl, Arkadiusz Marciniak	Archaeological and palaeo-environmental evidence for the 8.2k cal BP climate event at Çatalhöyük
15:45 - 16:05	Ayşin Konak, Tolunay Bayram	Environmental and Climatic Factors Affecting Settlement Location Selection in the Lake District (Turkey)

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Andrew M.T. Moore, Alexia Smith, Loïc Harrault, Peter Rowley-Conwy, Karen Milek	New evidence from Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic Abu Hureyra, Syria, for the development of agriculture in Western Asia
16:50 - 17:10	Caroline Malone	A Neolithic that fails: The Maltese Temple Culture and climatic instability

Session Organisers: Stephen Rostain, Geoffroy de Saulieu

Category: Different Neolithics

Session Abstract: Archaeological research was slow to start in the tropics. However, it has often known important developments, especially in recent years. The archaeology carried out along the equatorial belt shows specificities that distinguish it notably from that practiced elsewhere. It has been the source of original and fruitful theoretical and methodological approaches, in which interdisciplinarity has generally played an essential role. Contrary to what has long been believed, tropical societies have had very different social and political experiences from our own. If the opposition between hunters-gatherers and farmers seems less important there than in other parts of the world, social developments have nevertheless experienced a significant diversity whose mechanisms are not yet well understood and which are already present with the Neolithic processes. These initial developments show specificities that are not found in temperate regions and that goes beyond the simple fact of not breeding animals. Thus, the question of the tropical centers of plant domestication and birth of agriculture has recently given the tropics their rightful role. Similarly, several major inventions that have marked human history over the last 10,000 years have taken place in the tropics. More than elsewhere, the relationship between man and his environment has been posed, and shows how much the current equatorial environments are the result of complex interactions between societies and their landscapes, in short, the result of a history in which these tropical worlds have entered and whose effects on the environment, as well as on non-European knowledge, are exceptional.

Room: K

08/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:15	Doyle Mckey	Domestication, landscape management, food production systems, and societies in lowland South America: Insights from a major crop, manioc
10:15 - 10:30	Stéphen Rostain	Far From Being Marginal: The Cultural Cradle of Amazonia
10:30 - 10:45	Claudia Rodrigues-Carvalho, Célia Boyadjian, Davi Duarte, Murilo Quintans Ribeiro Bastos	Parallels and divergences: the complex occupation of the coast of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) as an example of the specificities and particularities of tropical regions.
10:45 - 11:00	Celia Boyadjian, Rita Scheel-Ybert, Tais Capucho	Diet And Food Production of The Brazilian Shellmound Builders
11:00 - 11:15	Umberto Lombardo	The Pre-Columbian Green Revolution of the Bolivian Amazon

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	João Darcy De Moura Saldanha	The Rise of Monumentality in Eastern Amazonia and its link with the Neolithization Processes in South America
13:15 - 13:30	Geoffroy De Saulieu	Social Implications of domestication in the Tropics
13:30 - 13:45	Champion Louis, Dorian Q. Fuller	Tropical cereal agriculture: domestication and dispersal rates compared in Africa
13:45 - 14:00	Hermine Xhauflair, Timothy Vitales, Xavier Galet, David Codeluppi, Maricar Belarmino, Gerard Palaya	Unveiling linked stories between humans and the environment in Palawan Island, Philippines.
14:00 - 14:15	Dylan Gaffney, Annette Oertle, Alvaro Montenegro, Erlin Djami, Abdul Razak Macap, Tristan Russell, Daud Tanudirjo	Animal taming, translocation, and the punctuated Neolithisation of island rainforests

Session Organisers: Melanie Roffet-Salque, Richard Evershed

Category: Archaeometry

Session Abstract: The most significant developments in the past 30 years in the study of Neolithic people have been the emergence of biomolecular and stable isotope proxies. The most widely applied approaches include stable isotope analyses of skeletal remains and lipids preserved in pottery vessels. The use of these proxies is underpinned by extensive investigations of reference materials and experimental studies, as well as analyses of thousands of finds from prehistoric cultures around the world. Likewise, ancient DNA is delivering important levels of understanding of human, animal and plant origins and relationships, and aspects of their evolution. Beyond these a number of new proxies are in the offing, notably proteins in pottery and dental calculus, which are set to add new dimensions to palaeodietary reconstructions. Even when used alone these biomolecular proxies have achieved spectacular new levels of understanding of Neolithic cultures. This conference session will explore the future potential offered by existing and emerging new biomolecular and isotope proxies for Neolithic studies. Contributions are encouraged that present new proxies, address the validation of existing proxies and demonstrate the integration of different lines of evidence. Multi-proxy studies, and the development of “big data” and statistical approaches to explore more deeply complex phenomena underpinning the adaptation of humans, animals and plants to new environments and the living of sedentary lifestyles are especially welcomed. We are particularly interested in receiving contributions presenting new biomolecular or stable isotope proxies for environment and subsistence stressors, such those related to crop failures, zoonotic diseases and climate change/deterioration.

Room: C

05/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Cheryl Makarewicz	A Critical Assessment f Stable Isotopes As a Proxy for Neolithic Mobility: Lessons from the Tessellated Neolithic (Geo)environments of the Southern Levant
10:20 - 10:40	Adrià Breu Barcons, Hadi Özbal, Rana Özbal, Pınar Özükurt, Cafer Çakal, Ayla Türkekul Bıyık, Sidar Gündüzalp	Tracing Anatolian Neolithic Foodways Through Isotopic And Biomolecular Proxies In Organic Residues From 7th And 6th Millennium Pottery Vessels.
10:40 - 11:00	Sidar Gündüzalp, Ayla Türkekul Bıyık, Adrià Breu Barcons, Rana Özbal	Unveiling Neolithic Cooking Practises: Organic residue analyses of the Initial Neolithic pottery from the 7th Millennium BCE, Sumaki Höyük in the Upper Tigris Basin
11:00 - 11:20	Rana Özbal, Adrià Breu Barcons, Hadi Özbal, Laurens Thissen, Ayla Türkekul Bıyık, Fokke Gerritsen	The Emergence and Evolution of Dairying in Neolithic Northwest Anatolia: Insights from Barcın Höyük

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Chloé Stevens	A Multi-Proxy Geoarchaeological Investigation of an Early Holocene Soil Feature at the Page-Ladson Site (Florida, U.S.)
13:20 - 13:40	Isabel Wiltshire, Charlie Maule, Iman Abdelgani, Timothy D. J. Knowles, Richard Evershed, Harald Stäuble, Caroline Hamon, Michael Ilett, Mélanie Roffet-Salque, Matthias Conrad, Matthias Halle, Isabel Hohle, Saskia Kretschmer, Germo Schmalfuß, Sabine Wolfram, Lamys Hachem	Biomolecular approaches to investigating wild resource exploitation in Neolithic Europe
13:40 - 14:00	Peter Tóth, Miriam Nyvltová Fišáková, Johana Malíšková, Filip Ševcík	Stable isotopes reveal animal management practices at the LBK settlement of Tešetice-Kyjovice, Czech Republic
14:00 - 14:20	Rosalind Gillis	Into the woods: Exploring the use of wood-pastures in early European animal husbandry practices.

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:25	Mark Thomas	Plenary Talk: Integrating different data sources: A multi-proxy approach to understanding the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe
15:25 - 16:15	all participants	Discussion

Session Organisers: Melinda Zeder

Category: Domestication / Subsistence Economy

Session Abstract: This session brings together researchers working in different areas of the world to explore the context of initial domestication of plants and animals and their subsequent dispersal. Participants will provide an overview of the ecological setting of domestication and dispersal, as well as the subsistence strategies developed in world areas from which domesticates either emerged or were merged into. Papers will explore questions of the richness and diversity of endemic plants and animals in these different settings, trade-offs between sedentism and mobility, the interaction of resident hunter-gatherers and migrant farmers, and the overall role of domesticates within subsistence strategies of groups with both emergent and introduced domesticates.

Room: B

04/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Melinda Zeder	Putting Domesticates in their Place: Opening Remarks
13:20 - 13:40	Robert Spengler	Insularity Syndrome: Exploring the roles of ecological release and habitat islands in driving early domestication
13:40 - 14:00	Nicholas Conard, Saman Haman-Zarhani, Mario Mata-González, Christopher Miller, Simone Riehl, Brett Starkovich, Moshen Zeidi	Settlement dynamics and the technological context of early harvesting and hunting in the Zagros and Anti-Lebanon
14:00 - 14:20	Simone Riehl, Doğa Karakaya, Mohsen Zeidi, Nicholas John Conard	Plant resource diversity and wild cereal harvesting in the eastern Fertile Crescent 80.000 years ago

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Mario Mata-González, Iván Rey-Rodríguez, Britt Marie Starkovich, Simone Riehl, Mohsen Zeidi, Nicholas John Conard	Chogha Golan And The Evolution Of Human-Animal Interactions In The Foothills Of The Zagros Mountains During The Aceramic Neolithic
15:05 - 15:25	Hojjat Darabi	Eco-cultural Settings of Initial Domestication in the Central Zagros
15:25 - 15:45	Canan Çakırlar	Plenty and more: Fish and other aquatic resources in settings of Neolithic emergence in Southwest Asia
15:45 - 16:05	Jean-Denis Vigne , Thomas Cucchi	Domestication of insular ungulates during the Cyprus-PPNB

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Elisabeth Hildebrand	Highlands vs. Rift: Diverging pathways to food production in adjacent regions of eastern Africa
16:50 - 17:10	Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, Shayla Monroe	Africa’s unique domestication processes: early sedentism, indigenous plants, introduced livestock, significant contributions from African aurochs
17:10 - 17:30	Xuexiang Chen, Zejuan Sun, Jianfeng Lang	Plant Evidence of early crop cultivation from the Xiaogao site (9000-7500B.P.),Shandong province,eastern China
17:30 - 17:50	Hua Wang, Yao Gao, Jianfeng Lang, Chen Wang, Thijs Van Kolfschoten	Intensive exploitation of pheasants at the Early Holocene site of Xiaogao in Northern China

05/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Xinyi Liu	Conceptual bridges between biological domestication and early food globalization
10:20 - 10:40	Sarah Mcclure	The social ecology of the spread of farming in the Adriatic: new insights from the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition
10:40 - 11:00	Peter Rowley-Conwy	Voyagers in search of land and resources: the early agricultural colonisation of Britain and the West Mediterranean
11:00 - 11:20	Anne-Brigitte Gebauer, T. Douglas Price	The northern Frontier of European farming, Evidence from Southern Scandinavia

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Andrew Somerville, Isabel Casar	The Environmental Context for the Adoption of Agriculture in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico
13:20 - 13:40	Francisco Javier Aceituno	Other ""Neolithics"" were possible: the case of Northwestern South America (Colombia) in the context of the New World.
13:40 - 14:00	Natalie G. Mueller	Considering plants as people in the process of domestication: A view from eastern North America

Session Organisers: Ceren Kabukcu, Eleni Asouti

Category: Domestication / Subsistence Economy

Session Abstract: Pre-agricultural traditions of plant food preparation are often overlooked in archaeological and anthropological discourses portraying culinary innovations as corollaries of 'Neolithisation', particularly in the context of Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean basin. This session brings together researchers using novel, cutting-edge archaeobotanical methods to explore the deep time histories and evolution of regional hunter-gatherer plant-based subsistence strategies. Recent archaeobotanical discoveries clearly demonstrate that the plant food consumption practices of late Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic/Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were complex, diverse and often included multiple steps of labour-intensive processing. Such practices have long been perceived by prehistorians as the hallmarks of Neolithic food producing societies and the origin of cuisine as we understand it today. These discoveries point to a much deeper and longer ancestry of culinary practices, predating the start of agriculture by thousands of years, and open new frontiers in hunter-gatherer archaeobotany beyond reconstructing plant resource choice. More significantly, they also question long-standing paradigms about the nature of the transition from foraging to cultivation and farming, including exploring homologous developments in pre-agricultural plant management and uses in Southwest Asia and the Mediterranean basin during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.

Room: B

07/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:15	Ceren Kabukcu, Eleni Asouti	Plant use and subsistence practices during the Epipalaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic in the eastern Fertile Crescent
10:15 - 10:30	Marc Cardenas, Amaia Arranz-Otaegui	Plant food choices and culinary practices in the transition to food production in southwest Asia
10:30 - 10:45	Ernestina Badal, Yolanda Carrión-Marco, Carmen Maria Martínez-Varea, Guillem Pérez-Jordá	Before farming. Management and use of plants by hunter-gatherers of the western mediterranean
10:45 - 11:00	Tony Brown, Sam Hudson, David Jacques, Ben Pears	“Stonehenge Before Stonehenge” Mesolithic-Neolithic sedaDNA-based Environmental Reconstruction from the Avon Valley and Its Bearing on Hunter-Gatherer-Pastoralists Interactions
11:00 - 11:15	Oksana Yanshina, Elena Sergusheva	Evidence for ?illet ?onsumption in the Lower Amur River Basin during the Early Holocene

Session Organisers: Kamilla Pawłowska, Joanna Pyzel

Category: Domestication / Subsistence Economy

Session Abstract: Research into past diet has usually focused on the acquisition, production, processing, and consumption of plant and animal products. Yet foodways can also include food circulation, a so-far under researched topic that is, however, imperative to providing a comprehensive insight into diet in the past. This session will focus on food circulation in the Neolithic by considering the border between choice and dietary imperative. Food circulation is one cause of dietary diversity, and can occur in many forms ranging from commensality to trade and exchange. However, tracing food circulation pathways and dietary variability poses methodological challenges in archaeology. Various scales of analysis of dietary evidence can be used in methodological approaches, as can a range of sources (animals, plants, bioarchaeological evidence, and material culture). Evidence from Southwest Asia and Europe that touches on these issues in an archaeological and environmental context is welcome. In particular, we want to consider the following issues: were food choices and circulation the realm of individual or community decisions and to what degree were they the result of cultural traditions? To what extent was choice driven by the availability of resources and the nutritional needs of different consumers, or by other factors such as moral imperatives encoded in nutrition—i.e., the decision of what one should and should not eat? We welcome both studies focusing on the changes that occur along the stratigraphic sequence of a site and studies that compare between sites.

Room: B

07/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Merryn Dineley	The Importance of Being Malted: Processing Cereals to Make Malt Sugars in the Natufian and the Neolithic
13:20 - 13:40	Kamilla Pawlowska, Joanna Pyzel, Marek Z. Baranski, Mélanie Roffet-Salque	Detecting of commensality in Neolithic Çatalhöyük household: Faunal, architectural and pottery approaches
13:40 - 14:00	David Bloch	“Challenging the Conventional View of the advent and Origins of Agriculture” with the harvesting of common Salt and a Sodium Age that shaped the primitive Industry of Early Neolithic Hunters:
14:00 - 14:20	Agnieszka Czekaj-Zastawny, Anna Rauba-Bukowska, Harry Robson	Early Neolithic diet north of the Carpathians: result of interdisciplinary analysis

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Magdalena Moskal Del Hoyo, Magda Kapcia, Gabriela Juzwinska, Maria Litynska-Zajac, Marek Nowak, Anna Glód, Pawel Jarosz, Anita Szczepanek, Maciej Debiec	Plant remains from the Early Neolithic sites of southern Poland: the same diet or dietary variability?
15:05 - 15:25	Marek Nowak, Gabriela Juzwinska, Magda Kapcia, Maria Litynska-Zajac, Magdalena Moskal Del Hoyo, Sylwia Pospula-Wedzicha, Krzysztof Wertz, Jaroslaw Wilczynski	The Significance of Variability in Subsistence Patterns in East-Central Europe Between the Late 6th And Late 4th Millennia BC. The Case of Multicultural Site in Miechów, Southern Poland

Session Organisers: Joaquim Fort

Category: Domestication / Subsistence Economy

Session Abstract: This session is devoted to analyzing the spread of farming and herding in different regions of the Earth. We have two main aims. The first one is to cover specific case studies, from several world areas. The second aim is to pave the ground in order to perform comparisons between different regions from several perspectives, not only in this session but also in future work. Qualitative descriptions are welcome, based both on specialized and interdisciplinary approaches. Quantitative estimations will be also addressed, for those regions where they are possible by the data available at present. Among others, quantitative estimations may refer to spread rates, the relative effects of demic and cultural diffusion, interactions between farmers/herders and hunter-gatherers, genetic clines, genomic results, linguistic inferences, etc.

Room: C

07/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:15	Joaquim Fort	Introduction
10:15 - 10:30	João Zilhão	The emergence of farming communities in westernmost Eurasia: New evidence from central Portugal
10:30 - 10:45	Oreto García-Puchol, Alfredo Cortell-Nicolau, Joan Bernabeu Aubán, María Barrera-Cruz	Modeling neolithic demographic transition at the Western Mediterranean by coupling radiocarbon dates, settlement and cultural data
10:45 - 11:00	Marta Fitula	Eastern Sicily environment and Neolithic strategies
11:00 - 11:15	Angelo Vintaloro	The arrival of the Neolithic in Sicily and in the western Mediterranean

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	Stephen Shennan, Simon Carrignon, Enrico Crema, Anne Kandler	Post-marital residence rules and transmission pathways in cultural hitchhiking during demographic dispersal
13:15 - 13:30	Juan José Ibáñez, Fiona Pichon, Bogdana Miliç, Luis Teira	The spread of ideas, objects and people as a key factor for the coalescence of the Neolithic in South West Asia.
13:30 - 13:45	Graeme Sarson, Kavita Gangal, Anvar Shukurov	The Near-Eastern Roots of the Neolithic in South Asia
13:45 - 14:00	Christopher Edens	Emergence of food production in southwest Arabia
14:00 - 14:15	Maria Guagnin, Alexander Wasse	Neolithic Neighbours – Populations Dynamics and Material Culture in Northern Arabia and the Jordanian Badia

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:00	Mathias Currat, Alexandros Tsoupas	Modelling population dynamics on the continental route of the European Neolithic expansion
15:00 - 15:15	Alan H. Simmons	The Neolithic on Water: Neolithic Seafarers and the Colonization of Cyprus
15:15 - 15:30	Joaquim Soler, Alejandro Sierra, Lídia Colominas, Isaac Rufí, Helena Ventura, Narcís Soler, Maria Saña	Reevaluating the Neolithic of the Margins: The Case of the Western Sahara
15:30 - 15:45	Tristan Carter, Rose Moir	The Appropriation of Hunter-Gatherer Sacred Landscapes as a Mode of Neolithisation: The Late Mesolithic – Early Neolithic Transition at Freston, Eastern England
15:45 - 16:00	Marco Merlini	Semi-Domestication of Deer. Exploring Post-Paleolithic Rock Art

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:45	Menghan Zhang, Sizhe Yang	Inferring language dispersal patterns with velocity field estimation
16:45 - 17:00	Søren Wichmann	Climate-induced language spread in Africa, Eurasia, and South America: farming is not the whole story
17:00 - 17:15	Lasse Vilien Sørensen	Hubs of farming - modeling the spread of agriculture in South Scandinavia during the first half of the 4th millennium BC
17:15 - 17:30	Niels N. Johannsen	Niche construction: A general, comparative framework for studying neolithization processes?
17:30 - 17:45	Konstantina Saliari, Vlatka Cubric-Curik, Ino Curik, Preston T. Miracle, Eva Lenneis, Erich Draganits, Erich Pucher	Archaeozoological analysis of cattle and aurochs in Neolithic Austria
17:45 - 18:00	Hugo Rafael Oliveira, Bernardo Ordás López, Rui Machado	Sowing one’s wild oats: the domestication and spread of oat cultivation in Europe.

Session Organisers: Wolfgang Haak, Mehmet Somel

Category: Archaeometry

Session Abstract: This session will cover bioarchaeological advances that can or will shed new light on the Neolithic from the perspective of natural sciences, broadly including ancient DNA from animal, plants and humans, stable and dietary isotopes, microbiome, proteomics and residue analyses. The scope of the session is multidisciplinary and covers the many regions of the world that have witnessed a transition from foraging to food producing, sedentary lifestyles, including the domestication of plants and animals. Emphasis is placed on comparisons of data from before, during and after the transition, between foraging and farming groups, or between regions, which can identify and characterise modes of change or continuity, but also on patterns of assimilation, exchange and admixture. Cross-regional, comparative analyses of bioarchaeological evidence on Neolithic transitions, i.e., from different parts of the world, would also be highly welcome. We invite contributions of 20 minutes (incl. discussion time) on any of the four themes, or combinations thereof: 1) The roles of human movement and cultural interaction in processes of sociocultural change during the Neolithic transitions, studied through genetic continuity vs. discontinuity through time 2) Individual mobility, kinship practices and social organization in early sedentary communities 3) The domestication of animals and plants, with particular emphasis on the tempo of domestication processes 4) Evidence from dietary isotopes and residue analyses (e.g. proteomics or lipidomics) that are shedding light on changing lifestyles

Room: C

04/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	Kevin G. Daly, Louis L’hôte, Ian Light, Valeria Mattiangeli, Matthew D. Teasdale, Áine Halpin, Lionel Gourichon, Felix M. Key	An 8,000 years old genome reveals the Neolithic origin of the zoonosis Brucella melitensis
13:15 - 13:30	Patrícia Santos, Maria Teresa Vizzari, Rajiv Boscolo Agostini, Claudio Ottoni, Andrea Quagliariello, Alessandra Modi, Martina Lari, Silvia Ghirotto	The Neolithic transition from a bacterial perspective: a population genetic approach
13:30 - 13:45	Sierra Blunt, E. Andrew Bennett, Marica Baldoni, Harmony De Belvalet, Fanny Mendisco, Claudio Ottoni, Mélanie Pruvost	Ancient metagenomic perspectives on the Neolithic Transition in France
13:45 - 14:00	Maria Teresa Vizzari, Silvia Ghirotto, Rajiv Boscolo Agostini, Pierpaolo Maisano Delser, Lara Cassidy, Andrea Manica, Andrea Benazzo	Robust demographic inference from low-coverage whole-genome data through Approximate Bayesian Computation
14:00 - 14:15	Mehmet Somel, Dilek Koptekin	Inter-regional mobility in SW Asia and E Asia following the Neolithic Transition: paleogenomic insights

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:00	Jo-Hannah Plug, Kelly Blevins, Frédéric Abbès, Peter Akkermans, Anna Bach Gómez, Marie-Laure Chambrade, Bérénice Chamel, Eric Coqueugniot, Miguel Molist Montaña, Marie Orange, Jessica Pearson, Eva Eva Fernandez-Dominguez	Inter-Regional Mobility and Group Membership in Neolithic Northern Syria: A Diachronic Isotopic and Archaeological Investigation
15:00 - 15:15	Zia Ur Rahman, Kong Qingpeng, Li Yuchun	Contemporary Indus Valley population mitogenomes reveals substantial local transition and limited demic diffusion of early Neolithic farmers in South Asia
15:15 - 15:30	Snigdha Konar, Niraj Rai	Re-examining Sociocultural Dynamics in the Indus Valley Civilization: Perspectives from Genetic Persistence and Social Structure
15:30 - 15:45	Parasayan Oguzhan, Grange Thierry, Geigl Eva-Maria	Paleogenomics of Imputed Genomes Reveals and Dates Admixture Pulses and Associated Cultural Practices Throughout the European Neolithic
15:45 - 16:00	Juliette Sauvage, Maël Lefeuvre, Françoise Dessarps, Marine Delvigne, Sophie Lafosse, Marie-Claude Marsolier, Aline Thomas, Céline Bon	When cultural insight of admixture does not match genome ancestry: the case of the Cerny culture (Middle Neolithic, Northern France)

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Sergio Jiménez-Manchón, Cheryl Makarewicz, Hamzeh Mahasneh, Lionel Gourichon, Juan José Ibáñez	The Early Management of Caprines in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Southern Levant: New Insights from Animal Palaeodiet Reconstruction Using Dental Wear Analyses
16:50 - 17:10	Bendhafer Wejden, Cornet Sarah, Geigl Eva-Maria, Grange Thierry	Paleogenomics Of Wild Cattle and Their Domestication
17:10 - 17:30	Laurent Frantz, David Stanton, Aurelie Manin, Anna Linderholm, Thomas Cucchi, Allowen Evin, Keith Dobney, Greger Larson	Ancient pig genomes reveal the origin and legacy of pigs translocated during the Austronesian expansion
17:30 - 17:50	Dan Bradley	Ancient genomes of aurochs and cattle and the nature of domestication.

Session Organisers: Moritz Kinzel, Emmanuel Baudouin

Category: Architecture and Constructed Environment

Session Abstract: This session aims to highlight the impact of the emergence of architecture in the Neolithic on human social behaviour, the changes in the perception of space and development of building technology. Neolithic architecture can be understood as a largescale laboratory for testing structural and spatial solutions; some of them are lasting until today; e.g. the right angle. However, no buildings codes were established; resulting in constructions built without structural safety coefficients - stretching occasionally far beyond nowadays limits. Locally available material sources defined building techniques and materials. Environmental conditions, topographical settings and social constraints influenced shape and structural designs. In addition, recent anthropological and archaeological discussions have shown how architecture can be seen as an important form of symbolic representation, a material expression of concepts, values and social orders. The socio-cultural factor may have have played a significant role in the diversity of building techniques or the dynamics of changes (invention, convergence, diffusion, etc.). In other words, Neolithic people modified buildings to adapt them to their traditions, changing needs and diversifying activities as well as responded to climate changes and destructive events, e.g. earthquakes, flooding or fire. We would like to invite colleagues to discuss continuity, change and discontinuity of Neolithic architecture (on a global scale); its impact on social behaviour as well as the formation of group identities. Furthermore, we would like to investigate how Neolithic buildings were perceived and if this perception may have differed from the intended impact as well as the changes over time. What are the differences in perception for domestic and communal (special) buildings?

Room: H

04/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	Emmanuel Baudouin, Moritz Kinzel	Introduction to the session: The Impact of Neolithic Architecture – the Emergence of Human Built Environment
13:15 - 13:30	Paul Bacoup	Understanding the evolution of architectural choices of Neolithic builders: the example of earth and wood constructions in the southern Balkans in the 5th millennium BC
13:30 - 13:45	Marcin Bialowarczuk	From Circle to Square. Evolution of the Architectural Plan and its Importance for Neolithic Architecture Development
13:45 - 14:00	Garima Thakuria	Neolithic dwellings in India: A study of house structures in Sikkim
14:00 - 14:15	Bahattin İpek	Architectural Development in Northern Mesopotamia in the Late Neolithic Period and Architectural Scenes on Halaf Pottery: Domestic or Sacred/Communal Structures?

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:00	Lorenzo Nigro	The Round Tower and Neolithic Architecture at Jericho: its conceptual implications
15:00 - 15:15	Rémi Haddad	The False Pretense of Permanence: Early Neolithic Sedentism Seen from Cyprus
15:15 - 15:30	Martin Renger	Community Buildings - Building Communities. Architecture as a Modus of Social Assemblages
15:30 - 15:45	Paolo Taviani	Temples, sacred spaces, deities? Neolithic finds in Şanliurfa Province between Archeology and History of Religions
15:45 - 16:00	Varada Khaladkar	Home is People: Examining the Houses in the First Farming Societies in the Western Deccan, India

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Judit P. Barna, Gábor Kalla, Emília Pásztor, István Eke	Heavenly Planned, Humanly Built: The Identity-Forming Role of Lengyel Circular Ditches in Late Neolithic Western Hungary
16:50 - 17:10	Melissa Kennedy, Hugh Thomas, Laura Strolin, Jane Mcmahon, Ahmed Nassr	The Birth of Sacred and Profane Architecture in the Neolithic Northern Arabia
17:10 - 17:30	Ergül Kodaş	The Problem of Continuity in the PPNA Architecture of Çemka Höyük: Architecture, Space, Memory and Continuity
17:30 - 17:50	Ramie Gougeon	Domestic Built Environments in the Late Prehistoric Southeast North America

05/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:15	Miroslav Kocic, Marija Kalicanin Krstic, Ana Kocic, Bryan Hanks	Islands in the Land of Forest – Vinca Culture Transformations of the Šumadija Region
10:15 - 10:30	Ivana Vostrovská, Petr Kocár	Domesticated water: multi-proxy analyses of Early Neolithic Water Wells from Czechia
10:30 - 10:45	Özlem Ekinbaş Can	The Pre-Pottery Neolithic Architecture in the Upper Tigris Region according to New Data from Gre Fılla: Continuity and Change
10:45 - 11:00	Jean-Noël Guyodo, Audrey Blanchard	The role of the island and coastal stone-walled enclosures of north-western France for the first connected seaways (4th-3rd Mill. BC)
11:00 - 11:15	Mariam Shakhmuradyan	The Morphological Examination of Desert Kites: Results of Interregional Comparative Analysis and Fieldwork

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	Şakir Can	Intra-site Spatial Analysis during the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Periods at Kendale Hecala
13:15 - 13:30	Jane Mcmahon, Hugh Thomas, Melissa Kennedy	Adaptation in the Arid zone: new perspectives on Neolithic occupation of the north Arabian hinterland
13:30 - 13:45	Ghania Hamane	Megalithic monuments in eastern Algeria, archaeological and tourist significance
13:45 - 14:00	Ekaterina Girchenko, Oleg Kardash	Architecture of the Neolithic Defensive-Residential Complex in the North of Western Siberia (based on materials of Kayukovo 2 site)
14:00 - 14:15	Aroa García-Suárez	The architecture of daily practices: unravelling Neolithic lifeways from domestic building sequences at Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük

Session Organisers: Andrey Tabarev, David Kilby, Yoshitaka Kanomata

Category: Technology

Session Abstract: The transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic brought about profound changes in human behavior and adaptations, including changes in mobility, social organization, settlement patterns, and subsistence practices. These changes are directly reflected in lithic technology, both in the development of new tools and technologies and the fundamental reorganization of technological systems. In some regions of the World this is manifested in the decline of the Paleolithic blade/microblade technologies, in the shift from the heavily curated to more expedient strategies, in the additional emphasis on prestige items (lithic caches,) etc. This session brings together presenters from around the World (Eurasia, Americas, Africa, and Australia) to review and examine the lithic technological developments that accompany the Paleolithic-Neolithic transition in their respective regions. The goals of this session are to survey the variety of patterns and perhaps identify cross- cultural regularities during this era of significant technological transitions. Technological analysis, use-wear studies, and experimental archaeology are among the effective approaches to understanding these changes and topics for discussion in the session.

Room: M

05/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Metin Kartal, Gizem Kartal	Körtik Tepe Chipped Stone Assemblage
10:20 - 10:40	Zeynep Beyza Agirsoy	Chipped Stone Artefacts and Human-Environment Dynamics: Insights from Gre Fılla during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A.
10:40 - 11:00	Liubov Golovanova, Vladimir Doronichev, Ekaterina Doronicheva	Changes in lithic industry during the Epipaleolithic to Neolithic transition in the North Caucasus: based on materials of the Alebastroviy zavod rockshelter
11:00 - 11:20	Antonella Minelli, Maria Rosaria Belgiorno	The lithic industry of the archaeological site of Pyrgos Mavroraki: new data for the reconstruction of the human presence on the island of Cyprus

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Andrey Tabarev	In the Shadow of Pottery: Lithics as one of the signals of Neolithisation (Siberia and Russian Far East)
13:20 - 13:40	Natalia Tsydenova	Paleolithic – Neolithic transition in North Asia: the context of lithic technologies
13:40 - 14:00	Ekaterina Bocharova, Pavel Chystyakov, Ravil Zhdanov	Evolution and Dissemination of Composite Slotted Tools in Eastern Siberia
14:00 - 14:20	Yoshitaka Kanomata	Major changes in stone tool technology in the Japanese archipelago during the transition from the Paleolithic to the Jomon period

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	David Kilby	The Reorganization of Technology: Trajectories of Change in Lithic Technological Organization in the North American Southwest
15:05 - 15:25	Ryan M. Parish	Spatial patterning in chert source networks during the Pleistocene/Early Holocene transition in southeastern North America
15:25 - 15:45	Jon C. Lohse, Mike Mcbride, Sébastien Perrot-Minnot	Paleoindian Origins of the Earliest Archaic Stone Tool Traditions in Mesoamerica: a Look at the Yucatan Shelf as Evidence for Cultural Diversity by 13,000 Years Ago

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Aouimeur Samia	Indication of Capsian-Neolithic transition through the typo-technological complex of the lithic industry at the Medjez II site eastern Algeria
16:50 - 17:10	Douglas Sain	Comparing reduction intensity of modified blades from the Topper Site, a Paleoindian chert quarry in South Carolina and Boncuklu, an Early Neolithic site in Turkey
17:10 - 17:30	Shane Miller, James Hardin, Stephen Carmody, Caleb Hutson	East Meets West: Comparing the Origins of Agriculture in Eastern North America and the Fertile Crescent

Session Organisers: Abu B. Siddiq, Benjamin S. Arbuckle

Category: Symbolism

Session Abstract: Various animals, ranging from fearsome carnivores, meat-providing ungulates, raptors, aquatic birds, fish, and reptiles to boneless insects, were depicted in a diverse array of Neolithic artifacts and features. At many Neolithic sites, items were crafted in the shape of animal heads or specific animal species, while burials often revealed the presence of animal bones or even complete skeletons interred alongside humans. Despite variations in geography, species preferences, and artifact types, animal imagery consistently emerges in cultural items across the Neolithic landscape. This opens new avenues for understanding intra-site as well as regional aspects of animal-based rituals and socio-symbolic complexities in animal-human interactions in the Neolithic world. This session aims to foster global discussions on the contemporary understanding of animals in Neolithic rituals and symbolism, asserting that cultural artifacts with animal imagery or scattered animal remains within ritual contexts are intrinsically linked to supernatural beliefs prevalent throughout the Neolithic world. Beyond the simplistic hunter–hunted dichotomy, the session will promote new ways of understanding the complexity and deep extent of animal–human interactions throughout the Neolithic, spanning from the 11th millennium BCE in West Asia and continuing up to the 1st millennium BCE in South Asia.

Room: E

07/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Vecihi Özkaya, Abu B. Siddiq	Animal symbolism at the 11th-10th millennium BCE Körtiktepe: Towards trends, exchange and spread across Upper Mesopotamia
10:20 - 10:40	Andrey Varenov	Demonic Dogs of the Chinese Neolithic Period on the Dadiwan Site Vessel and Posthumous Trials of the Human Soul
10:40 - 11:00	Eyyüp Ay	From Nomadic Hunter-Gatherer to Sedentary Hunter-Gatherer; A New Approach to the Transition Process from Sedentary Hunter-Gatherer to Producer Peasant: "The Woman makes, The Man conquers”
11:00 - 11:20	Aslı Kahraman Çınar, Güldane Sarica, Rabia Baydar, Mürüvvet Hiçyilmaz	An Evaluation on The Chalk Stone Relief from The Nevali Çori Finds

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Geigl Eva-Maria, Grange Thierry, Mattei Jeanne, Bendhafer Wejden	Animal Symbolism Unraveled Through Paleogenomics
13:20 - 13:40	Elena A.A. Garcea, Julia Budka, John Galaty, Salima Ikram, Shayla Monroe	Ceremonial ostentations of wild and domestic Bos in Sudan from prehistory to contemporary times
13:40 - 14:00	Laura Strolin, Melissa Kennedy, Hugh Thomas, Jane Mcmahon	Faunal remains from mustatils: animals and ritual in Neolithic Northern Arabia
14:00 - 14:20	Borut Toškan, Matjaz Simoncic, Lidija Korat, Tommaso Pilla, Anton Velušcek	The deer tamer? Pathological deformations as an indicator of human care of a lame stag in the 4th millennium BC on the Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Ulan Umitkaliev, Liudmila Lbova, Didar Zharmukhamedov, Pavel Volkov, Farkhat Aldilgazy	Zoomorphic Sacred Images on the Kyrykungyr Necropol Structure in Eastern Kazakhstan
15:05 - 15:25	Cláudia Costa	From life to death: Ovis/Capra phalanges as amulets integrated into funerary rituals of the 4th millennium BC in Portugal
15:25 - 15:45	Benjamin Arbuckle	Paths not pathways: ontological imperialism and the art of not seeing human animal relationships in prehistoric SW Asia

Session Organisers: Marion Benz, Barbara Helwing, Ewa Dutkiewicz

Category: Symbolism

Session Abstract: The early Neolithic of the Urfa Region is famous for its extraordinary imagery during the great transformation towards sedentary lifeways. Monumental architecture and a vast panoply of imagery seemed to indicate a turning point in media or even in cognition. Which role did symbolic systems play in constructing and maintaining communities during this transition? What were their predecessors and how did they develop further? Symbolic systems are of central importance for understanding structural continuities and changes in the social fabric and the dialectic relationship of communities and media in times of fundamental socio-economic transformations. This session aims to compare changes in mediality on a worldwide scale and in a long-durée perspective, applying a transdisciplinary approach. We consider the various symbolic systems, from signs to images, from built space to burial rituals, as polyvalent, intersubjective and contextual. Contributions should focus on the reflexivity, standardisation, ubiquity and materiality of imagery, and on spatial as well as on temporal aspects of archaeological records: Which symbols were represented, how and where? Did medial systems allow participation and interaction? Which role did these media play in socialisation? Was their use private or public, egalitarian or exclusive, monumental or small, random or canonised? Were they omnipresent or accessed only during specific moments? How did symbols contribute to the creation and stabilisation of collective memories? This session invites contributions from a wide range of disciplines, from prehistoric archaeology to social neurosciences, to share perspectives and case studies in this multidimensional approach to symbolic acts and artefacts.

Room: E

07/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Christina Marangou	Neolithic Symbolic Imagery: Reality and Fiction, Memories or Illusions in a Material World
16:50 - 17:10	Solange Rigaud	Exploring Cultural Dynamics: Mobility, Identity, and Exchange during the Neolithic transition in Europe
17:10 - 17:30	Mattia Cartolano, Silvia Ferrara	Pathways to code-making in the Neolithic. A semiotic investigation of symbols in south-west Asia
17:30 - 17:50	Vasiliki G. Koutrafouri	Rituals and Symbolic Systems in Early Prehistoric Cyprus: A Transdisciplinary Analysis of Social Cohesion and Transformation

08/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Eylem Özdoğan	A Glimpse into the Past: Sayburç Reliefs
10:20 - 10:40	Necmi Karul	Humanizing the World: Neolithic Art and Collective Buildings in Eastern Taurus
10:40 - 11:00	Sarah Dermech, Eric Coqueugniot, Sophie Desrosiers	A study of the wall paintings at Dja’de el-Mughara: structure of the decor, technical and cultural context, significance within the graphic manifestations of prehistory
11:00 - 11:20	Herman Lewis, Hakan Gülerce	Neolithic Sociology of the Fertile Crescent: Peace through Boundaries

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Cédric Bodet	The Neolithic Symbolic Language, or the ideograms of exogamy
13:20 - 13:40	I. Banu Dogan	On bullroarers, taboos and male initiation rituals
13:40 - 14:00	Elisa Palomino	From Arctic Inuksuit standing stones to Göbekli Tepe’s megalithic round enclosure: Entwining of practical and spiritual life
14:00 - 14:20	Andrey Varenov	Anthropomorphic Stone Sculptures and Carved or Painted Pottery of Chinese Neolithic and Mongolian Stag Stones

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Ewa Dutkiewicz, Christian Sommer	Paleolithic Art: What it’s all about?
15:05 - 15:25	Liudmila Lbova	Siberian Anthropomorphic Sculpture in a Context Paleoart’s Universals
15:25 - 15:45	Lekë Shala, Florian Cousseau, Marie Besse	When Craftsmanship Connects: Exploring Common Craft Styles in Anthropomorphic Stelae Across the Alpine Region in the 3rd Millennium B.C.
15:45 - 16:05	Monica Margarit, Adina Boronean?	Simple Decoration or Symbolic Meaning? Neolithic and Chalcolithic Osseous Artefacts at The Lower Danube (Romania)

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Christian Bentz, Ewa Dutkiewicz	Information Encoding in the Paleolithic
16:50 - 17:10	Mariana Diniz	Far from Eden: Symbols and Societies of the Iberian Peninsula Neolithic
17:10 - 17:30	Ekaterina Kashina	Who is in the house? Two examples of forest Neolithic East European hunters’ symbolic systems
17:30 - 18:00	All Participants	Final Discussion

Session Organisers: Svend Hansen, Ianir Milevski

Category: Symbolism

Session Abstract: In the past 30 years, a hitherto unknown pictorial world of the early Neolithic has become known in Urfa and the wider region. The transition from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic was not only associated with a fundamental change in the way of life and economy, but also with a media revolution. Life-size sculptures made of stone were an extraordinary craft, artistic and social innovation. The material, themes and size of these sculptures were inextricably linked and represented permanence, masculinity and monumentality. In the further development of the Neolithic, images of humans, but also of certain animals, played an important role in the farming villages. On a larger worldwide scale, the question of whether the paintings and sculptures played a role for all or only part of the peasant societies will be discussed. The Neolithic period worldwide is not only a time in which plant and animal domestication occurred and agricultural societies represented a revolutionary break from hunter-gatherer lifeways. The question is whether the transition to the Neolithic was connected everywhere, not only in Eurasia, with a production of images that were adapted to the achievements of the new mode of production. The aim of this session within the World Neolithic Congress is to evaluate different iconographies and their material culture aspects from Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic bearing communities and evaluate the ideological aspects of art against the background of the socio-economic basis of these communities and vice-versa.

Room: E

04/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	Svend Hansen, Ianir Milevski	Iconography and Society during the Neolithic Revolution. An Introduction
13:15 - 13:30	Svend Hansen	The Media Revolution in the Early Neolithic
13:30 - 13:45	Ali Asker Bal	What Did Art See or Not See in Göbeklitepe?
13:45 - 14:00	Remziye Ercan	Göbeklitepe and Its Reflection on Works of Art
14:00 - 14:15	Michael Morsch	Markers of Subsistence Developments in Neolithic Art? Iconographic and Contextual Studies on the Sculptures of Nevali Cori

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Şeyma Çiftçi	Unique Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Bird Figures in the Upper Tigris Region: New Evidence from Gre Fılla
15:05 - 15:25	Maria De Jesus Sanches And Joana Castro Teixeira	Neolithic Rock and Mobile Art from the North-west Iberia: When are Those Iconographies Shared with Settlements Decorated Pottery?
15:25 - 15:45	Malahat Farajova	Neolithic Period of Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape (Azerbaijan)
15:45 - 16:05	Lydia Zortkina	“Minusinsk” Style: Neolithic Rock Art from South-Central Siberia

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Sarah Dermech, Eric Coqueugniot	An Attempt to Interpret the Geometric Paintings from Dja’de el-Mughara (Syrai, 9th Mill. Cal. BC)
16:50 - 17:10	Ianir Milevski, Ofer Marder	On Artisans and Artists in the Neolithic Revolution and the Neolithic Iconography of the Levant
17:10 - 17:30	Morag Kersel	Consequences of Attachment to Neolithic Masks in the Southern Levant
17:30 - 17:50	Carlos Vítor Didelet	Neolithic and Chalcolithic Cranial Human Masks from Portugal

05/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:20	Joanna Pyzel	Turning Left or Turning Right? Temporal and Regional Variability in LBK Pottery Decoration in Europe
10:20 - 10:40	Rebecca Bristow	Turning West: On the Disappearance of Figurative Representations in Neolithic West-Central Europe
10:40 - 11:00	Valeska Becker	Headless Anthropomorphic Representations in the Course of the European Neolithic
11:00 - 11:20	Michael Müller	Neolithic Anthropomorphic Figurines in Chalcolithic Contexts (Romania)

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:20	Julia Luckner	Living Fauna Made of Clay? A Comparison of Animal Bone Findings and Interpretations of Zoomorphic Figurines in Eastern Europe
13:20 - 13:40	Dina Shalem	Continuity and changes in Zoomorphic Clay Figurines from the 7th and 6th Millennia in the Southern Levant
13:40 - 14:00	Arjun Rao	Cattle (Bos indicus): Iconic Animal in the Southern Neolithic Rock Bruisings and Ashmounds with Ethnographic Signatures in India
14:00 - 14:20	Andrey Varenov	Pairs of Deer Engraved on the Neolithic Pottery of China as a Reflection of Social Structure of Ancient Society

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Goce Naumov