WORLD NEOLITHIC CONGRESS
SANLIURFA, TÜRKİYE
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Parallel Sessions (Sitting: 1)

G03 - Foraging to Food Production and The Consequences: A Global Review

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
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Room: A

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.

G10 - The Palaeolithic Antecedents of the Neolithic Revolution: Insights from Hunter-Gatherer Archaeobotany

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.
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Room: B

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

G13 - The Spread of Farming and Herding in Different Parts of the Globe

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.
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Room: C

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

G20 - Animals in symbolic and ritual items across the Neolithic world

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.
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Room: E

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

G24 - Treating Dead Bodies in the Neolithic: Exploring the Increasing Social Complexity

Session Organisers: Yılmaz Selim Erdal, Françoise Le Mort, Stéphane Rottier
Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices
Session Abstract:
Mortuary practices can be particularly enlightening on the evolution of behaviors during periods of transition. Along with the changes in lifeways that occurred during the Neolithic transition, a new type of bond was established between the living and the space in which the deceased left behind. The rich record of Neolithic settlements and burials in various space and time scales makes it possible to discuss the interferences between the attitudes of the societies facing death and the environmental and cultural context. A high range of practices, covering a large timescale, from the time of the death until the process of physical and immaterial transformation of the deceased is achieved, reflects the diversity of the attitudes of the Neolithic societies facing death. Burials vary in location, architecture, shape, size, type, number of dead buried, position and orientation of the dead, grave goods…. Specific treatments, that might be performed during or after the body deposit, or even the absence of burial have also been documented (e.g. manipulations, plastering the skull, cannibalism). This session aims to bring together scholars working on Neolithic mortuary practices in different geographical locations and in different timeframes to understand the diversity of the attitudes of the societies facing death at the local, regional, and interregional scales and to discuss their evolution through time. Presentations will focus on regional or micro-regional syntheses, interregional comparisons, diachronic studies discussing the evolution and/or diversification of practices through time and integrative interpretations. A large place will be given to discussion.
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Room: F

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Yasmina Chaid-Saoudi , Ichraq Larbi, Stephane Rottier From lower to middle Holocene, unveiling funerary practices from Columnata necropolis (Algeria)
10:20 - 10:40 Krum Bacvarov, Nikolina Nikolova, Georgi Katsarov, Atanas Tsurev, Kathleen Mcsweeney Regional ideologies vs local expressions: the Early Neolithic burial evidence from Nova Nadezhda in Upper Thrace
10:40 - 11:00 Alexandra Anders The Diversity of Mortuary Practices in the 6–5th Millennium BC in Eastern Hungary: Case Studies from the Polgár Microregion
11:00 - 11:20 Raluca Kogalniceanu Death in The South-East Europe during the Late Neolithic: Particular trends

G25 - Gifts from the earth – interpreting polished stone tool biographies and their symbolic, social and economic impact in the Neolithic

Session Organisers: Lasse Sørensen, Michael Brandl, Laura Dietrich, Danny Rosenberg
Category: Technology
Session Abstract:
The invention of polished stone tools, such as axes, adzes and chisels, played a crucial role in the processes involved in Neolithisation on a global scale. These tools were vital for establishing settled life and agriculture, by facilitating clearance of the land, woodworking, the construction of buildings and subsistence strategies. Accompanying the economic transformations caused by the introduction of polished stone tools, were processes associated with the social life of the early farming communities, attested by the use of rare exogenous raw materials, such as jadeite and nephrite. In this session, we invite researchers to explore and discuss the relationship between Neolithic societies – early and developed – across key areas witnessing socio-economic developments, involving the use of polished stone tools from various perspectives. These include techno-morphological, use-wear, contextual and raw material analysis, to reveal the full extent of the use and function of such implements, as well their role in the development of novel exchange networks, symbolic behaviour, wealth, status and social inequality.
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Room: G

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Lasse Vilien Sørensen, Michael Brandl, Laura Dietrich, Danny Rosenberg Studying polished stone tools – research history, current status and future perspectives
10:20 - 10:40 Özlem Çevik, Mine Uçmazoğlu Common and Rarer Polished Stone Tools from Neolithic Ulucak
10:40 - 11:00 Thomas Strasser Neolithic Stone Axes from Crete and their Implications for the Wider Aegean
11:00 - 11:20 Laura Dietrich, Barbara Horejs, Michael Brandl Greenstone chisel-like adzes for carpentry were components of the Neolithic Package in Anatolia and the Balkans

R04 - Socio-economic and Symbolic Changes During the PPN-PN Transition in the Near-East (7th millennium cal. BC): Paces, Causes and Processes

Session Organisers: Julien Vieugue, Peter Akkermans, Arkadius Marciniak, Akira Tsuneki
Category: Symbolism
Session Abstract:
The decisive shift made by the Near Eastern societies towards a fully developed Neolithic way of life (the so-called Second Neolithic Revolution) occurred during the 7th millennium cal. BC. This pivotal period is characterized by deep economic (eg. emergence of pottery, development of pastoralism), social (eg. emergence of villages structured in neighborhoods) and symbolic (eg. scarcity of burials, increase of figurines) changes. However, this major turning point in the history of Near Eastern communities remains poorly understood due to the fragmentation of research in terms of chronological periods (Pre-Pottery Neolithic vs Pottery Neolithic), geographical areas (Northern vs Southern Levant, Upper vs Lower Mesopotamia, etc.) and disciplines (physical anthropology, archaeozoology and archaeobotany, pottery and flint studies, etc.). This session questions the paces (When?), the causes (Why?) and the processes (How?) of the various changes that led to the consolidation of the Neolithic way of life during the 7th millennium cal. BC. in the different regions of the Near East. We would like to invite various scholars who have studied this historical transition from the thorough analysis of the multiple artefacts (stone and ceramic vessels; lithic tools; stone and clay figurines) and ecofacts (faunal and botanical remains; human bones) found at major stratified sites in the region (Mesopotamia, Levant and Anatolia). We will favor case studies comparing several categories of prehistoric remains or Neolithic villages.
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Room: H

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Gary Rollefson And Now for Something Completely Different: Between the LPPNB and PN in the Early 7th Millennium.
10:20 - 10:40 Julien Vieugue, Anna Eirikh-Rose, Kamen Boyadzhiev, Brent Whitford, Carine Harivel, Eyal Marco Understanding socio-economic and symbolic changes during the PPN-PN transition in the Levant: the renewed excavations at Sha’ar Ha`Golan.
10:40 - 11:00 Miquel Molist, Anna Bach Gómez Change or Break? Elements for the analysis of the transition between the PPNB and the PN. Observations based on the data from Tell Halula (Middle Euphrates Valley, Syria).
11:00 - 11:20 Douglas Baird, Andrew Fairbairn, Gokhan Mustafaoglu From Boncuklu to Çatalhöyük; transformations in 8th Millennium BC central Anatolia from ‘PPN’ to ‘PN’.

R06 - New Paradigms in the Study of the Neolithic of Central Anatolia 20 Years After the First Synthesis

Session Organisers: Ali Umut Türkcan, Arkadiusz MARCINIAK
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
Archaeological study of the Neolithic of Central Anatolia started seriously in the 1950s with pioneers from the British Institute of Archaeology. After 60 years of intensive research, especially at Çatalhöyük, Aşıklı and Can Hasan, it became clear that the region had a far-reaching impact on both Near Eastern and Anatolian archaeology. The early years of the Mellaart era yielded spectacular discoveries that have yet to be surpassed, as the iconic Fat Lady figurines, paintings, and reliefs on the walls of elaborate shrines showed a different and more developed phase of the Neolithic universe and triggered the development of different theories pertaining to egalitarian and urban society. The scope of Çatalhöyük Research Project resulted in a better understanding of the settlement's spatial extent and changes over time, as interpreted in social and regional terms. On the other hand, the first real attempt at discussing the Central Anatolian Neolithic started only with the CANeW (Central Anatolian e-Workshop) project. The 2001 meeting allowed the results of previous research to be summarized and Central Anatolia to be placed in the context of Neolithic lifeways on a pan-regional scale. As it has now been more than 20 years since this meeting was held, there is a need for a new synthesis that takes into consideration both the work carried out during this period and changes in the domain of archaeological praxis. How has it progressed with intensive excavations of Boncuklu, Çatalhöyük, and Cappadocian sites, primarily Aşıklı Höyük, taking into account a variety of new discoveries, the use of innovative methods and techniques, and an open access policy that makes the data available to the public? How far has the Çatalhöyük and Boncuklu Research Projects influenced our understanding of the Anatolian Neolithic in the "grand picture" of cultural history between East and West? The session is also aimed at presenting current work at Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites, as evidenced by new excavations (Canhasan, Gökhöyük) and many intensive surveys over the last 10 years.
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Room: I

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:15 Başak Boz, Handan Üstündağ, F. Arzu Demirel, Donald Kale Reassessing the Neolithic Çatalhöyük Inhabitants’ Perception of Life and Death
10:15 - 10:30 Kent M. Johnson Re-evaluation of evidence for ""practical"" kinship at Çatalhöyük
10:30 - 10:45 Katarzyna Harabasz Late Neolithic Funerary Structures at Çatalhöyük
10:45 - 11:00 Arkadiusz Marciniak The Late Neolithic non-residential quarter in the East Area at Çatalhöyük
11:00 - 11:15 Serap Özdöl-Kutlu Discussion of Çatalhöyük and Central Anatolia Neolithic Pottery Sequences in the Light of New Research

R10 - From Zagros to Alborz and Beyond: Formative and Adoptive Neolithic Lifeways on The Iranian Plateau

Session Organisers: Hojjat Darabi, Hassan Fazeli Nashli
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Since the 1940-50s, the Neolithic period in Iran has been sporadically explored by a number of archaeologists. Following the pioneering work by R. Braidwood in the central Zagros in 1959-60, attention was given to question-oriented investigations, especially on the onset of domestication and sedentary life. Subsequent political instabilities put research in hiatus for about three decades. This severely limited our understanding of Iran’s Neolithic in comparison to other regions of Western Asia. In the last two decades, however, not only have some previously excavated sites or collections been re-evaluated, but new archaeological activities have also been undertaken. As recently suggested by aDNA data, an important approach to better understand the emergence and spread of the Neolithic lifestyle on the Iranian plateau is the inter-regional connections between the western and central parts of Asia. Current evidence points to a distinct pattern of Neolithic eco-cultural zones that interacted intensively with their neighbors via networks through which ideas, raw materials or commodities circulated and were transported. However, little is known about the possible impact of climatic or demographic factors on the development of the Neolithic lifestyle throughout Iran. Moreover, it remains unclear to what extent the secondary centers/learning or adoptive zones were influenced by the primary/formative ones. With the main goal of addressing the above issues, this session aims to bring together researchers to present the latest available data on the emergence and development of Neolithic lifeways in Iran, a region that encompasses a mosaic of diverse Neolithic cultures but is still only vaguely known. It is expected that the session can contribute to our better understanding of the extent to which Neolithic societies were in contact throughout the Iranian plateau and its neighbors, and how Neolithic lifeways are most likely to have evolved across this vast region linking the western parts of Asia with the central parts.
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Room: J

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:15 Roya Khazaeli, Hossein Davoudi, Hassan Fazeli Nashli Animal Resource Exploitation during the Transitional Neolithic in the Southeastern Shore of the Caspian Sea: Preliminary Report on the Faunal Remains from Komishani Tepe, Mazandaran, Iran
10:15 - 10:30 Rahmat Abbasnejad Seresti The Caspian Neolithic Software: New Excavations at Two Pottery Neolithic Sites
10:30 - 10:45 Mojtaba Safari, Hassan Fazeli Nashli, Roger Matthews, Judith Thomalsky, Hedayat Kalvari Janaki An Investigation of the Emergence of Pottery Neolithic Period in the Southern Caspian Sea, Based on the New Excavations at Hotu Cave
10:45 - 11:00 Catherine Marro, Rémi Berthon, Alexia Decaix, Judith Thomalsky, Veli Bakhshaliyev Anatomy of the Kültepe I culture. Its significance for unravelling the formation processes of the Caucasian Neolithic
11:00 - 11:15 Sinan Kılıç Neolithic Around Lake Van, Eastern Turkey

R15 - The Neolithic of the Aegean and Beyond: Supra-Regional Networks and Local Communities

Session Organisers: Agathe Reingruber, Zafer Derin, Eylem Özdoğan
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
The Circum-Aegean world is at the same time part of the Mediterranean and separated from it by large islands. This interactive space that formed around the Aegean Sea offered many advantages to seafaring peoples since Mesolithic times or even before: a well-connected and authentic place where not only people and materials, but, above all, ideas circulated rapidly. Since the Mesolithic, and especially with the Neolithic way of life, interactions between its eastern and western parts resulted in a material and immaterial culture distinguishable from the surrounding areas. Nevertheless, the Circum-Aegean is far from being a uniform space, since there are numerous differences traceable between the various regions, such as the islands, the Anatolian coast and the Greek mainland. Through new research carried out in recent years in especially in the eastern Aegean area (in Anatolia) but also in the west (in Macedonia and Thessaly), another aspect has become even clearer: the possibility of defining inside the broader regions local styles in pottery production and material culture. In this session, we aim to discuss both the beginnings of the Neolithic way of life against the background of the Mesolithic, as well as the subsequent transformations culminating in the early/mid sixth millennium BC. Special attention shall be given to the internal dynamics within the Aegean and the exchange with the surrounding areas: on the Anatolian side with the Marmara region up to the Bosporus in the north and with the Lake District down to the Mediterranean coast in the south; on the European side via river systems with the north and northwest. The session welcomes contributions on material culture, chronology and terminology, various aspects of regional cultures and interregional networks. As it is not possible to adequately study the Circum-Aegean Neolithic without interdisciplinary approaches, we explicitly welcome presentations on environmental aspects, archaeometry and bioarchaeology. In this way, we aim to highlight the originality of Aegean Neolithic societies in their various aspects.
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Room: L

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Dilek Koptekin, Ayça Aydoğan, N Ezgi Altınışık, Kıvılcım B Vural, D Deniz Kazancı, Cansu Karamurat, Ayça Doğu, Damla Kaptan, Hasan Can Gemici, Gülsün Umurtak, Erkan Fidan, Özlem Çevik, Burçin Erdoğu, Taner Korkut, Christopher J. Knüsel, Scott Donald Haddow, Eylem Özdoğan, Mehmet Özdoğan, Fokke Gerritsen, Rana Özbal, Uygar Ozan Usanmaz, Yasin Cemre Derici, Mine Uçmazoğlu, Anders Götherström, Çiğdem Atakuman, Yılmaz Selim Erdal, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Füsun Özer, Mehmet Somel Unravelling Cultural and Genetic Interactions during the Aegean Neolithization
10:20 - 10:40 Lily Bonga Island Neolithic of the Aegean Sea
10:40 - 11:00 Michael Boyd, David Smith, Jill Hilditch, Evi Margaritis, Joshua Wright, Giorgos Gavalas, Demetris Athanasoulis, Marisa Marthari, Katerina Dellaporta, Colin Renfrew Integrated approaches to emerging later Neolithic Islandscapes in the Cyclades
11:00 - 11:20 Peter Tomkins Regional diversity in the adoption of pottery in the Aegean during the late seventh millennium BC. A new view from Knossos, Crete.

R17 - Early Monumentality and Social Differentation: Transformation in Europe

Session Organisers: Johannes Müller, Wiebke Kirleis
Category: Different Neolithics
Session Abstract:
Monuments, especially megaliths shape huge regions of European landscape, even today, when the majority have been destroyed. The reconstructed number of monumental buildings in the whole area is estimated to several tens of thousands. In many European regions the increase in monuments is contemporary with first enclosures, increased human economic impact on the environment, extended external relations, and of a distinct increase in elaboration and diversity of material culture. In many regions a first boom in megalithic monumentality is followed by a second boom in individual burial mounds during the beginning of the third millennium BCE. Social and ideological developments connected to these formal changes are visible in the cultural landscape. In order to link observations to models of social change, to an understanding of ideological developments and to combine those topics to the physical background, the climate, environment and landscape developments, different case studies are already available with systematic data sampling, the integration of all data sources available and syntheses that account for different spatial scales and have a proper temporal resolution: important social, environmental and cultural transformations within the European Neolithic become visible. The session aims at linking individual case studies on these socio-environmental transformations with general contributions on early monumental architecture, social and environmental changes and the creation of the earliest cultural landscapes of Europe.
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Room: D

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Johannes Müller, Wiebke Kirleis Introduction: Monuments, landscapes, environments
10:20 - 10:40 Pawel Jarosz, Anita Szczepanek, Eva Horváthová The Tradition and Development of Monumental Funerary Structures: Insights from Eneolithic and Early Bronze Age Communities in Southeastern Poland and Eastern Slovakia
10:40 - 11:00 Aldona Mueller-Bieniek, Piotr Papiernik Archaeobotanical data from the monumental cemetery of the Funnel Beaker culture at Gaj, Kuyavia

R28 - Non-Sedentary Neolithic Cultures

Session Organisers: Ayça Avcı, Erhan Aydoğdu
Category: Different Neolithics
Session Abstract:
The definition of the Neolithic Period of Asia differs from other parts of the world such as Mesopotamia and Anatolia. The Neolithic Age cultures, which continued the hunter-fisher-gatherer economy and nomadic lifestyle, are distinguished from the Mesolithic Period cultures by using pottery and some developments in the stone tool industry. Especially in Eurasian archeology, it is known that excavations belonging to the Neolithic Period were carried out in burial complexes due to these features. For this reason, cultures are mostly defined through burial traditions. On the occasion of the World Neolithic Congress, under the title of such a session, the Neolithic Period perceptions and research methods of researchers from different geographies can be recognized and evaluated.
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Room: K

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Ayça Avci Aydoğdu, Erhan Aydoğdu About the Traces of Water-Related Beliefs in Southern Siberian Neolithic Cultures
10:20 - 10:40 Aleksandr Dudko, Yulya Vasilyeva Evidence of Hunting Activity in the Middle Neolithic in the Surgut Ob Region
10:40 - 11:00 Ekaterina Dolbunova, Andrey Mazurkevich, Hamon Caroline, Yolaine Maigrot, Susanna Gorodetskaya, Igor Askeev, Mikhail Sablin, Piotr Kittel, Jacek Szmanda, Andrey Skorobogatov, Pavel Frolov Shore and shell-midden Rakushechny Yar site: the neolithic way of foraging communities (the Azov Sea basin)
11:00 - 11:20 Aleksandr Dudko, Yulya Vasilyeva The Most Ancient Burial Complex of the Middle Neolithic of the Surgut Ob Region

P - Recent Finds, Recent Recoveries

Session Organisers:
Category: P Group
Session Abstract:
Site-based or recent recoveries group
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Room: M

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Filiz İlhan New Contributions to The Neolithic in Upper Mesoptamia: Late Neolithic Pottery from The Hakemi Use
10:20 - 10:40 Anna Bach Gómez, Walter Cruells, Ramon Buxó, Míriam Gómez Chagar Bazar (Upper Khabour, Syria: New Data on Paleoconomic Management In Halaf Communities
10:40 - 11:00 Bo Peng Transcending the Neolithic by Prehistoric Reformation: Interpreting the Ubaid Period at Tepe Gawra
Parallel Sessions (Sitting: 2)

G03 - Foraging to Food Production and The Consequences: A Global Review

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
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Room: A

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.

G11 - Choices versus dietary imperative: Food circulation pathways in the Neolithic

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.
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Room: B

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

G13 - The Spread of Farming and Herding in Different Parts of the Globe

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.
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Room: C

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

G20 - Animals in symbolic and ritual items across the Neolithic world

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.
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Room: E

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

G24 - Treating Dead Bodies in the Neolithic: Exploring the Increasing Social Complexity

Session Organisers: Yılmaz Selim Erdal, Françoise Le Mort, Stéphane Rottier
Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices
Session Abstract:
Mortuary practices can be particularly enlightening on the evolution of behaviors during periods of transition. Along with the changes in lifeways that occurred during the Neolithic transition, a new type of bond was established between the living and the space in which the deceased left behind. The rich record of Neolithic settlements and burials in various space and time scales makes it possible to discuss the interferences between the attitudes of the societies facing death and the environmental and cultural context. A high range of practices, covering a large timescale, from the time of the death until the process of physical and immaterial transformation of the deceased is achieved, reflects the diversity of the attitudes of the Neolithic societies facing death. Burials vary in location, architecture, shape, size, type, number of dead buried, position and orientation of the dead, grave goods…. Specific treatments, that might be performed during or after the body deposit, or even the absence of burial have also been documented (e.g. manipulations, plastering the skull, cannibalism). This session aims to bring together scholars working on Neolithic mortuary practices in different geographical locations and in different timeframes to understand the diversity of the attitudes of the societies facing death at the local, regional, and interregional scales and to discuss their evolution through time. Presentations will focus on regional or micro-regional syntheses, interregional comparisons, diachronic studies discussing the evolution and/or diversification of practices through time and integrative interpretations. A large place will be given to discussion.
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Room: F

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:15 Claudia Speciale, Giuseppina Battaglia, Nunzia Larosa, Alessandra Magrì, Giuseppe Montana, Vito Giuseppe Prillo, Flavio De Angelis, C. Eduardo Amorim, Ilaria Arienzo, Vincenza Forgia, Bettina Schulz-Paulsson The funerary complex of Ustica (Sicily, Italy): evidence of early Megalithism in the central Mediterranean
13:15 - 13:30 Rula Shafiq, Ted Banning Mortuary Treatment in Late Neolithic Jordan
13:30 - 13:45 Ergül Kodaş Human remains at Boncuklu Tarla: Peleodemography and Burial customs.
13:45 - 14:00 Osamu Kondo Recent findings on the mortuary practices of sedentary hunter-gatherers, {Jomon} in Japan
14:00 - 14:15 Maciej Debiec Bandkeramik ritual-burial complex from Nezvisko, Ukraine

G25 - Gifts from the earth – interpreting polished stone tool biographies and their symbolic, social and economic impact in the Neolithic

Session Organisers: Lasse Sørensen, Michael Brandl, Laura Dietrich, Danny Rosenberg
Category: Technology
Session Abstract:
The invention of polished stone tools, such as axes, adzes and chisels, played a crucial role in the processes involved in Neolithisation on a global scale. These tools were vital for establishing settled life and agriculture, by facilitating clearance of the land, woodworking, the construction of buildings and subsistence strategies. Accompanying the economic transformations caused by the introduction of polished stone tools, were processes associated with the social life of the early farming communities, attested by the use of rare exogenous raw materials, such as jadeite and nephrite. In this session, we invite researchers to explore and discuss the relationship between Neolithic societies – early and developed – across key areas witnessing socio-economic developments, involving the use of polished stone tools from various perspectives. These include techno-morphological, use-wear, contextual and raw material analysis, to reveal the full extent of the use and function of such implements, as well their role in the development of novel exchange networks, symbolic behaviour, wealth, status and social inequality.
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Room: G

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Lasse Vilien Sørensen Tougher than the rest – quarrying jadeitite raw materials for polished stone tools in the Eastern Mediterranean region
13:20 - 13:40 Mariana Diniz, Ana Rosa, Andrea Martins, César Neves {To Be or Not to Be an Agricultural Community…} Debating the Question from Portuguese Neolithic Polished Stone Tools Assemblages
13:40 - 14:00 Simone Meinecke, Roberto Risch, Laura Culi Verdaguer, Francisco Jose Martinez Fernandez Neolithic axe production in Central Germany – technological aspects and lithic raw materials
14:00 - 14:20 Wulf Hein, Mihaela Savu, Kai Martens, Müller Michael, Marquardt Lund Grinding flint axe heads – an experimental approach

R04 - Socio-economic and Symbolic Changes During the PPN-PN Transition in the Near-East (7th millennium cal. BC): Paces, Causes and Processes

Session Organisers: Julien Vieugue, Peter Akkermans, Arkadius Marciniak, Akira Tsuneki
Category: Symbolism
Session Abstract:
The decisive shift made by the Near Eastern societies towards a fully developed Neolithic way of life (the so-called Second Neolithic Revolution) occurred during the 7th millennium cal. BC. This pivotal period is characterized by deep economic (eg. emergence of pottery, development of pastoralism), social (eg. emergence of villages structured in neighborhoods) and symbolic (eg. scarcity of burials, increase of figurines) changes. However, this major turning point in the history of Near Eastern communities remains poorly understood due to the fragmentation of research in terms of chronological periods (Pre-Pottery Neolithic vs Pottery Neolithic), geographical areas (Northern vs Southern Levant, Upper vs Lower Mesopotamia, etc.) and disciplines (physical anthropology, archaeozoology and archaeobotany, pottery and flint studies, etc.). This session questions the paces (When?), the causes (Why?) and the processes (How?) of the various changes that led to the consolidation of the Neolithic way of life during the 7th millennium cal. BC. in the different regions of the Near East. We would like to invite various scholars who have studied this historical transition from the thorough analysis of the multiple artefacts (stone and ceramic vessels; lithic tools; stone and clay figurines) and ecofacts (faunal and botanical remains; human bones) found at major stratified sites in the region (Mesopotamia, Levant and Anatolia). We will favor case studies comparing several categories of prehistoric remains or Neolithic villages.
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Room: H

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Hitomi Hongo, Saiji Arai, Can Yümni Gündem, Özlem Sarıtaş, Yutaka Miyake, Aslı Erim Özdoğan Animal economy during PPN-PN transition: Dispersal of domestic ungulates to the eastern upper Tigris basin and beyond
13:20 - 13:40 Fiona Pichon, Juan Antonio Sánchez Priego, Rémy Crassard, Victoria Reina, Isabela Oltra Carrió, Cheryl Makarewicz, Mohammad Tarawneh, Wael Abu-Azizeh Functional Evidence of Mass-hunting Practices: Exploring Socio-Economic and Symbolic Behaviours of the Desert Kites Users during the Late PPNB (Jibal al-Khashabiyeh, Jordan)
13:40 - 14:00 Marie Anton, Fanny Bocquentin Populations and Burial Practices at The End of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period in Southern Levant (7100-6300 Cal BC): Cultural and Biological Aspects of Shifting Agro-Pastoral Societies.
14:00 - 14:20 Sari Jammo The Transition of the Relationship between the Living and the Dead from PPN to PN Societies: Tracing Funeral Practices

R06 - New Paradigms in the Study of the Neolithic of Central Anatolia 20 Years After the First Synthesis

Session Organisers: Ali Umut Türkcan, Arkadiusz MARCINIAK
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
Archaeological study of the Neolithic of Central Anatolia started seriously in the 1950s with pioneers from the British Institute of Archaeology. After 60 years of intensive research, especially at Çatalhöyük, Aşıklı and Can Hasan, it became clear that the region had a far-reaching impact on both Near Eastern and Anatolian archaeology. The early years of the Mellaart era yielded spectacular discoveries that have yet to be surpassed, as the iconic Fat Lady figurines, paintings, and reliefs on the walls of elaborate shrines showed a different and more developed phase of the Neolithic universe and triggered the development of different theories pertaining to egalitarian and urban society. The scope of Çatalhöyük Research Project resulted in a better understanding of the settlement's spatial extent and changes over time, as interpreted in social and regional terms. On the other hand, the first real attempt at discussing the Central Anatolian Neolithic started only with the CANeW (Central Anatolian e-Workshop) project. The 2001 meeting allowed the results of previous research to be summarized and Central Anatolia to be placed in the context of Neolithic lifeways on a pan-regional scale. As it has now been more than 20 years since this meeting was held, there is a need for a new synthesis that takes into consideration both the work carried out during this period and changes in the domain of archaeological praxis. How has it progressed with intensive excavations of Boncuklu, Çatalhöyük, and Cappadocian sites, primarily Aşıklı Höyük, taking into account a variety of new discoveries, the use of innovative methods and techniques, and an open access policy that makes the data available to the public? How far has the Çatalhöyük and Boncuklu Research Projects influenced our understanding of the Anatolian Neolithic in the "grand picture" of cultural history between East and West? The session is also aimed at presenting current work at Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites, as evidenced by new excavations (Canhasan, Gökhöyük) and many intensive surveys over the last 10 years.
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Room: I

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:15 Ali Umut Türkcan “A Neolithic Town: Çatalhöyük” and its Urban Quandary: A new discussion of old debate within recent evidence.
13:15 - 13:30 Nurcan Yalman The Intertwinement of Mundane and Symbolic Behavior in the Neolithic: The Example of Cooking Pots at Çatalhöyük
13:30 - 13:45 Patrycja Filipowicz Late Neolithic imagery of Çatalhöyük East Area
13:45 - 14:00 Ramazan Gündüz South of the Konya Plain (Current studies Current data)
14:00 - 14:15 Yasin Gökhan Çakan, Erhan Bıçakçı A View from the Highlands to the ‘Central Anatolian Neolithic’: New Insights from Tepecik-Çiftlik (Niğde, Türkiye)

R10 - From Zagros to Alborz and Beyond: Formative and Adoptive Neolithic Lifeways on The Iranian Plateau

Session Organisers: Hojjat Darabi, Hassan Fazeli Nashli
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Since the 1940-50s, the Neolithic period in Iran has been sporadically explored by a number of archaeologists. Following the pioneering work by R. Braidwood in the central Zagros in 1959-60, attention was given to question-oriented investigations, especially on the onset of domestication and sedentary life. Subsequent political instabilities put research in hiatus for about three decades. This severely limited our understanding of Iran’s Neolithic in comparison to other regions of Western Asia. In the last two decades, however, not only have some previously excavated sites or collections been re-evaluated, but new archaeological activities have also been undertaken. As recently suggested by aDNA data, an important approach to better understand the emergence and spread of the Neolithic lifestyle on the Iranian plateau is the inter-regional connections between the western and central parts of Asia. Current evidence points to a distinct pattern of Neolithic eco-cultural zones that interacted intensively with their neighbors via networks through which ideas, raw materials or commodities circulated and were transported. However, little is known about the possible impact of climatic or demographic factors on the development of the Neolithic lifestyle throughout Iran. Moreover, it remains unclear to what extent the secondary centers/learning or adoptive zones were influenced by the primary/formative ones. With the main goal of addressing the above issues, this session aims to bring together researchers to present the latest available data on the emergence and development of Neolithic lifeways in Iran, a region that encompasses a mosaic of diverse Neolithic cultures but is still only vaguely known. It is expected that the session can contribute to our better understanding of the extent to which Neolithic societies were in contact throughout the Iranian plateau and its neighbors, and how Neolithic lifeways are most likely to have evolved across this vast region linking the western parts of Asia with the central parts.
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Room: J

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Akbar Abedi Neolithic Iranian Azerbaijan and Lake Urmia: Regional Interactions and Influence; The position of North-Western Iran in the West Asian Neolithic Studies
13:20 - 13:40 Ferran Antolín, Pauline Scheiffele New archaeobotanical evidence of early farming practices south of Lake Urmia (Iran)
13:40 - 14:00 Judith Thomalsky Transit(s), transect(s) and transmission(s): explaining neolithic heterogeneity in NW-Iran
14:00 - 14:45 All Participants Final Remarks

R15 - The Neolithic of the Aegean and Beyond: Supra-Regional Networks and Local Communities

Session Organisers: Agathe Reingruber, Zafer Derin, Eylem Özdoğan
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
The Circum-Aegean world is at the same time part of the Mediterranean and separated from it by large islands. This interactive space that formed around the Aegean Sea offered many advantages to seafaring peoples since Mesolithic times or even before: a well-connected and authentic place where not only people and materials, but, above all, ideas circulated rapidly. Since the Mesolithic, and especially with the Neolithic way of life, interactions between its eastern and western parts resulted in a material and immaterial culture distinguishable from the surrounding areas. Nevertheless, the Circum-Aegean is far from being a uniform space, since there are numerous differences traceable between the various regions, such as the islands, the Anatolian coast and the Greek mainland. Through new research carried out in recent years in especially in the eastern Aegean area (in Anatolia) but also in the west (in Macedonia and Thessaly), another aspect has become even clearer: the possibility of defining inside the broader regions local styles in pottery production and material culture. In this session, we aim to discuss both the beginnings of the Neolithic way of life against the background of the Mesolithic, as well as the subsequent transformations culminating in the early/mid sixth millennium BC. Special attention shall be given to the internal dynamics within the Aegean and the exchange with the surrounding areas: on the Anatolian side with the Marmara region up to the Bosporus in the north and with the Lake District down to the Mediterranean coast in the south; on the European side via river systems with the north and northwest. The session welcomes contributions on material culture, chronology and terminology, various aspects of regional cultures and interregional networks. As it is not possible to adequately study the Circum-Aegean Neolithic without interdisciplinary approaches, we explicitly welcome presentations on environmental aspects, archaeometry and bioarchaeology. In this way, we aim to highlight the originality of Aegean Neolithic societies in their various aspects.
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Room: L

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:15 Lia Karimali, Stella Papadopoulou Neolithic obsidian Melian network in Greece: patterns of circulation and technical traits
13:15 - 13:30 Tristan Carter Building Castles on Sand: Current Models on the Impact of Insular Aegean Hunter-Gatherer Populations on Neolithisation Processes
13:30 - 13:45 Denis Guilbeau The relations between Aegean, Anatolia, Balkans between the 7th and the 5th millennium through the analysis of the chipped stone industry of Uğurlu (Gökçeada/Imbros Island)
13:45 - 14:00 Eylem Özdoğan Early Neolithic in the Northern Aegean and Eastern Thrace: Cultural Contexts and Regional Connections
14:00 - 14:15 Hüreyla Balcı An Archaeobotanical Perspective to the Neolithization of North Aegean through Hoca Çeşme Neolithic Site

R17 - Early Monumentality and Social Differentation: Transformation in Europe

Session Organisers: Johannes Müller, Wiebke Kirleis
Category: Different Neolithics
Session Abstract:
Monuments, especially megaliths shape huge regions of European landscape, even today, when the majority have been destroyed. The reconstructed number of monumental buildings in the whole area is estimated to several tens of thousands. In many European regions the increase in monuments is contemporary with first enclosures, increased human economic impact on the environment, extended external relations, and of a distinct increase in elaboration and diversity of material culture. In many regions a first boom in megalithic monumentality is followed by a second boom in individual burial mounds during the beginning of the third millennium BCE. Social and ideological developments connected to these formal changes are visible in the cultural landscape. In order to link observations to models of social change, to an understanding of ideological developments and to combine those topics to the physical background, the climate, environment and landscape developments, different case studies are already available with systematic data sampling, the integration of all data sources available and syntheses that account for different spatial scales and have a proper temporal resolution: important social, environmental and cultural transformations within the European Neolithic become visible. The session aims at linking individual case studies on these socio-environmental transformations with general contributions on early monumental architecture, social and environmental changes and the creation of the earliest cultural landscapes of Europe.
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Room: D

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Ann-Katrin Klein, Ingo Feeser, Wiebke Kirleis, Johannes Müller From Landscape to Social Meaning – Megaliths and Societies in Northern Central Europe
13:20 - 13:40 Christoph Rinne, Robert Hofmann, Ben Krause-Kyora, Nadine Schwarck, Magdalena Wieckowska-Lüth Wartberg: The Multifaceted Formation of an Archaeological Group
13:40 - 14:00 Peter Bye-Jensen Unearthing Neolithic Narratives: Flint Artefact Biographies and Depositional Practices at a selection of North European Causewayed Enclosures
14:00 - 14:20 Kata Furholt, Martin Furholt, Niklas Dopp Rondels as Neolithic monuments and their visibility in the local landscape in Central Europe

R25 - The Dawn of the Neolithic in Northern Eurasia: Development of Foraging Complexity

Session Organisers: Ekaterina Dolbunova, Marianna Kulkova, Viktor Karmanov, Evgenia Tkach
Category: Different Neolithics
Session Abstract:
Vast areas of the both sides of the Urals with different ecotones were populated by foraging communities that sustained their way of life for several millennia. The instability of ecological niches due to climatic and/or anthropogenic factors and the variability of biodiversity may have forced societies to change their adaptation mechanisms - through the development of new habitats, the adoption of innovation, the formation of new social and economic systems and networks. Crucial changes of the 7th- 6th mill calBC within these hunter-gatherer societies are marked by settlement of larger areas, appearance of ceramics which became of a wide use in the whole hunter-gatherer world, increase of sedentism, changes in foraging strategies, and new settlement systems manifesting all a new way of life. The asynchronous appearance of these changes in different societies may have been due to their rate of acceptance of innovations, the speed of the process, the way how they were transferred. The new ‘Neolithic’ networks established might have been limited both by natural and, possibly, cultural borders. The session aims to show how local foraging groups reacted to the new reality, accepted and adapted to it or not. We are encouraging papers showing changes occurred comparing to the preceding Mesolithic time, the speed of these processes; the innovations emerged, whether these processes were triggered by global and local paleoclimatic changes through archaeological studies and implication of natural scientific methods.
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Room: K

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:15 Ekaterina Dolbunova Introduction
13:15 - 13:30 Eugen Kolpakov The Neolithic in archeology
13:30 - 13:45 Alexander Vybornov, Marianna Kulkova, Sergey Glushenko The impact of natural and climatic factors on the development of the Neolithic processes in the Lower Volga region
13:45 - 14:00 Konstantin Andreev Transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic in the forest-steppe Volga region (Eastern Europe)
14:00 - 14:15 Andrey Mazurkevich, Ekaterina Dolbunova, Yolaine Maigrot, Piotr Kittel, Mateusz Plóciennik, Michal Slowinski, Dominika Luców, Monika Rzodkiewicz, Daniel Okupny, Emilie Gauthier The last hunter-gatherers of NW Europe: global vs local paleoclimatic trends and ways of adaptation

P - Recent Finds, Recent Recoveries

Session Organisers:
Category: P Group
Session Abstract:
Site-based or recent recoveries group
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Room: M

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Erge Yurtdaş Pottery Unity in Diversity: Red on White Ware and Neolithic Cultural Synthesis in Cyprus
13:20 - 13:40 Bülent Kızılduman, Elif Doğru, Barış Semiz, Huriye İcil Neolithic Pottery in the Karpaz Peninsula: Insights into Production Techniques and Cultural Practices
13:40 - 14:00 Marko Kiessel, Elif Tangül A New Neolithic Settlement on Cyprus? Recent Discoveries at Aphendrika, on the North-Eastern Coast of the Karpas Pensinsula
Parallel Sessions (Sitting: 3)

G03 - Foraging to Food Production and The Consequences: A Global Review

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
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Room: A

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.

G11 - Choices versus dietary imperative: Food circulation pathways in the Neolithic

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.
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Room: B

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

G13 - The Spread of Farming and Herding in Different Parts of the Globe

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.
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Room: C

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

G20 - Animals in symbolic and ritual items across the Neolithic world

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.
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Room: E

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

G25 - Gifts from the earth – interpreting polished stone tool biographies and their symbolic, social and economic impact in the Neolithic

Session Organisers: Lasse Sørensen, Michael Brandl, Laura Dietrich, Danny Rosenberg
Category: Technology
Session Abstract:
The invention of polished stone tools, such as axes, adzes and chisels, played a crucial role in the processes involved in Neolithisation on a global scale. These tools were vital for establishing settled life and agriculture, by facilitating clearance of the land, woodworking, the construction of buildings and subsistence strategies. Accompanying the economic transformations caused by the introduction of polished stone tools, were processes associated with the social life of the early farming communities, attested by the use of rare exogenous raw materials, such as jadeite and nephrite. In this session, we invite researchers to explore and discuss the relationship between Neolithic societies – early and developed – across key areas witnessing socio-economic developments, involving the use of polished stone tools from various perspectives. These include techno-morphological, use-wear, contextual and raw material analysis, to reveal the full extent of the use and function of such implements, as well their role in the development of novel exchange networks, symbolic behaviour, wealth, status and social inequality.
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Room: G

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Michael Müller To Grind or Not to Grind – Axe Heads from Depositions of Neolithic Groups in Central and Northern Europe
15:05 - 15:25 Anne Teather Flint, chalk and pigment: Tracing the symbolism of axeheads in northern Europe
15:25 - 15:45 Lars Larsson Ritual depositions in a local perspective
15:45 - 16:05 Sebastian Schultrich ‘Battle axes’, fragments, and cup marks

R04 - Socio-economic and Symbolic Changes During the PPN-PN Transition in the Near-East (7th millennium cal. BC): Paces, Causes and Processes

Session Organisers: Julien Vieugue, Peter Akkermans, Arkadius Marciniak, Akira Tsuneki
Category: Symbolism
Session Abstract:
The decisive shift made by the Near Eastern societies towards a fully developed Neolithic way of life (the so-called Second Neolithic Revolution) occurred during the 7th millennium cal. BC. This pivotal period is characterized by deep economic (eg. emergence of pottery, development of pastoralism), social (eg. emergence of villages structured in neighborhoods) and symbolic (eg. scarcity of burials, increase of figurines) changes. However, this major turning point in the history of Near Eastern communities remains poorly understood due to the fragmentation of research in terms of chronological periods (Pre-Pottery Neolithic vs Pottery Neolithic), geographical areas (Northern vs Southern Levant, Upper vs Lower Mesopotamia, etc.) and disciplines (physical anthropology, archaeozoology and archaeobotany, pottery and flint studies, etc.). This session questions the paces (When?), the causes (Why?) and the processes (How?) of the various changes that led to the consolidation of the Neolithic way of life during the 7th millennium cal. BC. in the different regions of the Near East. We would like to invite various scholars who have studied this historical transition from the thorough analysis of the multiple artefacts (stone and ceramic vessels; lithic tools; stone and clay figurines) and ecofacts (faunal and botanical remains; human bones) found at major stratified sites in the region (Mesopotamia, Levant and Anatolia). We will favor case studies comparing several categories of prehistoric remains or Neolithic villages.
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Room: H

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Makoto Arimura The PPN-PN Transition in Lithic Technology: Insights from Tell el-Kerkh in northwestern Syria
15:05 - 15:25 Takahiro Odaka Clay Containers during the PPN-PN Transition: The Case of Tell el-Kerkh, Northwest Syria
15:25 - 15:45 Sidar Gündüzalp, Aslı Erim Özdoğan Searching for the Initial Pottery Production with New Data, Sumaki Höyük and its setting in SW Asia
15:45 - 16:05 Natalia Petrova Cultural and historical processes in the Neolithic of eastern and central part of the Fertile Crescent according to pottery technology

R06 - New Paradigms in the Study of the Neolithic of Central Anatolia 20 Years After the First Synthesis

Session Organisers: Ali Umut Türkcan, Arkadiusz MARCINIAK
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
Archaeological study of the Neolithic of Central Anatolia started seriously in the 1950s with pioneers from the British Institute of Archaeology. After 60 years of intensive research, especially at Çatalhöyük, Aşıklı and Can Hasan, it became clear that the region had a far-reaching impact on both Near Eastern and Anatolian archaeology. The early years of the Mellaart era yielded spectacular discoveries that have yet to be surpassed, as the iconic Fat Lady figurines, paintings, and reliefs on the walls of elaborate shrines showed a different and more developed phase of the Neolithic universe and triggered the development of different theories pertaining to egalitarian and urban society. The scope of Çatalhöyük Research Project resulted in a better understanding of the settlement's spatial extent and changes over time, as interpreted in social and regional terms. On the other hand, the first real attempt at discussing the Central Anatolian Neolithic started only with the CANeW (Central Anatolian e-Workshop) project. The 2001 meeting allowed the results of previous research to be summarized and Central Anatolia to be placed in the context of Neolithic lifeways on a pan-regional scale. As it has now been more than 20 years since this meeting was held, there is a need for a new synthesis that takes into consideration both the work carried out during this period and changes in the domain of archaeological praxis. How has it progressed with intensive excavations of Boncuklu, Çatalhöyük, and Cappadocian sites, primarily Aşıklı Höyük, taking into account a variety of new discoveries, the use of innovative methods and techniques, and an open access policy that makes the data available to the public? How far has the Çatalhöyük and Boncuklu Research Projects influenced our understanding of the Anatolian Neolithic in the "grand picture" of cultural history between East and West? The session is also aimed at presenting current work at Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites, as evidenced by new excavations (Canhasan, Gökhöyük) and many intensive surveys over the last 10 years.
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Room: I

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:00 Vinet Alice, Denis Guilbeau Manufacture and Function of Engraved Obsidian Arrowheads from Tepecik Çiftlik (Cappadocia, 7th Millennium BCE)
15:00 - 15:15 Semra Balcı, Çiler Altınbilek Algül, Sidar Gündüzalp Contextualising Sırçalıtepe 8th Millennium BCE site near obsidian sources – new highlights from the Neolithic of Cappadocia, Central Anatolia
15:15 - 15:30 Işıl Demirtaş, Pınar Çaylı The Neolithic at the Çakılbaşı (Aksaray) Site
15:30 - 15:45 Fevzi Volkan Güngördü Prehistoric Investigations in Nevşehir, Cappadocia
15:45 - 16:00 Ozan Özbudak, Bogdana Milic, Sidar Gündüzalp Northernmost Frontier of the Central Anatolian Neolithic – New Evidence from the Çorum Prehistoric Surveys

R08 - The Evidence of Violence in the Neolithic Buildings of Southeastern Turkey and its Possible Relations with Other Regions

Session Organisers: Jesus Gil Fuensanta, Alfredo Mederos Martin, Güner Coşkunsu
Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices
Session Abstract:
The Neolithic in various regions of the world (Western Asia, Central Europe) has been associated with one of the first periods of human history where the greatest abundance of archaeological records with evidence of interpersonal violence took place. During the Early Neolithic (so-called Pre-Pottery, PPN A and B) Period of Southeastern Turkey, c. 9500-7000 BC, a series of buildings associated with the idea of central or communal sanctuaries appeared. The transition from Aceramic Neolithic (PPN) A to B in many regions of the Near East entails evident changes in the archaeological record on material culture; and there is evidence of the existence of the changes due partially to some conflict. From the advanced phase of the Early Neolithic (PPNB) the presence of human remains coupled with the idea of interpersonal violence began to abound (eg. beheadings, sealing the ritual buildings of Neolithic Göbekli Tepe final phase with chopped human bones), a type of presence that already was listed in earlier phase (PPNA) locations at the Levant (such as Jerico in the Jordan Valley) or the use of stone mace-head in burials at Kortik Tepe (Eastern Turkey). These desecrations of the human body seem not only characteristic of the pre-pottery phase of the Neolithic of the Levant or eastern-central Turkey, since in later phases of the Neolithic of Western Asia (as example, the Halaf culture) reliable evidence has been found not only of conflicts, but of consumption of human remains (Domuz Tepe, Eastern Turkey). In addition, the existence of lithic materials typical of the eastern area (for example, arrowheads from the cultures of the Israel-Jordan area) associated with the area of the Göbeklitepe buildings is supplementary evidence regarding this “conflict” issue. Such discoveries, made gradually in the last decades of the research on the Neolithic of the region, put into question a new reinterpretation of some aspects and mentality of the final phase of Prehistory regarding the human violence.
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Room: F

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Rustam Khamidovich Suleymanov, Alisher Gaffarovich Muminov Introduction to the “culture of violence” in the Neolithic of Western Asia: An anthropological vision regarding aggression in Prehistory
15:05 - 15:25 Alfredo Mederos Martin Defensive spaces and circulation: The obsidian network associated with the “self-protected” villages of the Anatolian system
15:25 - 15:45 Vanesa Toscano Rivera Anthropology on the women of PPN Central Anatolia: Cases of Psychological and Physiological Violence.
15:45 - 16:05 Alisher Gaffarovich Muminov Peaceful nomads in Central Asia and a Culture of violence in the Neolithic of Western Asia?: Comparisons and differences.

R11 - The Neolithic of Southern Levant in its Wider Context

Session Organisers: Anna Belfer-Cohen, Nigel Goring-Morris
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Recent Neolithic research in the Southern Levant has provided less spectacular results than that of the more northerly regions. This said, the picture of local Neolithisation is much more complex and thought-provoking than previously assumed. Interestingly, the findings provide new insights into the processes that modified and shaped the transition from ephemeral, extractive life-ways into a permanent, productive mode of existence. Updated excavation and research methodologies enable charting the ways and means human groups tackled the challenges involved in that transformation as numerous intensive field projects, conducted in various regions of the Southern Levant considerably modify previous comprehension of Neolithic processes in the area. It appears that the initiation of such processes extend much deeper in time than was assumed a few decades ago. What was considered as strictly new, Neolithic, phenomena, can be now observed not only in the Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian but also in earlier Epipalaeolithic archaeological entities. There is on-going debate whether, and to what degree, human societies consciously promoted the developments that finally rendered the ‘Neolithic worldview”. Moreover, it seems that it was truly a “bumpy ride to village life”; we observe significant variability in the intensity and tempo of evolving events, differences stemming from both the inner, social realm of the communities partaking in the Neolithic transformation, as well as the external, environmental ‘envelope’ that defined the ecological conditions enabling or restricting the processes involved.
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Room: J

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:00 Danielle Macdonald, Lisa Maher Pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers and the production of place
15:15 - 15:30 Seiji Kadowaki, Nanako Kimoto, Yasuhisa Kondo Continuity and changes in marine shell exploitation from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic in Southern Jordan near the Red Sea
15:30 - 15:45 Tobias Richter From the Natufian to the EPPNB in the Jordanian Badia: Chronology, change and interaction across the Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic transition
15:45 - 16:00 Abraham Gopher When did southern Levantine Neolithic worldviews fully divorce the H-G ethos?

R15 - The Neolithic of the Aegean and Beyond: Supra-Regional Networks and Local Communities

Session Organisers: Agathe Reingruber, Zafer Derin, Eylem Özdoğan
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
The Circum-Aegean world is at the same time part of the Mediterranean and separated from it by large islands. This interactive space that formed around the Aegean Sea offered many advantages to seafaring peoples since Mesolithic times or even before: a well-connected and authentic place where not only people and materials, but, above all, ideas circulated rapidly. Since the Mesolithic, and especially with the Neolithic way of life, interactions between its eastern and western parts resulted in a material and immaterial culture distinguishable from the surrounding areas. Nevertheless, the Circum-Aegean is far from being a uniform space, since there are numerous differences traceable between the various regions, such as the islands, the Anatolian coast and the Greek mainland. Through new research carried out in recent years in especially in the eastern Aegean area (in Anatolia) but also in the west (in Macedonia and Thessaly), another aspect has become even clearer: the possibility of defining inside the broader regions local styles in pottery production and material culture. In this session, we aim to discuss both the beginnings of the Neolithic way of life against the background of the Mesolithic, as well as the subsequent transformations culminating in the early/mid sixth millennium BC. Special attention shall be given to the internal dynamics within the Aegean and the exchange with the surrounding areas: on the Anatolian side with the Marmara region up to the Bosporus in the north and with the Lake District down to the Mediterranean coast in the south; on the European side via river systems with the north and northwest. The session welcomes contributions on material culture, chronology and terminology, various aspects of regional cultures and interregional networks. As it is not possible to adequately study the Circum-Aegean Neolithic without interdisciplinary approaches, we explicitly welcome presentations on environmental aspects, archaeometry and bioarchaeology. In this way, we aim to highlight the originality of Aegean Neolithic societies in their various aspects.
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Room: L

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:00 Katerina Trantalidou Before surplus production: foragers and food producers in inland and island caves of the Southern Balkan-Aegean area
15:00 - 15:15 Agathe Reingruber, Giorgos Toufexis Flat sites of the late 7th and early 6th millennium BC in Thessaly, Central Greece (and beyond)
15:15 - 15:30 Goce Naumov, Agathe Reingruber Dating the Early Neolithic of Pelagonia: closing a chronological gap in Balkan prehistory
15:30 - 15:45 Jean-Paul Demoule Kovacevo and the oldest Neolithic villages in the Balkans
15:45 - 16:00 Sevdalina Tsaneva, Vassil Nikolov, Galina Samichkova, Viktoria Petrova Late Neolithic pit sanctuaries at Maritsa River Bend in Northern Thrace

R17 - Early Monumentality and Social Differentation: Transformation in Europe

Session Organisers: Johannes Müller, Wiebke Kirleis
Category: Different Neolithics
Session Abstract:
Monuments, especially megaliths shape huge regions of European landscape, even today, when the majority have been destroyed. The reconstructed number of monumental buildings in the whole area is estimated to several tens of thousands. In many European regions the increase in monuments is contemporary with first enclosures, increased human economic impact on the environment, extended external relations, and of a distinct increase in elaboration and diversity of material culture. In many regions a first boom in megalithic monumentality is followed by a second boom in individual burial mounds during the beginning of the third millennium BCE. Social and ideological developments connected to these formal changes are visible in the cultural landscape. In order to link observations to models of social change, to an understanding of ideological developments and to combine those topics to the physical background, the climate, environment and landscape developments, different case studies are already available with systematic data sampling, the integration of all data sources available and syntheses that account for different spatial scales and have a proper temporal resolution: important social, environmental and cultural transformations within the European Neolithic become visible. The session aims at linking individual case studies on these socio-environmental transformations with general contributions on early monumental architecture, social and environmental changes and the creation of the earliest cultural landscapes of Europe.
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Room: D

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Audrey Blanchard, Jean-Noël Guyodo, Bettina Schulz-Paulsson Le Plasker in Plouharnel: standing stones and hearts in a newly sector of the large megalithic complex of Carnac (France, 5th millenium cal BC)
15:05 - 15:25 Anna-Lena Titze Exploring Gender Inequalities in the Neolithic Using Ancient Human Genomes from Southern France
15:25 - 15:45 Noah Steuri Neolithic Collective Graves in the Alps: Social and Symbolic Landscapes in the 5th and 4th Millennium BCE

R25 - The Dawn of the Neolithic in Northern Eurasia: Development of Foraging Complexity

Session Organisers: Ekaterina Dolbunova, Marianna Kulkova, Viktor Karmanov, Evgenia Tkach
Category: Different Neolithics
Session Abstract:
Vast areas of the both sides of the Urals with different ecotones were populated by foraging communities that sustained their way of life for several millennia. The instability of ecological niches due to climatic and/or anthropogenic factors and the variability of biodiversity may have forced societies to change their adaptation mechanisms - through the development of new habitats, the adoption of innovation, the formation of new social and economic systems and networks. Crucial changes of the 7th- 6th mill calBC within these hunter-gatherer societies are marked by settlement of larger areas, appearance of ceramics which became of a wide use in the whole hunter-gatherer world, increase of sedentism, changes in foraging strategies, and new settlement systems manifesting all a new way of life. The asynchronous appearance of these changes in different societies may have been due to their rate of acceptance of innovations, the speed of the process, the way how they were transferred. The new ‘Neolithic’ networks established might have been limited both by natural and, possibly, cultural borders. The session aims to show how local foraging groups reacted to the new reality, accepted and adapted to it or not. We are encouraging papers showing changes occurred comparing to the preceding Mesolithic time, the speed of these processes; the innovations emerged, whether these processes were triggered by global and local paleoclimatic changes through archaeological studies and implication of natural scientific methods.
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Room: K

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:00 Daria Kiseleva, Evgeny Shagalov, Tatyana Okuneva, Natalia Soloshenko, Anna Rybakova, Elizaveta Pankrushina, Anastasia Ryanskaya, Victoria Igosheva, Anastasia Fokina, Victoria Fedorova Regional Bioavailable Sr Isoscapes for the Urals and Black Sea regions and Caucasus
15:00 - 15:15 Ekaterina Dubovtseva, Henny Piezonka, Tanja Schreiber, John Meadows Dating the Taiga Forts: New chronological and archaeological evidence on Stone Age fortified hunter-gatherer settlements in the West Siberian taiga
15:15 - 15:30 Alexey Tarasov, Dmitry Blyshko, Oleg Lavrov, Alexander Zhulnikov Quarrymen and artisans of the North-Eastern Europe in the final Stone Age. Lithic quarries and workshops of the western shore of Lake Onega
15:30 - 15:45 Alevtina Kiseleva The adoption of pottery into Northeastern Fennoscandia: early pottery technology, variation and chronology on the Kola North
15:45 - 16:00 Evgeniia Tkach New data of the Sub-Neolithic Zedmar culture on the South-Eastern Baltic

P - Recent Finds, Recent Recoveries

Session Organisers:
Category: P Group
Session Abstract:
Site-based or recent recoveries group
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Room: M

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Pınar Özükurt, Adrià Breu Barcons, Ayla Türkekul Bıyık, Cafer Çakal, Yasin Gökhan Çakan, Rana Özbal, Erhan Bıçakçı Isotopic and biomolecular lipid analyses in 7th millennium pottery from tepecik-çiftlik: exploring culinary practices at the neolithic core
15:25 - 15:45 Yunus Kaya, Nizar Polat Precision Mapping in Archaeology: Case Studies from Key Neolithic Sites in Şanlıurfa
15:45 - 16:05 Murat Eroğlu, Eren Şahiner, Yusuf Kağan Kadıoğlu, Kıymet Deniz Yağcıoğlu, Emre Güldoğan Luminescence Dating and Archaeometry of Mortar Samples from the Sefertepe Archaeological Site: Unveiling Chronological Insights
Parallel Sessions (Sitting: 4)

G03 - Foraging to Food Production and The Consequences: A Global Review

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
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Room: A

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.

G13 - The Spread of Farming and Herding in Different Parts of the Globe

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.
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Room: C

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.

G21 - Icons in Transition. The Role of Signs and Symbols During the Great Transformation

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.
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Room: E

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

G25 - Gifts from the earth – interpreting polished stone tool biographies and their symbolic, social and economic impact in the Neolithic

Session Organisers: Lasse Sørensen, Michael Brandl, Laura Dietrich, Danny Rosenberg
Category: Technology
Session Abstract:
The invention of polished stone tools, such as axes, adzes and chisels, played a crucial role in the processes involved in Neolithisation on a global scale. These tools were vital for establishing settled life and agriculture, by facilitating clearance of the land, woodworking, the construction of buildings and subsistence strategies. Accompanying the economic transformations caused by the introduction of polished stone tools, were processes associated with the social life of the early farming communities, attested by the use of rare exogenous raw materials, such as jadeite and nephrite. In this session, we invite researchers to explore and discuss the relationship between Neolithic societies – early and developed – across key areas witnessing socio-economic developments, involving the use of polished stone tools from various perspectives. These include techno-morphological, use-wear, contextual and raw material analysis, to reveal the full extent of the use and function of such implements, as well their role in the development of novel exchange networks, symbolic behaviour, wealth, status and social inequality.
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Room: G

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 Amber Roy The Lifeways of Scandinavian Middle Neolithic B Battle-Axes
16:50 - 17:10 Mads Lou Bendtsen, Lasse Vilien Sørensen, Niels N. Johannsen Newcomers: Tracing Corded Ware Expansion through Provenance of Battleaxes
17:10 - 17:30 Peter Bye-Jensen Tracing Neolithic Craftsmanship: A Use-Wear Analysis of Polished Flint Tools from Stone Heap Graves in Mid-Jutland
17:30 - 17:50 Okopi Ade A Functional Study of Ground Stone Axes (Gsa) Assemblages from Akwanga, Central Nigeria

R04 - Socio-economic and Symbolic Changes During the PPN-PN Transition in the Near-East (7th millennium cal. BC): Paces, Causes and Processes

Session Organisers: Julien Vieugue, Peter Akkermans, Arkadius Marciniak, Akira Tsuneki
Category: Symbolism
Session Abstract:
The decisive shift made by the Near Eastern societies towards a fully developed Neolithic way of life (the so-called Second Neolithic Revolution) occurred during the 7th millennium cal. BC. This pivotal period is characterized by deep economic (eg. emergence of pottery, development of pastoralism), social (eg. emergence of villages structured in neighborhoods) and symbolic (eg. scarcity of burials, increase of figurines) changes. However, this major turning point in the history of Near Eastern communities remains poorly understood due to the fragmentation of research in terms of chronological periods (Pre-Pottery Neolithic vs Pottery Neolithic), geographical areas (Northern vs Southern Levant, Upper vs Lower Mesopotamia, etc.) and disciplines (physical anthropology, archaeozoology and archaeobotany, pottery and flint studies, etc.). This session questions the paces (When?), the causes (Why?) and the processes (How?) of the various changes that led to the consolidation of the Neolithic way of life during the 7th millennium cal. BC. in the different regions of the Near East. We would like to invite various scholars who have studied this historical transition from the thorough analysis of the multiple artefacts (stone and ceramic vessels; lithic tools; stone and clay figurines) and ecofacts (faunal and botanical remains; human bones) found at major stratified sites in the region (Mesopotamia, Levant and Anatolia). We will favor case studies comparing several categories of prehistoric remains or Neolithic villages.
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Room: H

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 Halil Tekin Reflection of the Turkish Eastern Mediterranean’s Late Neolithic Lifestyle on Pottery: The Case of Domuztepe
16:50 - 17:10 Çiğdem Atakuman, Deniz Erdem, Burçin Erdoğu Pits, Pots and Bodies at Uğurlu Höyük: The Case of the Poly-Pod Box Pottery
17:10 - 17:30 Shahmardan Amirov A look at the Halaf culture evolution through the prism of the painted pottery morphology.
17:30 - 17:50 Julien Vieugue, Anna Eirikh-Rose, Lucile Beck, Emmanuelle Delque-Kolic, Omry Barzilai, Yosef Garfinkel, Avi Gopher, Edwin Van Den Brink, Alla Yaroshevich Earlier or later? New insights on the chronology of the main Early Pottery Neolithic cultures in the Southern Levant

R06 - New Paradigms in the Study of the Neolithic of Central Anatolia 20 Years After the First Synthesis

Session Organisers: Ali Umut Türkcan, Arkadiusz MARCINIAK
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
Archaeological study of the Neolithic of Central Anatolia started seriously in the 1950s with pioneers from the British Institute of Archaeology. After 60 years of intensive research, especially at Çatalhöyük, Aşıklı and Can Hasan, it became clear that the region had a far-reaching impact on both Near Eastern and Anatolian archaeology. The early years of the Mellaart era yielded spectacular discoveries that have yet to be surpassed, as the iconic Fat Lady figurines, paintings, and reliefs on the walls of elaborate shrines showed a different and more developed phase of the Neolithic universe and triggered the development of different theories pertaining to egalitarian and urban society. The scope of Çatalhöyük Research Project resulted in a better understanding of the settlement's spatial extent and changes over time, as interpreted in social and regional terms. On the other hand, the first real attempt at discussing the Central Anatolian Neolithic started only with the CANeW (Central Anatolian e-Workshop) project. The 2001 meeting allowed the results of previous research to be summarized and Central Anatolia to be placed in the context of Neolithic lifeways on a pan-regional scale. As it has now been more than 20 years since this meeting was held, there is a need for a new synthesis that takes into consideration both the work carried out during this period and changes in the domain of archaeological praxis. How has it progressed with intensive excavations of Boncuklu, Çatalhöyük, and Cappadocian sites, primarily Aşıklı Höyük, taking into account a variety of new discoveries, the use of innovative methods and techniques, and an open access policy that makes the data available to the public? How far has the Çatalhöyük and Boncuklu Research Projects influenced our understanding of the Anatolian Neolithic in the "grand picture" of cultural history between East and West? The session is also aimed at presenting current work at Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites, as evidenced by new excavations (Canhasan, Gökhöyük) and many intensive surveys over the last 10 years.
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Room: I

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 Salih Kavak Archaeobotanical Analysis of Neolithic Çatalhöyük North Terrace Area Excavations
16:50 - 17:10 Salih Kavak, Ali Umut Türkcan Salih Kavak Investigation of Agriculture in Inner West Anatolia in the 6th millennium: Archaeobotanical Analysis of Kanlıtaş Höyük
17:10 - 17:30 Emma Jenkins, Michelle Feider, Paul Clarkson, Katerina Papayiannis, Sabrina Renaud, Greger Larson, Kristina Tabbada, Lisa Yeomans, Thomas Cucchi, Emilie Hardouin, Douglas Baird Telling Small Tales: Revealing the Hidden Stories of Pınarbaşı, Boncuklu Höyük and Çatalhöyük, Anatolia through their microfaunal assemblages
17:30 - 17:50 Ali Güzel, Cansu Karamurat, Çiğdem Atakuman, Çağla Akgül Archaeometric Investigation of Neolithic Çatalhöyük Plaster Samples

R08 - The Evidence of Violence in the Neolithic Buildings of Southeastern Turkey and its Possible Relations with Other Regions

Session Organisers: Jesus Gil Fuensanta, Alfredo Mederos Martin, Güner Coşkunsu
Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices
Session Abstract:
The Neolithic in various regions of the world (Western Asia, Central Europe) has been associated with one of the first periods of human history where the greatest abundance of archaeological records with evidence of interpersonal violence took place. During the Early Neolithic (so-called Pre-Pottery, PPN A and B) Period of Southeastern Turkey, c. 9500-7000 BC, a series of buildings associated with the idea of central or communal sanctuaries appeared. The transition from Aceramic Neolithic (PPN) A to B in many regions of the Near East entails evident changes in the archaeological record on material culture; and there is evidence of the existence of the changes due partially to some conflict. From the advanced phase of the Early Neolithic (PPNB) the presence of human remains coupled with the idea of interpersonal violence began to abound (eg. beheadings, sealing the ritual buildings of Neolithic Göbekli Tepe final phase with chopped human bones), a type of presence that already was listed in earlier phase (PPNA) locations at the Levant (such as Jerico in the Jordan Valley) or the use of stone mace-head in burials at Kortik Tepe (Eastern Turkey). These desecrations of the human body seem not only characteristic of the pre-pottery phase of the Neolithic of the Levant or eastern-central Turkey, since in later phases of the Neolithic of Western Asia (as example, the Halaf culture) reliable evidence has been found not only of conflicts, but of consumption of human remains (Domuz Tepe, Eastern Turkey). In addition, the existence of lithic materials typical of the eastern area (for example, arrowheads from the cultures of the Israel-Jordan area) associated with the area of the Göbeklitepe buildings is supplementary evidence regarding this “conflict” issue. Such discoveries, made gradually in the last decades of the research on the Neolithic of the region, put into question a new reinterpretation of some aspects and mentality of the final phase of Prehistory regarding the human violence.
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Room: F

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 Jesus Gil Fuensanta A History of Violence: The “cultural” spread of the South Levant Pre-Pottery Neolithic into Western Asia.
16:50 - 17:10 Otabek Uktamovich Muminov Reflections on Epipaleolithic man and the probable connections on the violence in the Aceramic Neolithic of Western Asia
17:10 - 17:30 Ariel James Buildings as spaces of peace or aggression during the Neolithic of Northern Mesopotamia.

R11 - The Neolithic of Southern Levant in its Wider Context

Session Organisers: Anna Belfer-Cohen, Nigel Goring-Morris
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Recent Neolithic research in the Southern Levant has provided less spectacular results than that of the more northerly regions. This said, the picture of local Neolithisation is much more complex and thought-provoking than previously assumed. Interestingly, the findings provide new insights into the processes that modified and shaped the transition from ephemeral, extractive life-ways into a permanent, productive mode of existence. Updated excavation and research methodologies enable charting the ways and means human groups tackled the challenges involved in that transformation as numerous intensive field projects, conducted in various regions of the Southern Levant considerably modify previous comprehension of Neolithic processes in the area. It appears that the initiation of such processes extend much deeper in time than was assumed a few decades ago. What was considered as strictly new, Neolithic, phenomena, can be now observed not only in the Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian but also in earlier Epipalaeolithic archaeological entities. There is on-going debate whether, and to what degree, human societies consciously promoted the developments that finally rendered the ‘Neolithic worldview”. Moreover, it seems that it was truly a “bumpy ride to village life”; we observe significant variability in the intensity and tempo of evolving events, differences stemming from both the inner, social realm of the communities partaking in the Neolithic transformation, as well as the external, environmental ‘envelope’ that defined the ecological conditions enabling or restricting the processes involved.
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Room: J

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:45 Bill Finlayson Ordering the Neolithic world - communities of practice and localisation
16:45 - 17:00 Michal Birkenfeld Paths of transition: Exploring Neolithic hunter-gatherers and pastoralists of the hyper-arid desert. The southern Negev as a test case
17:00 - 17:15 Bocquentin Fanny, Anton Marie The funeral sequence as a compass for time and place in a changing world: long-term trends in Natufian and Neolithic mortuary customs
17:15 - 17:30 Marion Benz Processes of segregation - social developments during the middle and late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B as seen from burial customs
17:30 - 17:45 Bogdana Milic, Juan José Ibáñez, Lionel Gourichon Projectile points as indicators of socio-economic changes in the Southern Levantine Neolithic – the evidence from the PPNA-PPNB Kharaysin (Jordan)

R17 - Early Monumentality and Social Differentation: Transformation in Europe

Session Organisers: Johannes Müller, Wiebke Kirleis
Category: Different Neolithics
Session Abstract:
Monuments, especially megaliths shape huge regions of European landscape, even today, when the majority have been destroyed. The reconstructed number of monumental buildings in the whole area is estimated to several tens of thousands. In many European regions the increase in monuments is contemporary with first enclosures, increased human economic impact on the environment, extended external relations, and of a distinct increase in elaboration and diversity of material culture. In many regions a first boom in megalithic monumentality is followed by a second boom in individual burial mounds during the beginning of the third millennium BCE. Social and ideological developments connected to these formal changes are visible in the cultural landscape. In order to link observations to models of social change, to an understanding of ideological developments and to combine those topics to the physical background, the climate, environment and landscape developments, different case studies are already available with systematic data sampling, the integration of all data sources available and syntheses that account for different spatial scales and have a proper temporal resolution: important social, environmental and cultural transformations within the European Neolithic become visible. The session aims at linking individual case studies on these socio-environmental transformations with general contributions on early monumental architecture, social and environmental changes and the creation of the earliest cultural landscapes of Europe.
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Room: D

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 Jadranka Verdonkschot, Felipe Criado-Boado Cycles and Circles in Stone. Societal Rationalities in the Megalithic Monuments of Northwestern Iberia
16:50 - 17:10 Mónica Corga, Miguel Almeida, Maria De Jesus Sanches, Thierry Aubry, Sílvia Coelho A (pre)view of an unknown Neolithic landscape: the lower Vouga basin, in the Atlantic western Iberia
17:10 - 17:30 Nikolina Nikolova Opening the Earth: Monumentalizing Ditch Enclosures from the Early Neolithic in the Eastern Balkans.

R25 - The Dawn of the Neolithic in Northern Eurasia: Development of Foraging Complexity

Session Organisers: Ekaterina Dolbunova, Marianna Kulkova, Viktor Karmanov, Evgenia Tkach
Category: Different Neolithics
Session Abstract:
Vast areas of the both sides of the Urals with different ecotones were populated by foraging communities that sustained their way of life for several millennia. The instability of ecological niches due to climatic and/or anthropogenic factors and the variability of biodiversity may have forced societies to change their adaptation mechanisms - through the development of new habitats, the adoption of innovation, the formation of new social and economic systems and networks. Crucial changes of the 7th- 6th mill calBC within these hunter-gatherer societies are marked by settlement of larger areas, appearance of ceramics which became of a wide use in the whole hunter-gatherer world, increase of sedentism, changes in foraging strategies, and new settlement systems manifesting all a new way of life. The asynchronous appearance of these changes in different societies may have been due to their rate of acceptance of innovations, the speed of the process, the way how they were transferred. The new ‘Neolithic’ networks established might have been limited both by natural and, possibly, cultural borders. The session aims to show how local foraging groups reacted to the new reality, accepted and adapted to it or not. We are encouraging papers showing changes occurred comparing to the preceding Mesolithic time, the speed of these processes; the innovations emerged, whether these processes were triggered by global and local paleoclimatic changes through archaeological studies and implication of natural scientific methods.
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Room: K

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 T.M. Gusentsova, M.A.Kulkova Mineralogical, geochemical and technological characteristics of pottery as an indicator of cultural and chronological changes in the Neolithic and Early Metal Age in the Southern Ladoga Lake region (Eastern Baltic)
16:50 - 17:10 Evgeniia Lychagina, Elena Lapteva, Nataliya Zaretskaya Palaeoenvironment of the Upper Kama basin at the early stage of Neolithization of the region

P - Recent Finds, Recent Recoveries

Session Organisers:
Category: P Group
Session Abstract:
Site-based or recent recoveries group
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Room: M

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 Nurperi Ayengin Kahintepe: An Aceramic Neolithic Gathering Site in The Black Sea Region
16:50 - 17:10 Siva Rama Krishna Pisipaty Art of the dreamtime - images of early Human life history
17:10 - 17:30 Elif Kömür Velioğlu Reflections of Göbeklitepe Humans’ Interaction with Animals on Daily and Social Life
17:30 - 17:50 Rukiye Gülerce, Berrin Çoban, Hakan Gülerce, İsmail Kırmızı Narratives and Perceptions of Göbeklitepe as a Site of Memory: The Case of Nearby Village Residents