WORLD NEOLITHIC CONGRESS
SANLIURFA, TÜRKİYE
Programme | Sessions | Search | Posters | E-Abstracts
Parallel Sessions (Sitting: 1)

G01 - Understanding ‘Long Neolithics’ in Global Comparative Perspective

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

Room: A

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

G04 - Population Dynamics in Pre-state Farming Societies

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

Room: C

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

G07 - Neolithic Processes in the Tropics

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

Room: K

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

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.
Read More

Room: E

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

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.
Read More

Room: G

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Michael Brandl, Lasse Vilien Sørensen, Michael Gostencnik, Iris Schmidt NEOProvenance: The Potential of Non-Destructive Protocols for Provenance Analyses of Polished Stone Tools
10:20 - 11:30 All Participants Final Discussion

R02 - Before the Neolithic: Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic Communities in Anatolia and Surrounding Region

Session Organisers: Çiler Altınbilek Algül, Çiğdem Atakuman, Douglas Baird, Semra Balcı
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Many features of the Southwest Asian Neolithic seem to have gradually emerged during the Epipaleolithic period. For this reason, the detailed study and interpretation of archaeological data from the late Pleistocene and often beginning of Holocene in particular areas is extremely important for understanding the Neolithization process of the larger region. Although the Epipalaeolithic period is well defined in the Southern Levant, our knowledge from sites in Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, Cyprus and the Northern Levant is limited. An important factor has been the lack of research on the late Pleistocene in the region outside the Southern Levant. This situation is gradually changing with the recent discoveries of Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic sites in various areas of Anatolia, indicating that the potential of the region is much higher than initial perspectives. The aim of this session is to re-evaluate the presence and nature of the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic communities of Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, Northern Levant and Cyprus in light of recent discoveries. In this respect, presentations are expected to focus on material cultures, regional variability, residential strategies and mobility, subsistence and economy, responses to climate and environmental changes, long-distance relationships and socio-cultural networks, and choice of settlement areas. Furthermore, we also welcome the discussion of ancient DNA studies regarding the early pre-Neolithic contexts in SW Asia.
Read More

Room: I

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Çetin Şenkul Climatic and Environmental Dynamics in Anatolia: From the Last Glacial Maximum to the Early Holocene
10:20 - 10:40 Metin Kartal, Gizem Kartal A New Epi-palaeolithic Site in Western Taurus: Kızılin
10:40 - 11:00 Göknur Karahan, Kadriye Özçelik Epipaleolithic Layers of Karain B (Mediterranean Region, Turkey)
11:00 - 11:20 All Participants Discussion

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.
Read More

Room: H

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Corine Yazbeck Filling the blanks: The Pre pottery and Pottery Neolithic settlements in Tabarja Wata Slam (TWS100), Lebanon
10:20 - 10:40 Michele Miller Changes in Human Representation in Southern Levant in transition from pre-pottery Neolithic to pottery Neolithic – a Preliminary Analysis
10:40 - 11:00 Mehmet Somel Genomic insights into changing social structures and gender roles in Neolithic Anatolia
11:00 - 11:20 Akira Tsuneki From the Display of Identity to the Beginning of Book-keeping: The Seals and Sealings in the PPN-PN Societies

R05 - Death, Ritual and The Social Transformations In The Near Eastern Neolithic

Session Organisers: Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Marin A. Pilloud
Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices
Session Abstract:
For a long time, archaeologists and anthropologists have studied the perception of death in the Neolithic Near East populations with very different types of evidence. Among the striking results observed in these studies is that rituals related to death show similarities in communities that seem to have adopted the new lifestyle, but also have many differences. It can be estimated that the intra-regional and inter-regional evaluations of the similarities and differences observed in death practices are useful in understanding the worldview and social structures of the Neolithic people, as well as in discussing the relations between settlements in different geographies. In addition, the use of pigments observed in funerary practices, the diversity in terms of different burial types and grave goods continue to be important issues worth examining, while the examinations made in the settlements show that people lived with their dead in most Neolithic settlements and their remains were used in the rituals of the living. Post-burial interventions (secondary burial practices, dismemberment) or plastered skulls seem to emphasize the functionality of rituals related to death in maintaining order in these communities, dealing with the dead and their remains, or that rituals related to death are deeply involved in life. In addition to all these, bioarchaeological information about Neolithic human societies reveals important lines of adaptation to the natural environment and social transformation. Therefore, it would be appropriate to include the results of the bioarchaeological research on lifestyles in our session. In this context, the main purposes of this session are to showcase the local characteristics of the practices, and to examine the evidence of rituals related to death as a tool of socio-cultural transformation in these societies, along with other bio-cultural adaptations that generate the new lifestyle.
Read More

Room: F

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:15 Michelle Bonogofsky, Gary Rollefson Transforming the skulls of males, females, and children in Neolithic Anatolia and the Levant
10:15 - 10:30 Andrew Mccarthy Burying Memories: A Ritual Pit Complex at Neolithic Prasteio Mesorotsos, Cyprus
10:30 - 10:45 Bogdana Milic, Juan José Ibáñez, Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Alice Vinet, Yasin Gökhan Çakan, Luca Campione, Emanuela Cristiani Towards the interpretation of cut marks on plastered skulls from Neolithic Tepecik-Çiftlik, Central Anatolia (Türkiye) through a new programme of combined use-wear analyses
10:45 - 11:00 Marin Pilloud, Scott Donald Haddow, Christopher J. Knüsel, Clark Spencer Larsen Social memory and mortuary practice in Çatalhöyük
11:00 - 11:15 Eline M.J. Schotsmans, Gesualdo Busacca, Sam Lin, Milena Vasic, Ashley Lingle, Rena Veropoulidou, Camilla Mazzucato, Belinda Tibbetts, Scott Donald Haddow, Mehmet Somel, Fatma Toksoy-Köksal, Christopher J. Knüsel, Marco Milella Commemoration of the dead through mortuary and architectural use of pigments at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

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.
Read More

Room: J

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:15 Daniella Bar-Yosef The Evolution of Neolithic Personal Ornaments in the Levant
10:15 - 10:30 Lena Brailovsky-Rokser Reevaluating the southern Levantine PPNA: new insights in light of recent discoveries from Barkai, Israel
10:30 - 10:45 Cheryl Makarewicz, Nigel Goring-Morris Close to home, close to community: Stable isotopic perspectives from Kfar HaHoresh
10:45 - 11:00 Ferran Borrell Bidirectional blade technology and the Neolithization of the Levant: An updated assessment of its origin, dispersal, and significance
11:00 - 11:15 Liora Kolska Horwitz Tracking Inter-Regional Variation in Levantine Animal Domestication: A Critical Examination

R14 - Regional and Inter-Regional Palimpsests of Neolithization Processes: South-Eastern Europe

Session Organisers: Mihael Budja, Dušan Boric , Zuzana Hofmanová, Maxime Brami
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
The session will focus on archaeological, archaeogenetic, biomolecular, demographic, climatic, and paleoeconomic regional palimpsests. In addition to the processes of transition to farming, artefact assemblages and chronological trajectories, symbolism and social practices, the concepts of the Neolithic package, demic diffusion, migration, gene-culture coevolution, Neolithic demographic transition, and the agricultural frontier will be discussed.
Read More

Room: L

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Vesna Dimitrijevic, Ivana Zivaljevic, Goce Naumov, Ljubo Fidanoski, Sofija Stefanovic The First Temperate Neolithic farmers and their herds: new archaeozoological and radiocarbon evidence from North Macedonia
10:20 - 10:40 Goce Naumov Neolithization of Wetlands: the establishment of tells and pile-dwellings in the Balkans
10:40 - 11:00 Maxime Brami Lepenski Vir & Çatalhöyük. Revisiting an old analogy using genetics
11:00 - 11:20 Adina Boroneanț, Andrei Soficaru, Monica Margarit Brăilița and the transition to farming in south-eastern Romania

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.
Read More

Room: D

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Daniel Pullen, Anastasia Papathanasiou, Michael Galaty, William Parkinson Monumentality and Memory in Death at Ksagounaki (Alepotrypa Cave), Greece
10:20 - 10:40 Robert Hofmann, Johannes Müller, Wiebke Kirleis, Frank Schlütz, Liudmyla Shatilo Trypillia Mega-Structures – Monuments of an egalitarian Ideology
10:40 - 11:00 Schlütz Frank, Hofmann Robert, Videiko Mykhailo, Müller Johannes, Kirleis Wiebke How to feed mega-populations? An isotopic study on the chalcolithic food production and consumption of Trypillia societies (Ukraine, Moldova)
11:00 - 11:20 Scholtus Lizzie, Vindrola Padrós Bruno More than meets the eye: How eye-tracking techniques highlight how monuments shape our perception of the world

R27 - The Emergence of Food-Producing Economies in Central Asia: The Intersection of Cultural and Biological Data

Session Organisers: Svetlana Shnaider, Robert Spengler
Category: Domestication / Subsistence Economy
Session Abstract:
Central Asia has been, throughout a large part of human history, a primary conduit for the diffusion for cultural elements, technological innovations, and genes. Over the past few years, human ancient genomics projects, combined with growing data from archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, and isotopic analysis are allowing archaeologists to better contextualize their archaeological sites and associated artifacts. Despite major advances in scholarship, little remains known about the Neolitization processes of the Early and Mid-Holocene and the ways they underscored or reshaped population structures and cultural repertoires across Central Asia. This session seeks to bring together new insights into the transition to the food producing economies, and mobility dynamics of Neolithic populations that inhabited diverse environmental and cultural contexts across Central Asia. This session welcomes new perspectives derived from excavations, faunal and botanical analyses, and biomolecular and genomic records, with the overall aim of building holistic explanatory frameworks that better resolve the temporality and the cultural mechanisms associated with the origin and spread of farming and herding across the core of the ancient world. Among the question that we hope to grapple with in this session are: 1) what role did wild plants and animals play in the diet prior to the advent of cultivation behaviors. 2) Can we still discuss local innovations in economy or was the Neolithization of Inner Asia part of a demic wave spreading from southwest Asia. And, 3) what are the timing and routes of dispersal for the earliest crops and cultivation practices within this vast geographic region.
Read More

Room: B

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
10:00 - 10:20 Svetlana Shnaider, Anna Molodtseva, Artem Yakovlev, Snezhana Zhilich, Greta Brancaleoni, Temirlan Chargynov, Saltanat Alisher Kyzy, William Rendu Unearthing The Heart of Eurasia: New Insights Into Neolithic Central Asia
10:20 - 10:40 Robert Spengler The Origins of Agriculture in Central Asia
10:40 - 11:00 Snezhana Zhilich, Valentina Alekseitseva, Temirlan Chargynov, Nuritdin Sayfullaev, Svetlana Shnaider Advance in microarchaeological studies of Neolithic sites in Central Asia
11:00 - 11:20 Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute, Kubatbek Tabaldiev, Aida Abdykanova Beyond the daily subsistence: rituals among the prehistoric farmers of the Inner Asian Mountains
Parallel Sessions (Sitting: 2)

G01 - Understanding ‘Long Neolithics’ in Global Comparative Perspective

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

Room: A

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

G04 - Population Dynamics in Pre-state Farming Societies

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

Room: C

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

G07 - Neolithic Processes in the Tropics

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

Room: K

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

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.
Read More

Room: E

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

R02 - Before the Neolithic: Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic Communities in Anatolia and Surrounding Region

Session Organisers: Çiler Altınbilek Algül, Çiğdem Atakuman, Douglas Baird, Semra Balcı
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Many features of the Southwest Asian Neolithic seem to have gradually emerged during the Epipaleolithic period. For this reason, the detailed study and interpretation of archaeological data from the late Pleistocene and often beginning of Holocene in particular areas is extremely important for understanding the Neolithization process of the larger region. Although the Epipalaeolithic period is well defined in the Southern Levant, our knowledge from sites in Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, Cyprus and the Northern Levant is limited. An important factor has been the lack of research on the late Pleistocene in the region outside the Southern Levant. This situation is gradually changing with the recent discoveries of Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic sites in various areas of Anatolia, indicating that the potential of the region is much higher than initial perspectives. The aim of this session is to re-evaluate the presence and nature of the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic communities of Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, Northern Levant and Cyprus in light of recent discoveries. In this respect, presentations are expected to focus on material cultures, regional variability, residential strategies and mobility, subsistence and economy, responses to climate and environmental changes, long-distance relationships and socio-cultural networks, and choice of settlement areas. Furthermore, we also welcome the discussion of ancient DNA studies regarding the early pre-Neolithic contexts in SW Asia.
Read More

Room: I

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Çiler Altınbilek Algül, Orkun Kaycı, Semra Balcı, Avi Gopher, Damase Mouralis, Hale Tümer, Derya Silibolatlaz Epipalaeolithic Hunter-Gatherers of the Central Taurus: Eşek Deresi Cave (East Mediterranean/Türkiye)
13:20 - 13:40 Jean-Denis Vigne , Briois François, Cucchi Thomas, Hadad Remi, Mazzucco Niccolo, Mylona Pantelitsa, Rousou Maria, Zazzo Antoine New light about the Epipaleolithic in Cyprus: the settlement of Pakhtomena
13:40 - 14:00 Douglas Baird, Gökhan Mustafaoğlu The Epipalaeolithic in central Anatolia; excavations at Pınarbaşı
14:00 - 14:20 All Participants Discussion

R05 - Death, Ritual and The Social Transformations In The Near Eastern Neolithic

Session Organisers: Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Marin A. Pilloud
Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices
Session Abstract:
For a long time, archaeologists and anthropologists have studied the perception of death in the Neolithic Near East populations with very different types of evidence. Among the striking results observed in these studies is that rituals related to death show similarities in communities that seem to have adopted the new lifestyle, but also have many differences. It can be estimated that the intra-regional and inter-regional evaluations of the similarities and differences observed in death practices are useful in understanding the worldview and social structures of the Neolithic people, as well as in discussing the relations between settlements in different geographies. In addition, the use of pigments observed in funerary practices, the diversity in terms of different burial types and grave goods continue to be important issues worth examining, while the examinations made in the settlements show that people lived with their dead in most Neolithic settlements and their remains were used in the rituals of the living. Post-burial interventions (secondary burial practices, dismemberment) or plastered skulls seem to emphasize the functionality of rituals related to death in maintaining order in these communities, dealing with the dead and their remains, or that rituals related to death are deeply involved in life. In addition to all these, bioarchaeological information about Neolithic human societies reveals important lines of adaptation to the natural environment and social transformation. Therefore, it would be appropriate to include the results of the bioarchaeological research on lifestyles in our session. In this context, the main purposes of this session are to showcase the local characteristics of the practices, and to examine the evidence of rituals related to death as a tool of socio-cultural transformation in these societies, along with other bio-cultural adaptations that generate the new lifestyle.
Read More

Room: F

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:15 Dana Allan Investing in the Dead: Exploring Funerary Treatments in the Levantine Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic Transition
13:15 - 13:30 Corine Yazbeck, Tania Zaven A unique early-middle PPNB funerary area from the Lebanese coast : Tabarja Wata Slam 41 (TWS41)
13:30 - 13:45 Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Özden Ormancı, Burak Falay, Fabio Cavalli, Yasin Gökhan Çakan, Erhan Bıçakçı Evaluation of the results of archaeometric studies of plastered skulls found at Tepecik-Çiftlik
13:45 - 14:00 Peter Magee, Noura Hameli, Richard Cuttler, Kevin Lidour Life and Death on the Fertile Coast: New Evidence For Neolithic Lifeways and Burials On The Islands Of The United Arab Emirates.
14:00 - 14:15 Hakob Simonyan Nanar Kalantaryan Architecture of the Voskehat burial ground

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.
Read More

Room: J

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:15 Eugenio Nobile, Maurizio Troiano, Fabio Mangini, Marco Mastrogiuseppe, Jacob Vardi, Fabrizio Frezza, Cecilia Conati Barbaro Cultural Subdivisions within the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B in the Southern Levant: A neural network approach on the techno-typological analysis of the chipped stone industry
13:15 - 13:30 Juan José Ibáñez, Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, Carolyne Douché, Lionel Gourichon, Eneko Iriarte, Jesús Tapia, Juan Muñiz, Luis Teira, Fiona Pichon, Khaled Abdo, Josu Aranbarri, Andoni Mateos, Bogdana Milic, Aroa García-Suárez, Alejandra Calderón Ordóñez, Jonathan Santana, Aaron Morquecho, Marta Portillo, Andrea Zupancich The PPNA-PPNB transition in the southern Levant: Contributions from Tell Qarassa north (Sweida, Syria) and Kharaysin (Zarqa, Jordan
14:00 - 14:15 Ehud Weiss The Neolithic founder crops - updated data and opinions

R13 - From the “Civilization of minds” to obsidian mirrors: the study of the World Neolithic according to Petr Charvàt and Güner Coşkunsu

Session Organisers: Jesus Gil Fuensanta, Alfredo Mederos Martin, Otabek Uktamovich Muminov, Alisher Gaffarovich Muminov
Category: Technology
Session Abstract:
The premature disappearance of our colleagues, Prof. Petr Charvàt (West Bohemia University, Czech Republic) and Dr. Güner Coşkunsu (Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain), has left some of their own research on various fields of the World Neolithic unfinished. Throughout his long career, Prof. Charvàt carried out in-depth research on the birth of the first states and urban agglomerations, as well as the beginning of bureaucracy through the use of seals and their impressions. The eminent Czech archaeologist and historian personally viewed the Neolithic as a “Civilization of minds” in contrast to the Chalcolithic or Bronze Age cultures, which he considered “Civilizations of the stomach.” In her research on the Neolithic, Dr. Güner Coşkunsu was able to confirm her interest in archeology about childhood, the role of women in prehistory, and especially the Neolithic period, as well as in-depth research on stone tools, in which Her interest in an unprocessed material stood out, the magical volcanic crystal, which we call obsidian; within this lithic raw material, she highlighted an important attraction for the subject of “mirrors”. So this session will cover these mentioned aspects, or various in relation to them within the Neolithic sphere: seals and imprints, bureaucracy, centralized organization in the central Neolithic towns, "the mind of Neolithic men", women and the question of matriarchal clans in the Neolithic, the archeology of childhood in the Neolithic, organization of stone industries, as well as obsidian industry and trade, and last but not least, the obsidian mirrors.
Read More

Room: G

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Ariel James Impersonal Powers in Göbekli Tepe: Temples as Cosmic Houses.
13:20 - 13:40 Tristan Carter Of Divination and Portals: Reflections on Two Obsidian Mirrors from Early Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Konya Plain, Turkey)
13:40 - 14:00 Vanesa Toscano Rivera Children for the Future: The Archaeology about the Infants from the Neolithic of Western Asia.
14:00 - 14:20 Pınar Arslan Digital Textile Pattern Designs Inspired by Anatolian Civilizations Museum Neolithic Period Artifacts

R14 - Regional and Inter-Regional Palimpsests of Neolithization Processes: South-Eastern Europe

Session Organisers: Mihael Budja, Dušan Boric , Zuzana Hofmanová, Maxime Brami
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
The session will focus on archaeological, archaeogenetic, biomolecular, demographic, climatic, and paleoeconomic regional palimpsests. In addition to the processes of transition to farming, artefact assemblages and chronological trajectories, symbolism and social practices, the concepts of the Neolithic package, demic diffusion, migration, gene-culture coevolution, Neolithic demographic transition, and the agricultural frontier will be discussed.
Read More

Room: L

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Petar Zidarov, Zdravko Dimitrov The Early Neolithic period at Sinagovtsi and its implications for the study of the contacts along the Middle and the Lower Danube
13:20 - 13:40 Maria Gurova, Clive Bonsall Balkan Neolithization through the Lens of Flint Supply and Distribution
13:40 - 14:00 Ivana Jovanovic Variability in the Neolithic lithic technology of the western Balkans
14:00 - 14:20 Lily Bonga Say ""Cheese""? Rim-perforated pans and basins of the Aegean Neolithic

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.
Read More

Room: D

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Bruno Vindrola-Padrós The Emergence of waste monumentality in Europe: A discussion
13:20 - 14:30 all participants Final Discussions

R27 - The Emergence of Food-Producing Economies in Central Asia: The Intersection of Cultural and Biological Data

Session Organisers: Svetlana Shnaider, Robert Spengler
Category: Domestication / Subsistence Economy
Session Abstract:
Central Asia has been, throughout a large part of human history, a primary conduit for the diffusion for cultural elements, technological innovations, and genes. Over the past few years, human ancient genomics projects, combined with growing data from archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, and isotopic analysis are allowing archaeologists to better contextualize their archaeological sites and associated artifacts. Despite major advances in scholarship, little remains known about the Neolitization processes of the Early and Mid-Holocene and the ways they underscored or reshaped population structures and cultural repertoires across Central Asia. This session seeks to bring together new insights into the transition to the food producing economies, and mobility dynamics of Neolithic populations that inhabited diverse environmental and cultural contexts across Central Asia. This session welcomes new perspectives derived from excavations, faunal and botanical analyses, and biomolecular and genomic records, with the overall aim of building holistic explanatory frameworks that better resolve the temporality and the cultural mechanisms associated with the origin and spread of farming and herding across the core of the ancient world. Among the question that we hope to grapple with in this session are: 1) what role did wild plants and animals play in the diet prior to the advent of cultivation behaviors. 2) Can we still discuss local innovations in economy or was the Neolithization of Inner Asia part of a demic wave spreading from southwest Asia. And, 3) what are the timing and routes of dispersal for the earliest crops and cultivation practices within this vast geographic region.
Read More

Room: B

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Shogo Kume, Ayako Shibutani, Hikmatulla Hoshimov, Bokijon Matbabaev Cereal storage or cereal processing or both? Some thoughts on post-harvesting activities in the Late Bronze Age Fergana Valley
13:20 - 13:40 Barbara Zach, Robert Spengler, Ricardo Fernandes Earliest pathways of broomcorn millet to the west
13:40 - 14:00 Saltanat Alisher Kyzy, Svetlana Shnaider Eastern Caspian culture in the late Stone Age
14:00 - 14:20 Kseniia Boxleitner, Robert Spengler, Temirlan Chargynov, Snezhana Zhilich, Aida Abdykanova, Nuritdin Sayfullaev, Valentina Alekseitseva, Svetlana Shnaider Letting The Grass Grow Under Our Feet: Weedy Remains Of The Early And Mid-Holocene Neolithization In Central Asia.

P - Recent Finds, Recent Recoveries

Session Organisers:
Category: P Group
Session Abstract:
Site-based or recent recoveries group
Read More

Room: M

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
13:00 - 13:20 Thomas Zimmermann Transformation or transcendence? – A cross-cultural and morphological approach to visualized tribal narratives in the early Holocene Harran plain
Parallel Sessions (Sitting: 3)

G01 - Understanding ‘Long Neolithics’ in Global Comparative Perspective

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

Room: A

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

G04 - Population Dynamics in Pre-state Farming Societies

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

Room: C

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

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.
Read More

Room: E

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

R02 - Before the Neolithic: Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic Communities in Anatolia and Surrounding Region

Session Organisers: Çiler Altınbilek Algül, Çiğdem Atakuman, Douglas Baird, Semra Balcı
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Many features of the Southwest Asian Neolithic seem to have gradually emerged during the Epipaleolithic period. For this reason, the detailed study and interpretation of archaeological data from the late Pleistocene and often beginning of Holocene in particular areas is extremely important for understanding the Neolithization process of the larger region. Although the Epipalaeolithic period is well defined in the Southern Levant, our knowledge from sites in Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, Cyprus and the Northern Levant is limited. An important factor has been the lack of research on the late Pleistocene in the region outside the Southern Levant. This situation is gradually changing with the recent discoveries of Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic sites in various areas of Anatolia, indicating that the potential of the region is much higher than initial perspectives. The aim of this session is to re-evaluate the presence and nature of the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic communities of Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, Northern Levant and Cyprus in light of recent discoveries. In this respect, presentations are expected to focus on material cultures, regional variability, residential strategies and mobility, subsistence and economy, responses to climate and environmental changes, long-distance relationships and socio-cultural networks, and choice of settlement areas. Furthermore, we also welcome the discussion of ancient DNA studies regarding the early pre-Neolithic contexts in SW Asia.
Read More

Room: I

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Cevdet Merih Erek A General Overview of the Epipaleolithic Cultures of Direkli and Yusufun Kayası Caves and Material Culture Assessment
15:05 - 15:25 Yoshihiro Nishiaki Natufian phenomenon in the northern Levant: A case at Dederiyeh Cave, North Syria
15:25 - 15:45 Ergül Kodaş The Epipaleolithic period in the Mardin Area
15:45 - 16:05 All Participants Discussion

R05 - Death, Ritual and The Social Transformations In The Near Eastern Neolithic

Session Organisers: Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Marin A. Pilloud
Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices
Session Abstract:
For a long time, archaeologists and anthropologists have studied the perception of death in the Neolithic Near East populations with very different types of evidence. Among the striking results observed in these studies is that rituals related to death show similarities in communities that seem to have adopted the new lifestyle, but also have many differences. It can be estimated that the intra-regional and inter-regional evaluations of the similarities and differences observed in death practices are useful in understanding the worldview and social structures of the Neolithic people, as well as in discussing the relations between settlements in different geographies. In addition, the use of pigments observed in funerary practices, the diversity in terms of different burial types and grave goods continue to be important issues worth examining, while the examinations made in the settlements show that people lived with their dead in most Neolithic settlements and their remains were used in the rituals of the living. Post-burial interventions (secondary burial practices, dismemberment) or plastered skulls seem to emphasize the functionality of rituals related to death in maintaining order in these communities, dealing with the dead and their remains, or that rituals related to death are deeply involved in life. In addition to all these, bioarchaeological information about Neolithic human societies reveals important lines of adaptation to the natural environment and social transformation. Therefore, it would be appropriate to include the results of the bioarchaeological research on lifestyles in our session. In this context, the main purposes of this session are to showcase the local characteristics of the practices, and to examine the evidence of rituals related to death as a tool of socio-cultural transformation in these societies, along with other bio-cultural adaptations that generate the new lifestyle.
Read More

Room: F

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Serpil Eroğlu, Özlem Ekinbaş Can, Fabio Cavalli, Ekim Gümeler, Özden Ormancı Mortuary Practices of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period at Gre Fılla, Diyarbakır, Türkiye
15:05 - 15:25 Jo-Hannah Plug Mortuary Pathways at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria
15:25 - 15:45 Yasemin Yılmaz Archaeotanatological Analysis of the Graves found at Pendik Höyük in İstanbul
15:45 - 16:05 Yaren Emmez, Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya Mortuary Rituals in Neolithic Anatolia: New insights into Social Change and Cultural Interactions

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.
Read More

Room: J

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:00 Eva Gabrieli The development of pottery production in the Southern Levant: continuity and discontinuity of a step in the process of ‘containerization
15:00 - 15:15 Gary Rollefson A house is not always a home: A re-evaluation of the function of Late Neolithic (c. 6,900-5,000 cal. BCE) architecture in Jordan’s Black Desert
15:15 - 15:30 Alexander Wasse, Yorke Rowan Not a place for respectable people, but the ends of the Earth converge there: Transregional networks and the Steppe during the seventh and sixth millennia BC
15:30 - 15:45 Hans Georg K. Gebel The Eastern Steppes’ interaction spheres of the LPPNB Southern Levant
15:45 - 16:00 Sumio Fujii Northern Hijaz PPNB settlements and Late Neolithic pseudo-settlements: Arabian forefront of the southern Levantine Neolithic

R13 - From the “Civilization of minds” to obsidian mirrors: the study of the World Neolithic according to Petr Charvàt and Güner Coşkunsu

Session Organisers: Jesus Gil Fuensanta, Alfredo Mederos Martin, Otabek Uktamovich Muminov, Alisher Gaffarovich Muminov
Category: Technology
Session Abstract:
The premature disappearance of our colleagues, Prof. Petr Charvàt (West Bohemia University, Czech Republic) and Dr. Güner Coşkunsu (Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain), has left some of their own research on various fields of the World Neolithic unfinished. Throughout his long career, Prof. Charvàt carried out in-depth research on the birth of the first states and urban agglomerations, as well as the beginning of bureaucracy through the use of seals and their impressions. The eminent Czech archaeologist and historian personally viewed the Neolithic as a “Civilization of minds” in contrast to the Chalcolithic or Bronze Age cultures, which he considered “Civilizations of the stomach.” In her research on the Neolithic, Dr. Güner Coşkunsu was able to confirm her interest in archeology about childhood, the role of women in prehistory, and especially the Neolithic period, as well as in-depth research on stone tools, in which Her interest in an unprocessed material stood out, the magical volcanic crystal, which we call obsidian; within this lithic raw material, she highlighted an important attraction for the subject of “mirrors”. So this session will cover these mentioned aspects, or various in relation to them within the Neolithic sphere: seals and imprints, bureaucracy, centralized organization in the central Neolithic towns, "the mind of Neolithic men", women and the question of matriarchal clans in the Neolithic, the archeology of childhood in the Neolithic, organization of stone industries, as well as obsidian industry and trade, and last but not least, the obsidian mirrors.
Read More

Room: G

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:00 Alfredo Mederos Martin The Halaf culture: A non-minimal approach
15:00 - 15:15 Alisher Gaffarovich Muminov Juan Ibarreche Duque and the studies on Nomadic Populations of the Neolithic Age
15:15 - 15:30 Otabek Uktamovich Muminov Paleolithic Migrations into Central Asia end its reflection on Asian Paleogenetics of the Neolithic Age
15:30 - 15:45 Jesus Gil Fuensanta The importance of seals in the Neolithic societies of Mesopotamia
15:45 - 16:00 Jesus Gil Fuensanta, Güner Çoskunsu “Neolithic Mirrors”: Peaceful and Secretive Objects of The Prehistory

R14 - Regional and Inter-Regional Palimpsests of Neolithization Processes: South-Eastern Europe

Session Organisers: Mihael Budja, Dušan Boric , Zuzana Hofmanová, Maxime Brami
Category: Anatolia / Southeastern Europe
Session Abstract:
The session will focus on archaeological, archaeogenetic, biomolecular, demographic, climatic, and paleoeconomic regional palimpsests. In addition to the processes of transition to farming, artefact assemblages and chronological trajectories, symbolism and social practices, the concepts of the Neolithic package, demic diffusion, migration, gene-culture coevolution, Neolithic demographic transition, and the agricultural frontier will be discussed.
Read More

Room: L

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:00 Eszter Banffy Lifeways and rituals. Clay representations of ambiguous creatures at the northern margins of the Balkans, early 6th millennium cal BC
15:00 - 15:15 Raiko Krauss, Jörg Bofinger, Elena Marinova, Oliver Nelle, Simon Trixl Environmental factors and the use of resources of the oldest LBK in the Ammer Valley near Tübingen
15:15 - 15:30 Jerzy Sikora, Piotr Kittel, Miroslaw Makohonienko, Piotr Papiernik, Dominik Kacper Plaza, Joanna Rennwanz The northern extent of early farming communities in Central Europe in the light of research in Ostrowite (northern Poland).
15:30 - 15:45 Miroslav Kocic, Ana Kocic, Marija Kalicanin Krstic Starcevo bluprint – Vinca developers
15:45 - 16:00 Zhaneta Gjyshja, Premtim Alaj, Apostolos Sarris, Bardhyl Rexhepi It Takes a Village: Craft Specialization at a Late Neolithic (5400–4600 BC) Site in Western Kosova

R20 - Submerged Neolithic Sites Around the Mediterranean and Europe

Session Organisers: Hakan Öniz, Ehud Galili, Liora Kolska Horwitz
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Myths about great floods are known from ancient cultures (e.g., Noah’s Ark, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, and Plato's Atlantis). In the nineteenth century, scientists realized that the equilibrium of water on earth involves cycles of ice ages (glacial periods) with associated fluctuations in sea level ranging from a drop of -120m during a glacial period and a high sea level of up to +10m during an interglacial period. Thus, there is potential in finding inundated settlements on the sea bottom. Until recently scholars had limited access to submerged prehistoric remains, but recent decades have seen a turning point in research possibilities. Both natural and human-induced erosion processes have facilitated the exposure of sites, enabling their discovery. Developments in technology have made it possible to develop a methodology for detecting, documenting and studying these submerged prehistoric sites. Hundreds of sites are known in the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and in the Mediterranean Sea ̶ where long term research has been undertaken. For example, on the submerged prehistoric sites of Işıldaktepealti (Dardanelle-Çanakkale) in Turkey and Atlit-Yam in Israel, while many others await discovery and study. The discipline of submerged prehistory has become an essential part of underwater archaeology. It can fill gaps in knowledge and add another dimension to the research of prehistory. This session aims at presenting and discussing the chronological and cultural settings of prehistoric sites, especially dating to the Neolithic period, discovered on the sea bottom, clarifying the relationship between coastal cultures and the sea and the contribution of marine resources to their subsistence, as well as their resilience and adaptation to the changing coastal environment.
Read More

Room: H

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Hakan Öniz A View at Sunken Prehistoric Settlements off the Turkish Coast
15:05 - 15:25 Orkun Kaycı Potential prehistoric island communities in Cilicia to the north of the Eastern Mediterranean
15:25 - 15:45 Katarina Jerbic The Submerged Late Neolithic Pile-dwelling at Zambratija Bay, Croatia
15:45 - 16:05 Mirco Brunner, Adrian Anastasi, Kristi Anastasi, Andrej Maczkowski, Matthias Bolliger, Martin Hinz, Sönke Szidat, Ilir Gjipali, Albert Hafner Lake Maliq revisited: Fresh Perspectives on Neolithic submerged Settlements at former Lake Maliq, Albania.

R27 - The Emergence of Food-Producing Economies in Central Asia: The Intersection of Cultural and Biological Data

Session Organisers: Svetlana Shnaider, Robert Spengler
Category: Domestication / Subsistence Economy
Session Abstract:
Central Asia has been, throughout a large part of human history, a primary conduit for the diffusion for cultural elements, technological innovations, and genes. Over the past few years, human ancient genomics projects, combined with growing data from archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, and isotopic analysis are allowing archaeologists to better contextualize their archaeological sites and associated artifacts. Despite major advances in scholarship, little remains known about the Neolitization processes of the Early and Mid-Holocene and the ways they underscored or reshaped population structures and cultural repertoires across Central Asia. This session seeks to bring together new insights into the transition to the food producing economies, and mobility dynamics of Neolithic populations that inhabited diverse environmental and cultural contexts across Central Asia. This session welcomes new perspectives derived from excavations, faunal and botanical analyses, and biomolecular and genomic records, with the overall aim of building holistic explanatory frameworks that better resolve the temporality and the cultural mechanisms associated with the origin and spread of farming and herding across the core of the ancient world. Among the question that we hope to grapple with in this session are: 1) what role did wild plants and animals play in the diet prior to the advent of cultivation behaviors. 2) Can we still discuss local innovations in economy or was the Neolithization of Inner Asia part of a demic wave spreading from southwest Asia. And, 3) what are the timing and routes of dispersal for the earliest crops and cultivation practices within this vast geographic region.
Read More

Room: B

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Kirill Kiryushin, Yaroslav Frolov, Alexander Schmidt Neolithic-Chalcolithic burial complexes of the Barnaul Ob region: problems of chronology and cultural affiliation
15:05 - 15:25 Victor Merz Origins of Production Economies in the Steppe Zone of Eurasia
15:25 - 15:45 Dragana Filipovic Push and pull factors in the adoption of innovations in plant economy: learning from the Neolithic

P - Recent Finds, Recent Recoveries

Session Organisers:
Category: P Group
Session Abstract:
Site-based or recent recoveries group
Read More

Room: M

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
14:45 - 15:05 Ekaterina Kashina, Natalia Petrova, Konstantin German The Neolithic Kargopol type ceramics of the East European taiga: what is hidden beside simplicity?
15:05 - 15:25 Yuliya Petrova, Nataliya Tanykova, Sofiya Bolotskaya, Ekaterina Girchenko Chemical-technological analysis of ceramics from the Kayukovo 1 Early Neolithic settlement (based on materials from excavations of 2021 and 2023)
15:25 - 15:45 Zhen Wen, Peng Wang, Xiaobing Jia New chapter in Eastern Eurasian steppes - Discoveries of the monumental complex of Husta
15:45 - 16:05 Iia Shuteleva, Alexandra Golyeva, Tatiana Leonova, Nikolai Shcherbakov Problems of reconstruction of the paleolandscape of the cultural layers of Neolithic and Late Bronze Age sites in the Belaya River basin in the Southern Urals.
Parallel Sessions (Sitting: 4)

G01 - Understanding ‘Long Neolithics’ in Global Comparative Perspective

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

Room: A

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

G04 - Population Dynamics in Pre-state Farming Societies

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

Room: C

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

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.
Read More

Room: E

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

R02 - Before the Neolithic: Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic Communities in Anatolia and Surrounding Region

Session Organisers: Çiler Altınbilek Algül, Çiğdem Atakuman, Douglas Baird, Semra Balcı
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Many features of the Southwest Asian Neolithic seem to have gradually emerged during the Epipaleolithic period. For this reason, the detailed study and interpretation of archaeological data from the late Pleistocene and often beginning of Holocene in particular areas is extremely important for understanding the Neolithization process of the larger region. Although the Epipalaeolithic period is well defined in the Southern Levant, our knowledge from sites in Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, Cyprus and the Northern Levant is limited. An important factor has been the lack of research on the late Pleistocene in the region outside the Southern Levant. This situation is gradually changing with the recent discoveries of Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic sites in various areas of Anatolia, indicating that the potential of the region is much higher than initial perspectives. The aim of this session is to re-evaluate the presence and nature of the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic communities of Anatolia, the Aegean Islands, Northern Levant and Cyprus in light of recent discoveries. In this respect, presentations are expected to focus on material cultures, regional variability, residential strategies and mobility, subsistence and economy, responses to climate and environmental changes, long-distance relationships and socio-cultural networks, and choice of settlement areas. Furthermore, we also welcome the discussion of ancient DNA studies regarding the early pre-Neolithic contexts in SW Asia.
Read More

Room: I

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:45 Yavuz Aydın, Eşref Erbil Late Epipaleolithic Hunter-Gatherers of Northwestern Anatolia: Ballık Cave, İzmir/Turkey
16:45 - 17:00 Deniz Sarı Gedikkaya Cave in North-western Türkiye: the Epipalaeolithic layer that connected to ritual activity
17:00 - 17:15 Hülya Çalışkan Akgül Koskarlı Cave: The First Epipaleolithic Site Excavation in the Southeastern Black Sea Area
17:15 - 17:30 Çiğdem Atakuman, Cansu Karamurat, Hasan Can Gemici, Dilek Koptekin, Mehmet Somel Patterns of the Neolithization in the Aegean: A synthesis of Material Culture and a-DNA Evidence
17:30 - 17:45 All Participants Discussion

R05 - Death, Ritual and The Social Transformations In The Near Eastern Neolithic

Session Organisers: Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Marin A. Pilloud
Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices
Session Abstract:
For a long time, archaeologists and anthropologists have studied the perception of death in the Neolithic Near East populations with very different types of evidence. Among the striking results observed in these studies is that rituals related to death show similarities in communities that seem to have adopted the new lifestyle, but also have many differences. It can be estimated that the intra-regional and inter-regional evaluations of the similarities and differences observed in death practices are useful in understanding the worldview and social structures of the Neolithic people, as well as in discussing the relations between settlements in different geographies. In addition, the use of pigments observed in funerary practices, the diversity in terms of different burial types and grave goods continue to be important issues worth examining, while the examinations made in the settlements show that people lived with their dead in most Neolithic settlements and their remains were used in the rituals of the living. Post-burial interventions (secondary burial practices, dismemberment) or plastered skulls seem to emphasize the functionality of rituals related to death in maintaining order in these communities, dealing with the dead and their remains, or that rituals related to death are deeply involved in life. In addition to all these, bioarchaeological information about Neolithic human societies reveals important lines of adaptation to the natural environment and social transformation. Therefore, it would be appropriate to include the results of the bioarchaeological research on lifestyles in our session. In this context, the main purposes of this session are to showcase the local characteristics of the practices, and to examine the evidence of rituals related to death as a tool of socio-cultural transformation in these societies, along with other bio-cultural adaptations that generate the new lifestyle.
Read More

Room: F

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 Kameray Özdemir, Benjamin Titus Irvine, Handan Üstündağ, Joris Peters, Necmi Karul Palaeodietary Analysis of the Gusir Höyük Neolithic Population utilising Stable Isotope Analysis
16:50 - 17:10 Handan Üstündağ, Donald Kale, Necmi Karul Physiological Stress in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Population of Gusir Höyük
17:10 - 17:30 Kameray Özdemir, Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Benjamin Titus Irvine, Turhan Doğan, Furkan Kulak, Can Yümni Gündem, Yasin Gökhan Çakan Determination of Dietary Patterns in the Tepecik-Çiftlik Neolithic Population through Stable Isotope Analysis
17:30 - 17:50 Benjamin Irvine, Kameray Özdemir, Turhan Doğan, Furkan Kulak, Yasin Gökhan Çakan, Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya Sub-adult diet and the weaning process at Neolithic Tepecik-Çiftlik

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.
Read More

Room: J

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 18:00 All Participants Final Discussion

R20 - Submerged Neolithic Sites Around the Mediterranean and Europe

Session Organisers: Hakan Öniz, Ehud Galili, Liora Kolska Horwitz
Category: Near East
Session Abstract:
Myths about great floods are known from ancient cultures (e.g., Noah’s Ark, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, and Plato's Atlantis). In the nineteenth century, scientists realized that the equilibrium of water on earth involves cycles of ice ages (glacial periods) with associated fluctuations in sea level ranging from a drop of -120m during a glacial period and a high sea level of up to +10m during an interglacial period. Thus, there is potential in finding inundated settlements on the sea bottom. Until recently scholars had limited access to submerged prehistoric remains, but recent decades have seen a turning point in research possibilities. Both natural and human-induced erosion processes have facilitated the exposure of sites, enabling their discovery. Developments in technology have made it possible to develop a methodology for detecting, documenting and studying these submerged prehistoric sites. Hundreds of sites are known in the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and in the Mediterranean Sea ̶ where long term research has been undertaken. For example, on the submerged prehistoric sites of Işıldaktepealti (Dardanelle-Çanakkale) in Turkey and Atlit-Yam in Israel, while many others await discovery and study. The discipline of submerged prehistory has become an essential part of underwater archaeology. It can fill gaps in knowledge and add another dimension to the research of prehistory. This session aims at presenting and discussing the chronological and cultural settings of prehistoric sites, especially dating to the Neolithic period, discovered on the sea bottom, clarifying the relationship between coastal cultures and the sea and the contribution of marine resources to their subsistence, as well as their resilience and adaptation to the changing coastal environment.
Read More

Room: H

Start Time - End Time Authors Title
16:30 - 16:50 Hinz Martin, Anastasi Adrian, Brunner Mirco, Anastasi Kristi, Yermorkhin Maxim, Gjipali Ilir, Hafner Albert Discovering the wooden pillars of the Neolithic settlement: the waterlogged site Lin 3, Albania
16:50 - 17:10 Ehud Galili, Liora Kolska Horwitz Exploring submerged settlements off the Mediterranean coast of Israel
17:10 - 17:30 Vered Eshed Paleo-demography and health status of the population of Atlit-Yam, a Submerged Neolithic site off the Carmel coast, Israel.