Archaeologists have found evidence of wide cultural networks across Europe 5,000 years ago, challenging the idea that the Rhine was a major barrier between prehistoric communities.
A new study by Kiel University researchers suggests that people living across Western, Central and Northern Europe in the Late Neolithic shared traditions, objects and beliefs even though they were separated by hundreds of kilometres.
The research, published in the archaeological journal Germania, combines evidence from three seemingly disparate sources: simple pottery; distinctive double-edged stone axes; and large collective graves.
Sebastian Schultrich, an archaeologist with the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at Kiel University, says that combination shows a network of communication from France and the Alpine region through Germany and Denmark to Scandinavia and Poland in the late fourth and early third millennia BC.
Humble pottery provides an important clue
One of the most revealing pieces of evidence is also among the least spectacular.
Across large parts of prehistoric Europe, archaeologists have discovered extremely simple pottery known as “coarse ware”. Unlike the carefully made and decorated ceramics associated with cultures such as the Funnelbeaker groups of north-central Europe, these vessels were roughly shaped and largely undecorated.
Some featured little more than small rows of dots immediately beneath their rims.
Because of their plain appearance, the pots have traditionally received relatively little attention and were often regarded as having limited cultural significance.
Schultrich’s research suggests they may tell a very different story.
Coarse ware became widespread from the middle of the fourth millennium BC across areas corresponding to modern-day central and northern France and the western Alpine region. Similar pottery later appeared in western and northern Germany and Denmark.
Rather than representing the rapid spread of a single cultural tradition, Schultrich believes the similarities developed gradually.
“There are indications that a convergence of pottery styles across such great distances occurred gradually and unconsciously,” he said.
According to the archaeologist, this could indicate considerable mobility between communities and suggest that cultural boundaries were either weak or constantly shifting.
Prestigious double axes crossed cultural boundaries
More striking evidence comes from distinctive stone double axes.
Featuring a shaft hole and cutting edges on both sides, the elaborately manufactured objects appear to have carried considerable prestige. Examples have been discovered across a vast geographical area extending from France through Central Europe and into Scandinavia and Poland.
For years, uncertainty surrounding the age of French examples made it difficult to establish whether the axes represented a genuinely interconnected phenomenon.
The new research indicates that the French artefacts, like those found farther north and east, date to the fourth and early third millennia BC.
“This opens up entirely new possibilities for interpretation,” Schultrich said.
Unlike the gradual similarities seen in everyday pottery, the spread of double axes may have been deliberate.
Their appearance across distant regions could therefore represent a consciously shared symbol or idea – evidence that prehistoric communities on both sides of the Rhine participated in a broader cultural narrative.
The dead reveal another connection
Burial practices provide a third strand of evidence.
Communities across the same regions constructed large collective burial monuments, including passage graves and gallery graves.
Although their designs varied locally, the monuments shared important characteristics. They could accommodate dozens or even hundreds of people, remained in use across multiple generations and served as places for ceremonies and communal gatherings.
Rather than simply functioning as graves, such monuments appear to have played a wider role in maintaining social relationships and collective memory.
Their widespread use suggests that communities separated by great distances shared basic ideas about death, ancestry and society but expressed those beliefs in different regional ways.
A connected Europe 5,000 years ago
Taken together pottery, axes and burial traditions tell a story of prehistoric Europe that was much more interconnected than we previously thought.
The study does not mean that Western, Central and Northern Europe belonged to a single unified culture. Schultrich describes instead a network in which communities shared certain basic concepts but maintained strong local identities.
The study does not suggest that Western, Central and Northern Europe belonged to a single unified culture. Instead, Schultrich describes a network in which communities shared certain fundamental concepts while retaining strong local identities.
“What we see here is a network characterised by fundamental narratives, yet one that simultaneously allowed scope for strong regional peculiarities,” he said.
So the Rhine was not the rigid cultural frontier it has sometimes been portrayed as during Late Neolithic times.
Instead people, ideas and material traditions seem to have moved across the river as part of networks which covered large areas of the continent.
For Schultrich it is an early example of a surprisingly complex kind of social identity: communities could belong to a wider cultural world and still have their own distinctive regional traditions.
It is a combination of local and broader identities that, some 5,000 years later, remains familiar across Europe.
Sources : CAU
