Overview

Around 3000 BCE, a turning point occurred in Europe: Long-existing regional societies entered into a process of transformation. The result is a world in which new global communication networks brought different regions closer together. From 3200/3100 BCE, the Globular Amphora phenomenon (GA) was the trailblazer in Eastern and Central Europe. Due to a focus on pastoral subsistence, in comparison to more agrarian economic systems, new ritual practices formed in light of a more flexible form of settlement. We initially observe the symbolic separation manifested through the “Globular Amphora” in an area between the Lower Vistula and Middle Elbe. Communication networks form rapidly in the West (the Elbe-Network) and in the East (the Vistula-Podolia Network). The monopolisation of the practice of double cattle burials connected regional patterns of mobility in the lowlands between the Elbe and the Dniester. With the aid of spatial analyses of the systems of symbols (Zeichensysteme) on locally/micro-regionally produced Globular Amphorae, a proxy is developed for the degree of similarity of the GA-habitus in different regions. Bayesian modelling and spatial visualisations of the radiometric dates indicate temporal sequences and synchronic changes within the newly-developed “global” GA-connectivity. Genetic analyses attest to the indigenous character of the GA individuals in Central Europe. Both isotopic and ceramic technology analyses provide evidence for a mobility radius of up to 50 km for the local groups. In the main phase of the GA, the Elbe and Vistula-Podolia networks appear separated. In the West the core areas are in Bohemia/Moravia, the Middle Elbe-Saale-Havel area, and the north-western Baltic areas; in the East, they are along the Vistula, in Podolia-Volhynia, and in the Siret area. GA networks are mostly symbiotically connected with the local and regional agricultural groups. The GA is, among other things, heavily involved in the formation of the multicultural Corded Ware phenomenon. Its end in 2600 BCE is linked to processes of change which also affected the change from Corded Ware to the Bell Beaker phenomenon. Only in the eastern areas, where a strong reciprocal influence with elements from the Steppe existed, can GA still be found until c. 2400 BCE. The emergence of the GA networks is described as social separation on the basis of social disharmonies within the Funnel Beaker societies, which is also visible via a reduction of the human impact in the palaeoecological archives. A new connectivity of diversified groups developed as a form of levelling mechanism, which in the long-term was part of the transformation of the entirety of European prehistory around 3000 BCE.

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Johannes Müller (PhD, University of Freiburg, 1990) is a Professor and Director of the Institute for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology at Kiel University, Germany. He is the founding director of the Johanna Mestorf Academy, Speaker of the Collaborative Research Centre “Scales of Transformation: Human-environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies” and of the Excellence Cluster “ROOTS – Social, Environmental, and Cultural Connectivity in Past Societies”. He conducts research on Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe, including the challenge of interlinking natural, social, life sciences, and the humanities within an anthropological approach of archaeology. Intensive fieldwork was and is carried out in international teams, e.g., on Tripolye mega-sites in Eastern Europa, the Late Neolithic tell site of Okolište in Bosnia-Hercegovina, different Neolithic domestic and burial sites in Northern Germany, and Early Bronze Age sites in Greater Poland. Ethnoarchaeological fieldwork has been conducted, e.g., in India. Within the Kiel Graduate School “Human Development in Landscapes”, now the Young Academy of ROOTS, and the Scandinavian Graduate School “Dialogues of the Past”, Johannes Müller promotes international PhD projects. Key publications: Johannes Müller Müller, J. and Diachenko, A. 2019. Tracing long-term demographic changes: The issue of spatial scales. PLoS ONE 14, e0208739. Müller, J., 2019. Boom and bust, hierarchy and balance: From landscape to social meaning – Megaliths and societies in Northern Central Europe, in: Müller, J., Hinz, M., Wunderlich, M. (eds.), Megaliths – Societies – Landscapes. Early monumentality and social differentiation in Neolithic Europe. Dr. Rudolf Habelt GMBH: Bonn, 29-74. Müller, J., 2018. Social memories and site biographies: construction and perception in nonliterate societies, in: Bakels, C.C., Bourgeois, Q.P.J., Fontijn, D.R., Jansen, R. (eds.), Local communities in the Big World of prehistoric Northwest Europe. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 49. Sidestone Press: Leiden, 9-17. Müller, J., Arponen, V.P.J., Hofmann, R., Ohlrau, R. 2017. The Appearance of Social Inequalities: Cases of Neolithic and Chalcolithic Societies. Origini 38 (2015-2), 65-86. Müller, J., Rassmann, K., Videiko, M., 2016. Trypillia Mega-Sites and European Prehistory: 4100- 3400 BCE. Themes in Contemporary Archaeology. London: Routledge. Müller, J. and Peterson, R., 2015. Ceramics and Society in Northern Europe, in: Fowler, C., Harding, J., Hofmann, D. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Müller, J., Hinz, M., Ullrich, M. 2015. Bell Beakers – Chronology, Innovation and Memory. A Multivariate Approach, in: Martinez, M.P.P. and Salanova, L. (eds.), The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe. Oxford: Oxbow, 57–68. Müller, J., 2014. 4100–2700 B.C. Monuments and Ideologies in the Neolithic Landscape, in: Osborne, J.F. (ed.), Approaching Monumentality in Archaeology. New York: New York University Press, 181–217.

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