fifth millennium is characterized by farflung contacts and a veritable flood of innovations, While its beginning is still strongly reminiscent of a broadly Linearbandkeramik way of life, at its end we find new, interregionally valid forms of symbolism, representation and ritual behavior, changes in the settlement system, in
architecture and in routine life.
Yet, these interregional tendencies are paired with a profusion of increasingly smallscale archaeological cultures, many of them defined through pottery only, This tension between largescale interaction and more local developments remains ill understood, largely because interregional comparisons are lacking,
Contributors in this volume provide uptodate regional overviews of the main developments in the fifth millennium and discuss, amongst others, how far ceramicallydefined 'cultures' can be seen as spatially coherent social groups with their own way of life and worldview, and how processes of innovation can be understood.
Case studies range from the Neolithization of the Netherlands and huntergatherer farmer fusions in the Polish Lowlands, to the Italian Neolithic, Amongst others, they cover the circulation of stone discrings in western Europe, the formation of postLBK societies in central Europe and the reliability of pottery as an indicator for social transformations.
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