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'Salisbury RB, Bácsmegi G, 2013: Resilience in the Neolithic: how people may have mitigated environmental change in prehistory. Anthropologie (Brno) 51, 2: 143-155'. |
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| Abstract | | Neolithic populations in Central Europe lived in a world of dynamic climate change. This paper explores human-environmental interactions in light of local environmental changes linked to human activity and small-scale climate change, with a case study from the 2011-12 investigations at two small early Late Neolithic settlements (c. 5000 BC) set along palaeomeanders of the Körös River in Békés County, Hungary. During the course of the Neolithic, this region saw complex development in social and settlement organization, including the nucleation of populations in large settlements and the continued reoccupation of living space. Utilizing archaeological and environmental data, we tackle the question of why these communities adopted different settlement systems, whether they maintained other cultural traditions, and how these choices may reflect efforts to mitigate environmental change. Historical ecology and the related concept of resiliency provide a conceptual approach to understanding the ways that human societies and the environment affect each other. By cultural resiliency, we mean the ability of a society to maintain and develop identity, knowledge and ways of making a living, despite challenges and disturbances, by resisting damage and recovering quickly. In this case, we speculate about ways that Neolithic populations on the Great Hungarian Plain triggered some kinds of environmental change, and how they coped with the combination of these and naturally occurring changes in palaeohydrology. | | | | Keywords | | Historical ecology - Palaeoenvironment - Geoarchaeology - Neolithic - Körös area | | |
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