Provider: Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic

TY  - JOUR
JO  - Anthropologie (Brno)
TI  - New ideas in old villages. Interpreting the genesis of the Stroked Pottery Culture
AU  - Thomas Link
Y1  - 2015
VL  - 53
IS  - 3
PB  - Moravian Museum, Brno, Czech Republic
SN  - 0323-1119
SP  - 351
EP  - 362
KW  - Neolithic – Linear Pottery Culture – Stroked Pottery Culture – Cultural identity – Cultural continuity
N2  - 
N2  - The transition from the Linear Pottery Culture (LPC) to the Stroke Pottery Culture (SPC) seems to be
a profound disruption. However, this is not accompanied by discontinuity in settlement structures. The settlement of
Dresden-Prohlis shows that continuity may be supposed even on household level. Also most attributes of the novel
pottery decoration style are already present during the younger phase of the LPC. Nevertheless, the ornamental
spectrum dramatically decreases, which is why the genesis of the SPC must first and foremost be understood as a
process of stylistic canonisation. Several culture-historical questions arise: Where does the SPC evolve? How do
the innovations spread? Does stylistic change correlate with economic or social change? The abandonment of the
"traditional" style may be interpreted as symbolic expression of a new cultural identity. This, however, does not
imply a profound socio-cultural break, but rather reflects an ideological reorientation within the persistent social
and economic framework. As an explanation for the rapid spread of the SPC a "polyfocal" model is suggested, which
supposes parallel synchronous evolution in separate but interacting regions. Finally, from an eastern perspective,
the often-cited "crisis at the end of the LPC" has to be relativised and regionally differentiated.
ER  -