Modelling of the early agricultural spread in south of the Eastern Europe

Project Information

FUZZFARM

Grant agreement ID: 891737

DOI

10.3030/891737

Project closed

EC signature date 6 April 2020

Start date 15 March 2021

End date 14 March 2023

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 183 473,28

EU contribution

€ 183 473,28

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - FUZZFARM (Modelling of the early agricultural spread in south of the Eastern Europe)

Reporting period: 2021-03-15 to 2023-03-14

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project aims at modelling of the early agricultural spread, the process that brought agriculture and the settled way of life to large portions of Europe in VII-V mill. BC. It is focused on the archaeological record of south Eastern Europe. The archaeological record of Eastern Europe is still badly integrated into pan-European theoretical context. The project will work towards the more general aim of building a unified European archaeology and incorporation of prehistory of the modern-day Moldova and Ukraine into the discourse on prehistory of Europe.
The project will address the issue of agricultural spread by means of the spatial statistics and agent-based modelling. The agent-based modelling is a meaningful framework for incorporating various lines of inquiry on the prehistoric land-use. Such approach was rarely applied to Neolithic studies and never – to the archaeological record of the south of Eastern Europe.
At least for two millennia the easternmost fringe of Neolithic world moved across through the plains of south of Eastern Europe, sometimes stopping for several centuries without obvious geographic barriers (mountains, seas, major rivers etc.). Why did they stop? The project is aimed to answer this question as well as clarify the mechanisms and peculiarities of Neolithization in the south of Eastern Europe.
The main result include the novel understanding of Neolithization. The inevitable, steady pace of “progress” is a lousy representation of the actual processes of the productive economy establishment. Moreover, there were specific steps back and “retreats” of the early farming areas. The indigenous fishers, hunters, and gatherers seem to react actively to the fluctuations of the early farming groups. After the demise of Linear Pottery Culture farmers, in the region, there could be a revival of fishers, hunters, and gatherers equipped with ceramic vessels. The adaptations based on an extractive economy appeared successful enough to “regain terrain,” at least temporarily. Thus, in the future modeling efforts the indigenous groups with extractive economy should be included as an active agent.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main aim of the project is the modeling of Neolithization in the south of Eastern Europe. The activities included the study of modeling methods, actualization of database, systematization of archaeological sources and getting empirical material through the field work, while the second year saw a finalization of chronological research on the selected microregions, systematic studies of ancient buried soils and modeling of the interactions of ancient farmers with past landscapes.
The systematization of archaeological material brought interesting additional results on which papers were published. Systematic dating efforts with an application of AMS radiocarbon dating highlighted some important chronological results: the Azov-Dnieper culture is an eastern contemporary of Linear Pottery Culture, the Early Trypillian expansion took place around 4700 calBC and was a leap-frog type rapid migration, the Late Criş settlements in Moldova ceased to exist by 5400 cal BC. The work on correlation of archaeological and paleoclimatic record was done jointly with the team of pollen analysts from Bern University. The results are promising: indicating dynamics of human impact around the peatbog situated by the Dnieper river mouth, thus, being of paramount importance for understanding Neolithization process in steppe.
The modelling activities included chronological modeling (mostly Bayessian (in OxCal software), paleoclimatic modeling in LandClim software, social networks analysis in UCINET and agent-based model in NetLogo.
The main scientific results of the project are:
1. Chronology of Neolithization and the preceding periods in Ukraine and Moldova was clarified by means of chronological modelling. The early Trypillian expansion was modelled for the first time as well as micro-chronologies were built for three micro-regions of interest: Southern Buh catchment, southern Moldova and the Lower Dnieper. The typo-chronologies were disputed and the event of ‘de-Neolithization’ – demise of LBK farmers was reconstructed in the region of study.
2. Soils of the early farmers and foragers were studied as buried soils on archaeological sites in the three micro-regions mentioned above. They appear to differ drastically from the modern-day soils. The differences between buried soils on the sites of foragers and those on the sites of early farmers highlighted the differences in the landscape utilization by groups with productive and extractive economies respectively.
3. The agricultural colonization of Steppe was shown to be late and punctuated phenomenon with limited chronological duration. The agent-based modeling demonstrated that not a moisture availability was the main limiting factor. These results are supported by deterministic modelling in LandClim software.
Material results of the project include: database, 24 new radiocarbon dates, descriptions of 10 soil profiles, chemical and micromorphological analyses done on 4 soil profiles. The main way of their exploitation is their publication in the scientific peer-reviewed journals, which was partially done, partially is on its way to be done (submitted papers and upcoming monograph).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project FUZZFARM has created a 'territories of clarity' in the south Eastern Europe: the microregions of agricultural colonisation, which we know much better than any surrounding region. They are the southern Moldova, the Middle Southern Buh region and the Lower Dnieper region. Here we established microregional chronologies based on the series of AMS dates as well as established settlement patterns, character and distribution of past soils and economic basis of past societies in question. These microregions could be case-studies while modeling Neolithic and Neolithization in the south of Eastern Europe. Neolithization was shown to be not-irreversible process. In order to make early farming sustainable it required several attempts of colonisation in many regions of Eastern Europe. Climatic and environmental factors contributed to this punctuated pattern of presence - but not only them. Societal factors (for example presence of indigenous groups with extractive economy) was also important in limiting agricultural spread.
The environmental peculiarities of Eastern Europe not only shaped past societies, they also shaped the archaeological record by post-depositional processes. Here, sometimes, the aspects of past settlements are preserved, which are mostly not preserved in the Central Europe. These observation have importance in managing cultural heritage of the region. Some sites we were working on are now under Russian occupation or in the zone of military action. Thus, this research contributes to their preservation, at least, of their 'virtual image' - as part of the general scholarship on the archaeology of the Lower Dnieper region

The soil section in the site of Melnychna Krucha