Mobility in ancient Europe

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Pre-LGM Hunter Gatherers traveled more than post-LGM HG's, Neolithic Farmers were more mobile than both of them. Mobility then peaked again during the bronze age and later reach an ATH during the Iron age:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2...full?sid=ec0d153c-0762-4192-9671-09757031cc21


Early spread of farming in Balkans was particularly rapid:
http://www.pnas.org/content/110/9/3298.full
Just like we see in the Bronze age in the early neolithic women were in fact more mobile than men. Burial and diet suggest a fusion of neolithic and mesolithic traditions, body types were a mix of gracile and robust.
 
A lot of nonsense was posted about the "mobility" of hunter-gatherers, particularly on certain sites.

There was this rather ignorant assumption that the hunter-gatherers whom the farmers encountered in Europe were fierce, roaming "mammoth hunters", when anyone with any knowledge about the period at all would have known that the mammoths were long dead. The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe at that time were hunting small game, and doing a lot of fishing. That meant a lot of them were tethered to good fishing areas like the Danube Gates or the northern Baltic areas.

The farmers, by contrast, as the study proves, were explorers and extremely mobile, although it was in bursts, to be sure. I've always been amazed at the courage it would have taken to pack your family, your seeds and animals into some leaky, ancient boat, and take off along the coast in search of new land. Even doing it by land could have been no picnic.

It always reminded me of the old movies I watched when I came to this country that showed the endless wagon trains of "sod-busters" who moved first to the upper mid-west and then to the great plains to get free land for their corn and wheat. Those fields feed a lot of the world today. Actually, it was easier for them because they had horse pulled wagons to help them.

Alfred_Jacob_Miller_-_Prairie_Scene_-_Mirage_-_Walters_371940149WikiNoC.jpg


hult_sod_05.jpg
 
A lot of nonsense was posted about the "mobility" of hunter-gatherers, particularly on certain sites.

There was this rather ignorant assumption that the hunter-gatherers whom the farmers encountered in Europe were fierce, roaming "mammoth hunters", when anyone with any knowledge about the period at all would have known that the mammoths were long dead. The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe at that time were hunting small game, and doing a lot of fishing. That meant a lot of them were tethered to good fishing areas like the Danube Gates or the northern Baltic areas.

The farmers, by contrast, as the study proves, were explorers and extremely mobile, although it was in bursts, to be sure. I've always been amazed at the courage it would have taken to pack your family, your seeds and animals into some leaky, ancient boat, and take off along the coast in search of new land. Even doing it by land could have been no picnic.

It always reminded me of the old movies I watched when I came to this country that showed the endless wagon trains of "sod-busters" who moved first to the upper mid-west and then to the great plains to get free land for their corn and wheat. Those fields feed a lot of the world today. Actually, it was easier for them because they had horse pulled wagons to help them.

Alfred_Jacob_Miller_-_Prairie_Scene_-_Mirage_-_Walters_371940149WikiNoC.jpg


hult_sod_05.jpg

Angela, it's not worth getting upset over silly misconceptions like that, although you'd hope people would have more knowledge of the subject. Also I wouldn't set mammoth hunting as a standard of whether people are "fierce" or not, I’m sure the latter Hunter Gatherers were hardy people none the less. I’ve speculated that the genetic turn over in Europe between the pre and post LGM was due to the success of Hunter Gatherers in the south who did not hunt mega fauna and were used to the warmer environments. I don’t hold a grudge against them or consider them any less “fierce”(which I assume is being used as a romantic term to praise them) just because they adapted to the new environment successfully. I'm sure the neolithic farmers were quite "fierce" too or any group of people who found a way to thrive in the forbidding ancient world.

All humans are explorers. I’m not sure if that really “contrasts" neolithic people from anyone else, but yes it seems they were the most mobile people of their time until the bronze and iron ages. It was probably an arduous journey, but I’m sure they had more knowledge of what they were undertaking than we will ever give them credit for. Perhaps water levels were low enough that the Bosporus even served as a land bridge, but using the rivers and oceans as a highway sounds easier than going solely on foot.
 
Angela, it's not worth getting upset over silly misconceptions like that, although you'd hope people would have more knowledge of the subject. Also I wouldn't set mammoth hunting as a standard of whether people are "fierce" or not, I’m sure the latter Hunter Gatherers were hardy people none the less. I’ve speculated that the genetic turn over in Europe between the pre and post LGM was due to the success of Hunter Gatherers in the south who did not hunt mega fauna and were used to the warmer environments. I don’t hold a grudge against them or consider them any less “fierce”(which I assume is being used as a romantic term to praise them) just because they adapted to the new environment successfully. I'm sure the neolithic farmers were quite "fierce" too or any group of people who found a way to thrive in the forbidding ancient world.

All humans are explorers. I’m not sure if that really “contrasts" neolithic people from anyone else, but yes it seems they were the most mobile people of their time until the bronze and iron ages. It was probably an arduous journey, but I’m sure they had more knowledge of what they were undertaking than we will ever give them credit for. Perhaps water levels were low enough that the Bosporus even served as a land bridge, but using the rivers and oceans as a highway sounds easier than going solely on foot.

It was more irritation than being "upset". :)

I do very much dislike when people start from an agenda and then either bend the data to fit that agenda, or just ignore it altogether. To me it's a form of dishonesty, which I detest.

"Fierce" was not "my" word.

The Cardial and Impressa people were the ones who followed the northern Mediterranean coast, then heading inland by using the rivers. Even the groups who went up through the Balkans followed the waterways to some extent. It does make absolute sense, particularly when we consider how much of Europe at that time was covered by forest.

I was interested to see from recent papers that the consensus for the movement of Amerindians into the Americas is now shifting to also see it as a largely maritime, hugging the coast affair.

They were all very brave, traveling into the unknown in family groups like this with such primitive technology.
 
The Cardial and Impressa people were the ones who followed the northern Mediterranean coast, then heading inland by using the rivers. Even the groups who went up through the Balkans followed the waterways to some extent. It does make absolute sense, particularly when we consider how much of Europe at that time was covered by forest.

I was interested to see from recent papers that the consensus for the movement of Amerindians into the Americas is now shifting to also see it as a largely maritime, hugging the coast affair.

Yes, I agree. It's why we see the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens outside of Africa in places like India, Indonesia and Australia. People hugged the coast and traveled as far as it led them.
 
the paleolithic hunters on the tundra moved mainly north-south between the winter and summer grazing fields of their prey
the same applies to the Magdalenian El Miron cluster, 19-15 ka
the Villabrunans must have been very mobile during their expansion time ca 15 ka and became more sedentary when the areas became more densely populated and forested
the same can be observed in the Clovis people who were at first hyper-mobile, but after most large mammals got extinct they seperated into several local tribes each with a more or less restricted hunting territory
it seems to me the same applies to the neolithic, bronze and iron age people who were very mobile during their expansion phases and then became more territorial
as for those mesolithic HG who couldn't continue their traditional lifestyle during the neolithic invasion, they had no other option than to adapt and it may have triggered a new mobility amongst some of them
that would explain the expansion of haplo R1b-V88 out of the Iron Gates as farmers or herders
 

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