● In this article "Ancient Maltese genomes and the genetic geography of Neolithic Europe", the authors suggest that despite having a common origin, the Early European Farmers (EEF) who progressed through the interior of the continent maintain unity while those who progressed along the coast separated into several populations. Hence they conclude: "Our results accord with a limited capacity of sea pioneer craft used in this cabotage, which likely restricted numbers and subsequent backward exchang".Contrary to this conclusion of the authors, the other archaeological sources indicate that long-range voyaging is required to explain the leaps and speed of agricultural spread on the Mediterranean coast, which was significantly faster than that seen in Central Europe.
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How to resolve this apparent contradiction?
In the Mediterranean, EEF boats could progress keeping away from shore and any attempt by hunter-gatherers (HG) to launch a boat into the water, EEF saw and could move away immediately. In the interior of the continent this was not possible. There, any attempt by the EEF to progress into uncharted territory was subject to surprise attacks by HG hiding, in the vegetation and irregularities of the terrain. Thus, EEF in the interior could only safely cultivate the lands close to the ones they already cultivated, while those on the coast could start cultivating the fertile terminal plains of the rivers without having to cultivate the rest of the coast, as it is more difficult and the lands near the coast are unsuitable for farming, the salty sea breeze is caustic, it burns the normal leaves and flowers, where it blows there are only pine trees and the like or very hard undergrowth. On the contrary, close to the coast, the HG can be dangerous by being numerous and sedentary due to the abundance and nutritional value of fishing.By other side, due to quickly depleting the fertility of the land, the initial agriculture in the interior of the continent, forced to abandon the place in a few years, until the forest recover the fertility of the soil. This agricultural nomadism maintained the unity of the populations of the interior by mixing them. With the repetition of this cycle, the soil can even completely lose its fertility (hence the cyclical crises of the EEF), in the case of Greece the last fertile soils today are on the ancient borders between city-states, as the crops that were planted there were burned by both city-states. On the contrary, on the coast, the rich fertility of the soils of the rivers flood basin renewed every year by the spring floods allows sedentary farming, and when farming advances inland the fertility and size of these basins increases even more, farming strips the soils of their protective vegetation and this soils are washed away by the rain into the rivers, clog the riverbeds, thus increasing the flooded areas, while fertilizing them with more nutrients.
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Conclusion
Even if their navigation capabilities were limited, the EEF could, exploring the coast at great distances, create isolated colonies in archipelagos or in the fertile coastal plains of the rivers, in the latter case the isolation was caused by the distance to the origin, sedentary lifestyle and because in the rest of the coast the big advantage is for the HG. If the local HG reacted, EEF could start by eliminating them using fortified islands and isthmuses. On the contrary, in the interior of the continent the agricultural colonies were always in fusion because they were itinerant and close to each other, due to the limited fertility of the soil and the difficulty of advancing in unknown territory without being subject to surprise attacks by HG hiding, in the vegetation and irregularities of the terrain.
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Slash-and-burn farming,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash-and-burn
