Linear Pottery Culture

The earliest Neolithic culture of central Europe, western Ukraine to eastern France, between c 4500-3900 BC. It is so named after curvilinear incised patterns which make its pottery so recognizable. This was the first farming culture in central Europe, based on grain cultivation and domesticated livestock, lasting to 3200 BC on its periphery. The Linear Pottery core area stretches from eastern Hungary to the Netherlands, including settlement concentrations in the Pannonian Basin, Bohemia, Moravia, central Germany and the Rhineland. A second rapid expansion occurred eastwards round the northern rim of the Carpathians, from Poland to the Dnieper. Linear Pottery is characterized by incised and sometimes painted pottery (3/4 spherical bowl) with linear designs (curvilinear, zigzag, spiral, and meander patterns), polished stone shoe-last adzes, and a microlithic stone industry. Small cemeteries of individual inhumations are common as are longhouses with rectangular ground plans. The remarkable uniformity that characterized the Linear Pottery culture in its core area broke down after c 4000 BC and the cultures that emerged - Tisza, Lengyel, Stroke-Ornamented Ware, Rossen etc. - were more divergent in characteristics. It is most possible that it derived from the Körös culture of the northern Balkans.

The English name for the German Linienbandkeramik (or LBK for short) culture, sometimes also known as the Danubian I culture. It denotes the first farming culture in central Europe, dated <4500-4000 be in its core area, lasting as late as 3200 be on its periphery. The Linear Pottery core area of rapid expansion (<4500-4300 be) stretches from eastern Hungary to the Netherlands, including settlement concentrations in the Pannonian Basin, Bohemia, Moravia, central Germany and the Rhineland. A second rapid expansion eastwards round the northern rim of the Carpathians, from Poland to the Dnieper, can be dated <4300-4200 be. Later, in the 4th millennium be, a slow penetration of modified Linear Pottery culture spread westwards from Holland as far as the Paris Basin. Most settlements of the core areas comprised timber-framed long houses (c8 metres wide and 15-40 metres in length). Linear Pottery material culture is characterized by incised and sometimes painted pottery with linear designs (curvilinear, zig-zig and meander patterns), polished stone shoelast adzes and a microlithic stone industry. Small cemeteries of individual inhumations are common. The Linear Pottery core groups selected loess-derived soils for agriculture; cattlehusbandry was also significant. Traditionally, Linear Pottery farming has been regarded as of slash-and-bum type, involving cyclic shifts in settlement to allow time for the land to regenerate after exhaustion. It has been suggested that it would take 10-15 years to exhaust all the land around a settlement, which would then be abandoned for up to 50 years before being reoccupied. Recently, scholars have challenged the validity of this model for early farming in temperate Europe, suggesting that with simple techniques of restoring soil fertility, such as allowing animals on the land after harvesting or rotation of cereals with leguminous crops, a long fallow period would have been unnecessary. Moreover, the considerable labour involved in constructing the massive wooden long houses seems inappropriate for settlements destined to be used for only 10-15 years before abandonment. The remarkable uniformity that characterized the Linear Pottery culture in its core area broke down after c4000 be and the cultures that emerged — Tisza, Lengyel, Stroke-ornamented ware, Rössen etc — are more divergent in characteristics. See also Bylany, Elsloo, Geleen, Köln Lindenthal, POSTOLOPRTY and SlTTARD.