Explaining Neolithic Change in Central Anatolia and Beyond

It is difficult to make general comments about processes of Neolithization and cultural change in Europe and the Middle East given the increasingly strong evidence for regional diversity, even at two ends of one valley (e.g. the Struma valley as discussed by Lichardus-Itten). Many of the authors in this volume argue that the spread of the Neolithic from the Middle East through Anatolia and into the Balkans and Europe was a complex and locally diverse process involving migration, exchange, diffusion and autochthonous development. Such arguments confound commentaries that seek overall themes and consistencies (as argued by Bleda Düring). “The Neolithic” has become such an enormously long period and there is so much going on at different times, at different rates and in different ways locally that any attempt to build a grand narrative seems doomed. At the level of grand narrative, evolutionary and migrationist views have returned to dominate the discourse (as claimed by Schier), but for many archaeologists (as opposed to biologists or linguists) the details of the stops and starts in the spread of various aspects of the Neolithic require contextual understanding (e.g. regarding Arbuckle and Makarewicz’ 2009 discussion of the delayed adoption of domestic cattle in central Anatolia).