Click the image to see the items labeled
Click the image to see the items labeled
While the Linear Pottery Culture are well known as some of Europe's earliest farmers, they likely supplemented their harvest with a wide variety of flora and fauna, including fish. They mostly inhabited lands nearby lakes, rivers, and other inland waterways. As a result, we can speculate that their diet likely involved a significant amount of amphibians, fish, shellfish, and other aquatic creatures. Fishing and collecting of shellfish would probably have occurred year-round, though perhaps the most comfortable time to do this would be the summer when one could enter the water.
Person fishing with a tree point barbed spear - Public Domain National Park Service
Fishing could be accomplished using spears, nets, traps, and even by diverting large numbers of fish down narrow passageways into traps, known as phishing weirs. Depending on the fish in question and the body of water, boats may have been used, though a simple, practical approach likely involved waiting out into the water with either a bow or a spear in hand.
Two villagers bow fish from a small wooden boat in deeper water where the mud would make wadding difficult
Here we see our two villagers dressed relatively sparsely so they can spend much of the day in the water picking shellfish from the mud or trapping fish in their nets. In truth, if they follow the practice of similar contemporary lithic cultures, they might not have worn any clothing at all. Still, if they did, it would likely have been low-quality or even disposable, as the water would quickly destroy much else. We see a spear and a net, but many forms of fishing trap might have been employed. One example would involve many villagers forming a long line and splashing to scare fish into a narrow channel where nets and traps could be placed.
1 - Three Prong Fishing Spear: Fishing spears made from a wooden pole with a spearhead made from antler, bone, stone, or even simply wood can be found worldwide. While there are many variations in their design, most of them have virtually the same components. Either a series of barbs or a two or three sizeable barb-like structure to capture the fish. Simply spearing a fish isn't very useful as the fish will likely detach from the spear before you can pull it from the water. The barbs prevent this from happening.
2 - Fishing Net: A fishing net is made from hand-spun nettle or flax fibers. Typically, stone or clay weights would be attached to the ends of the net unless it was being held by several people to catch fish passing through a tight waterway. Fishnets have been used for thousands of years, with a set of weights being found recently dating 29,000 years in age. Even before the Neolithic, the ability to make a fishing net through hand twisting fibers from local plants, bark fiber, and other cordage forms existed. Living almost entirely by rivers, the Linear Pottery Culture likely made extensive use of nets.
3 - Feather Adornments: Feathers are found as hair decoration throughout the world. While no direct evidence links the Linear Pottery Culture to their use, it can be supposed that such decoration may have been worn. A reproduction can be seen here
4 - Antler Bead Necklace: A necklace of beads made from the antlers of deer. The string is attached with a string of fiber thread or a leather thong. Such beads are quite commonplace throughout prehistory, though often clay and stone survive while antlers decompose.
5 - Grass String Skirt: Nearly as ubiquitous as the loincloth, skirts made from loose fibers, sometimes woven at the top or tied in place, have found use throughout much of the world. From the Ancestral Puebloans of Southwest North America to the Islanders of many Pacific islands, the string skirt in one form or another is prolific. This particular string skirt is made from local grasses or reeds and hung from a woven waist cord. It is utilitarian and conveniently disposable, providing modesty without damaging clothing made from finer material in the water. No direct evidence for such a garment exists for the Linear Pottery Culture. However, garments from later periods have been found, and figurines from adjacent cultures imply the outfit's existence.reproduction can be seen here.
6 - Brown Trout: Brown Trout are one of many types of fish that can be found in the Rhine River. While Linear Pottery Culture, people certainly obtained a significant percentage of their diet from farming, fish, amphibians, shellfish, fowl, game, and gathering supplemented their diet.
7 - Spondylus Shell Bracelet: Spondylus gaederopus shells were occasionally found among the graves of the Linear Pottery Culture, as well as several other Neolithic cultures. Imported via trade from the Mediterranean, they appear to have been rather important, likely owing to their beautiful and exotic shape. Full shells as well as various pieces of jewelry made from shells have been found. A more extensive analysis can be read here..
8 - Tucked leather Loincloth: The loincloth is perhaps the oldest and most widely used garment of humanity, found at one time or another in nearly every human culture on Earth, and even worn today. Usually made from a short strip of any flexible material tucked into the front and back of a waist cord. Neolithic loincloths were often leather and had lengths as short as perhaps 50cm (20”) to as long as 200cm (80”). This loincloth was made from red deer hide with the characteristic front hanging part tucked back under. Unfortunately, the water will soon deteriorate the leather which implies this task might also have been formed in the nude. A reproduction can be seen here.
9 - Bone Hook and Nettle Fiber Line: Bone and wooden hooks have been found throughout the Neolithic, often carrying similar shapes within a specific culture. Finely polished wood and bone hooks could be tied to string made from flax, nettle, or perhaps other plant fibers and used to catch fish in much the same way as today.
The linear pottery culture is the name given to an early Western European Neolithic culture identified by its common use of impressed lines in its pottery. Sometimes abbreviated LBK, from its German name, Linearbandkeramik, the linear pottery culture flourished along the streams and rivers of Western Europe starting perhaps as early as 5700 B.C.E., and eventually changing sufficiently to be reclassified as another culture around 4500 B.C.E.
Linear Pottery Culture Village - By Alexandra Filipek
Linear Pottery Culture gets its name from the use of lines (and dots) impressed into their pottery's wet clay before firing hard. While impressions into clay can be found in nearly any culture that makes pottery, the Linear Pottery Culture focuses strongly on using this technique. Moreover, these patterns can be found on figurines they made, implying that the design may have been used throughout their culture.
Farming and the domestication of animals are vital properties of the Neolithic revolution, and the Linear Pottery Culture engaged in both. Crops of peas, emmer and einkorn wheat, lentils, and possibly flax were grown. Unlike later cultures, Linear Pottery Culture farming likely involved small farm plots, more akin to extensive gardens, than large scale farming. Crop rotation had not been discovered, resulting in fields needing to be abandoned after a period, or left unused for a time.
Domesticated pigs, sheep, goats, and cattle, from their wild cousins, provided meat, milk (for cheese), wool, and bones(for tools. Interestingly, most early Neolithic people were lactose intolerant and could not comfortably consume milk after adolescence. The invention of cheese from milk may have helped with this as cheese is more easily digested by lactose-intolerant people than milk, and provides a rich source of nutritious food.
Hunting, fishing, and gathering were essential components of the Linear Pottery Culture. They appear to have accounted for a much larger food intake than agriculture, compared to later Neolithic cultures (1). Hunted animals included red deer, roe deer, wild boar, aurochs, red squirrel, fox, bear, beaver, and many smaller game. Various birds were hunted for meat and feathers, such as the barn owl, dove, and duck. Hunting involved the use of the bow and arrow but also trapping. We can speculate that all genders participated in hunting. Fish, mollusks, and amphibians could be gathered or hunted from lakes, creeks, and rivers. Catfish, Atlantic Salmon were likely important fish due to their large size and prevalence. Standard fishing methods involved barbed spears, cast nets, weirs, traps, and ice fishing.
While very little evidence of violence exists for the Linear Pottery Culture, there have been some indications of palisade walls and wounds consistent with violence. On the one hand, piecing together such details from as far as 7500 years ago can be quite challenging. On the other, territorial violence is relatively common among most human cultures. Many examples of possible violence, including possible cannibalism, have been considered. Today, this topic remains an open question. Likely, violence occurred at least infrequently.
Linear Pottery Culture longhouses were quite sophisticated structures for their time. Longhouses often had wattle and daub walls, thatched roofs, and even stables for livestock in the latter half of the period. While longhouse sizes varied by location and time, a typical construction might be 40m (131') long and 6m (20') wide, and a height of 6m (20') at the center of its thatched gabled roof. The roof would nearly extend to the ground and was supported upon dozens of large wooden poles, each buried in the ground and facing up. The vertical poles would run the length of the house in two rows, one on each side. Sometimes, a center row would also be used. The walls would be constructed of wattle and daub.
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Artwork by Alexandra Filipek Stacey Abidi Ishtar (website Owner)