The archaeological discourse on the spread of the Neolithic way of life has experienced several paradigm shifts during the last three decades. This chapter attempts to classify different past and recent approaches to describe or even explain that major transformation. A review of Neolithization models suggested for central Europe during the last five decades illustrates changing assumptions and schools of archaeological research. While the more recent regional models tend to integrate elements of demic diffusion as well as indigenous adaptation, some recent general and global models focus on external and internal causes for the Neolithic transformation in a rather deterministic way. While the classical “wave of advance” model (Ammermann and Cavalli-Sforza) can be regarded as characteristic for the broad generalizations of processual archaeology, enhanced spatial and temporal resolution revealed a rather discontinuous and nonlinear process of spread (“modèle arythmique” of Jean Guilaine). It is argued that these “stagnation phases” in the spread of the Neolithic from the Near East throughout Europe, despite having a similar structure, might reflect different regional variants in the Neolithic transformation. In conclusion it will be suggested that “Neolithization” actually comprises quite different processes with specific regional scope and time scale, involving both change and its avoidance.

The Neolithic East Mound and the Early Chalcolithic West Mound at Çatalhöyük are closer in time than has been previously assumed. However, we do not yet see any layers with transitional pottery: The latest pottery of the East Mound, in the TP area, is still very Neolithic. On the West Mound we deal with fully developed Chalcolithic ceramics. The main difference lies in the amount of pottery, which seems related to the fact that in the Early Chalcolithic, pottery replaced basketry in many everyday uses, resulting in the repertoire of vessels used on the West Mound being much more broad. This is especially exemplified by painted ornaments resembling basket texture and by the affinities in vessels’ shapes. Although this change was abrupt and vital, we can observe some continuity between the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic pottery. Apart from single cases of similar forms and ornaments, similarity can be observed in pottery production: use of the same raw materials and techniques. From a technological point of view, Early Chalcolithic pottery making was not a radical departure from the Neolithic; this represents a strong argument in favor of both mounds at Çatalhöyük having been inhabited by the same population.

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).

The turn from the 7th to the 6th millennium cal BC is a period not very well known in the northern Levant. Even the recent increase in archaeological data for the Late Neolithic period does not yet allow for a thorough understanding of this time span. However, the data gathered at the site of Shir near Hama document a complex occupation history covering almost the entire 7th millennium cal BC The latest occupational levels date to the last third of the 7th millennium cal BC and are characterized by a great variety of dwellings, among which a large storage building and a separate burial ground are of special interest. This occupation came to an end, without any obvious cause, around 6200/6100 cal BC and, for a long time, did not have any successor site in the immediate surrounding area. For the time being it is not clear whether the desertion of the settlement is the beginning of a general hiatus in the region, whether a new settlement was founded elsewhere, or whether increasingly mobile ways of life began to develop. But in general, the low number of archaeological sites dating to the first half of 6th millennium cal BC might be an indication for changing settlement conditions around 6000 cal BC.

The history of Khirokitia, an Aceramic Neolithic village in Cyprus, is marked by a series of successive events clearly evidenced by variations in the spatial extent and organization of the village; the major one in the course of its occupation was an outstanding shift of the built area that happened around the end of the 7th millennium cal BC. As for changes in climatic, the study of the hydromorphological evolution of the riverbed running at the foot of the hill has revealed the existence of torrential flows and violent erosion that seem to indicate the onset of an erratic and concentrated precipitation during the occupation of the village. This chapter focuses on these main events that affected the village and investigates changes and continuities that can be observed in the environment as well as in the village relationship to the environment, subsistence strategies, craft techniques and activities organization, architectural practices, social organization and rituals.

Grand narratives have proven remarkably persistent in the archaeology of the Near East despite the success of postmodern paradigms in archaeology. After presenting various examples of such grand narratives, this chapter will focus on the “grand connection” postulated in recent years between Çatalhöyük East and Köşk Höyük. Köşk Höyük, with its rich imagery and plastered skulls, has often been presented as the cultural descendant of Çatalhöyük East, continuing the same symbolic worlds that dominated in the Neolithic. In this chapter, this view will be problematized. Apart from the obvious problem that the Çatalhöyük East sequence is now known to continue with that of Çatalhöyuk West, which has assemblages that are completely different from those of Köşk Höyük/Tepecik, there are very clear differences between the Çatalhöyük East images and burial traditions and those of Köşk Höyük. Some of the marked differences that set these sites apart will be highlighted and these may help us to make sense of what happened in Asia Minor at the transition from the 7th to the 6th millennium cal BC.

In the Danube Gorges region of the Balkans, one finds a forager stronghold with continuous evidence of occupation throughout the Mesolithic (at least since 9500 cal BC). Based on the cultural characteristics and repertoire of documented practices, it seems that these foragers were in one way or the other communicating with or being aware of communities inhabiting regions hundreds and even thousands of kilometers away. In the course of the regional Late Mesolithic (ca. 7400–6200 cal BC), there are some indications that the Danube Gorges communities might have emulated/shared certain cultural practices that are characteristic of Neolithic communities in western Anatolia and farther to the east. One could perhaps go so far as to see this region as part of the same “culture area” with other regions of the eastern Mediterranean. Yet, in many other elements of daily life and ideology, these communities remained firmly rooted in older traditions characteristic of Mesolithic communities in the rest of Europe. There is now ample evidence that the foragers of the Danube Gorges came into contact with increasingly mobile Neolithic groups in the last centuries of the 7th millennium BC, which triggered a substantial culture change. This chapter examines the consequences of these contacts and exchanges, and the subsequent, relatively brief, flourishing of a hybrid cultural world.

Recent archaeological work on the Late Neolithic period in upper Mesopotamia (7000–5300 cal BC) shows that this was a period of profound socio-economic and ideological changes. What caused these changes? Did major changes coincide with the turn from the 7th to the 6th millennium? This chapter reviews interpretative approaches, some recent and some not so recent, focusing on the temporal dimensions of the changes observed. A major period of change may be identified somewhat before the millennial turn, around 6250 cal BC. This chapter argues that the role of material innovation as a causal agent for further, unintended socio-economic changes has been overlooked. Specifically, the chapter touches upon innovative storage technologies, the introduction of cooking pottery as a means for processing dairy products and the development of elaborately fashioned serving vessels in the later parts of the 7th millennium.