The impacT of holocene climaTe seTbacks on neoli Thic socieTies in easTern europe: ways of scienT ific cooperaTion and exchange

7 You are holding in your hands another issue of VITA ANTIQUA, conceived on the eve of the new year 2021. The past year 2020 became a turning point for large parts of society and the humanities and social sciences are no exception. The challenges posed by the COVID-19 pande­mic­remind­the­scientific­community­that­ human-environment relations are of great social relevance. Societal crises, currently triggered by the emergence of unknown viruses or in the future by climate change, are essentially the result of widening human activities since the last 12,000 years. The Holocene, the most recent epoch in the history of the Earth, is characterized by the intrusion of humans into natural ecological systems. The invention of agriculture and animal husbandry introduced new forms of land use and transformed entire biomes. With the transition to reproductive forms of economy, anthropogenic pressure on the environment is beco ming stronger.­ The­ clearing­ of­ forests­ for­ cultivation,­ firewood and building materials, the grazing of livestock­and­the­artificial­spread­of­new­plant­and­ animal species have led to profound chan ges and extensive openings of the landscape. The transformation from mobile hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary farmers in the Neolithic leads via the innovations of the metal ages directly to the globalized societies of the 21st century and their increasingly frenetic economy of growing consumption. Humans are more and more becoming victims of the successes of the Neolithic Revolution and overcoming environmental crises will require great efforts in the future. The current widespread sense of crisis, mainly but not only caused by the Corona pandemic,­ is­ causing­ the­ scientific­ community­ to­ turn its attention once again to the global processes of the relationship between humans and the environment. For historically oriented subjects, there is a need to explore the roots and history of destructive and unsustainable human consumption behaviour in relation to the environment. The question of how rationally motivated the conduct of human communities is has long been socially relevant. Therefore, research that examines the transformative phases in the evolution of human culture associated with past global climate changes has become particularly important in recent years. These include, for example, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) 23– 19 ka­ BP,­ the­ Pleistocene/Holocene­ transition­ 12–9 ka­BP­and­the­cooling­event­at­8.2 ka­BP.­ We can assume that these had strong impacts on human communities and became the driving forces that triggered the corresponding changes in human society itself. However, it is clear that the response of social groups to climate change is not a simple and direct response to external challenges. Societies have their own behavioural models, traditions, energy and information networks anchored in complex worldview systems. Therefore, a particular society’s response to climatic events will be­specific­and­unique,­depending­on­many­factors – stereotypical behaviours, historical, cultural and ideological patterns. On the other hand, the direct consequences of past environmental disasters should not be discounted. In the case of drastic catastrophic changes such as floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and severe droughts, some areas may be completely depopulated Vita Antiqua No 12 2020 pp. 7-14 DOI: 10.37098/VA-2020-12-7-14 ISSN 2522-9419 (online) ISSN 2519-4542 (print)


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You are holding in your hands another issue of VITA ANTIQUA, conceived on the eve of the new year 2021. The past year 2020 became a turning point for large parts of society and the humanities and social sciences are no exception. The challenges posed by the COVID-19 pande micremindthescientificcommunitythat human-environment relations are of great social relevance. Societal crises, currently triggered by the emergence of unknown viruses or in the future by climate change, are essentially the result of widening human activities since the last 12,000 years. The Holocene, the most recent epoch in the history of the Earth, is characterized by the intrusion of humans into natural ecological systems. The invention of agriculture and animal husbandry introduced new forms of land use and transformed entire biomes. With the transition to reproductive forms of economy, anthropogenic pressure on the environment is beco ming stronger. The clearing of forests for cultivation, firewood and building materials, the grazing of livestockandtheartificialspreadofnewplantand animal species have led to profound chan ges and extensive openings of the landscape. The transformation from mobile hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary farmers in the Neolithic leads via the innovations of the metal ages directly to the globalized societies of the 21 st century and their increasingly frenetic economy of growing consumption. Humans are more and more becoming victims of the successes of the Neolithic Revolution and overcoming environmental crises will require great efforts in the future.
The current widespread sense of crisis, mainly but not only caused by the Corona pan-demic, is causing the scientific community to turn its attention once again to the global processes of the relationship between humans and the environment. For historically oriented subjects, there is a need to explore the roots and history of destructive and unsustainable human consumption behaviour in relation to the environment. The question of how rationally motivated the conduct of human communities is has long been socially relevant. Therefore, research that examines the transformative phases in the evolution of human culture associated with past global climate changes has become particularly important in recent years. These include, for example, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) 23-19 ka BP, the Pleistocene/Holocene transition 12-9 kaBPandthecoolingeventat8.2 kaBP. We can assume that these had strong impacts on human communities and became the driving forces that triggered the corresponding changes in human society itself.
However, it is clear that the response of social groups to climate change is not a simple and direct response to external challenges. Societies have their own behavioural models, traditions, energy and information networks anchored in complex worldview systems. Therefore, a particular society's response to climatic events will bespecificandunique,dependingonmanyfactors -stereotypical behaviours, historical, cultural and ideological patterns. On the other hand, the direct consequences of past environmental disasters should not be discounted. In the case of drastic catastrophic changes such as floods, tsunamis, earthquakes and severe droughts, some areas may be completely depopulated while others are repopulated by environmental refugees. The Neolithic Revolution itself and the neolithization processes it triggered were essentially the response of prehistoric societies to asignificantclimaticwarmingattheendofthe Pleistocene. However, the processes of neolithizationtookontheirspecificcharacteristicsin each individual economic system and population group. For example, innovations that appeared in the early agrarian societies of the Near East and the Balkans (pressure blade technology, pottery production, agriculture, painted implements, metalworking) spread differently and at different times among the Neolithic populations of Eastern Europe. At the same time, these climatic changes, together with significant landscape changes (retreat of continental glaciers, marine transgression, floods, changes in the water system), became direct migration factors when large areas became uninhabitable or when significant demographic pressure developed in certain regions.
The study of the interaction of nature and society in the Holocene was one of the tasks of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Insti-tutionalPartnershipproject"NetworkinEastern European Neolithic and Wetland Archaeology for theimprovementoffieldtechniquesanddating methods (NEENAWA)". The program brought together scientists from research centres in Switzerland, North Macedonia, Russia and Ukraine. One of the main research topics was the study of the interaction of settlement structures within wetland environments in the Neolithic of Eastern and Southern Europe. The results of the work werewidelyreportedatscientificseminarsand conferences in Switzerland, North Macedonia, Germany, Lithuania and Ukraine. Two interna-tionalconferencesheldinKyivwerededicatedto the problems of interaction between prehistoric societies and the environment: The activities performed during and arising fromNEENAWAprojectbetween2015and2020 were documented in a joint book and a conference publication: -Network in Eastern European Neolithic and WetlandArchaeology.ScientificCooperationbetween Eastern Europe and Switzerland (Hafner et al. 2020a); -Settling Waterscapes in Europe : The archaeology of Neolithic and Bronze Age piledwellings (Hafner et al. 2020b).
With the organisation of the session "The Climate Impact on European Neolithic Socie ties During the 8.2ky BP Events Near River Basins andLakes"atthe26 th Annual Virtual Confe rence of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA,24-30August2020),issuesrelatedtothe economy and ecology of Neolithic communities linked to water bodies were discussed (Andriiovych et al. 2020). This session included presentationsdealingwiththespecificsituationof these communities in the face of changing climatic background. The focus was on the question of possible positive or negative consequences for the population as well as on the potential for innovation. This collection includes a major part of the presentations from the EAA session.
In South-Eastern Europe the onset of the Neolithiccoincideswiththe6,200 BCevent.Due to the major changes it has triggered worldwide, this climatological event has received considerable interest in various scientific fields. Ecologists, climatologists, geologists, archaeologists and dendrochronologists were equally interested in this cold setback, which lasted between 150to400years.The6,200 BCeventinitiated with a rapid decline in the average temperature, which could have had a major influence on the Neolithic populations as a whole: from changes in the local cultural, social and economic practices to waves of migration. According to the latest results, there might be a link between climatic and cultural changes during the Early and Middle Neolithic in Europe and the Near East. In addi-tion to the cooling effect, the significant rise in sea levels has mainly affected river systems. The communities living in these areas were therefore under particular adaptation pressure. Also, during that time there is evidence of migration waves of communities in Eastern Europe and at theMediterraneancoasts.The6,200 BCeffects might be visible in Neolithic cultures of today territories of Cyprus, Greece, Northern Macedonia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Poland, Spain and Russia. The palaeoclimatic changes of this climatic setback could have reversed the neolithization of Europe, but on the contrary they triggered extensive processes of innovation and adaptation. This is indicated, among other things, by the fact that numerous communities began to produce potteryintheearly6 th millennia BC.Inthiscollectionofscientificpapers,wepresentworksrelated to the topic of the neolithization of Eastern European societies on the background of changing natural environment.
The following articles are devoted, first, to the cultural transformations of prehistoric societies during the global climate changes of the late Pleistocene-EarlyHoloceneeraand,second,to the study of local phenomena in the development of Neolithic communities and changes in their material culture during the early Holocene cooling event 6,200 BC. It goes without saying that these questions cannot be solved without carefulanalysisofthechronologyofthefinalPalaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.
The collection of articles is opened by the work of Slavomir Kadrow, which provides a critical analysis of theories of environmental influence on the development of prehistoric societies and migration processes. The author concludes that even the best-documented influence of climatic factors was not a direct driver in migration or cultural transformation. It is part of the so-called border conditions of cultural and civilizational phenomena, and may be a necessary condition forculturalchange,butitisneversufficient.Reconstructing the necessary and sufficient conditions for social change requires knowledge of the images of the world prevalent in a given society, which involve moral and practical options for solving organizational and legal problems in such important areas as worldview and religion.
Andriiovych Marta notes that some of the effects and results of climate changes can be traced only in the long-term perspective, mainly as a sequence of interrelated and cross-influenced events. In the article, the author claims that with thecoolingofthe6,200 BC,thesocietiesofthe steppe Black Sea region underwent profound changes that could be caused by the appea rance of new populations in the region. One of the characteristic features of the newly arrived communities was the production of ceramics and the spread of a new funeral tradition. Burying the dead extended on the back with elongated limbs becomes the main feature for cemeteries of the Mariupol type.
The article by Dmytro Kiosak, Svitlana Ivanova and Zhanna Matviishyna deals with the reconstruction of climatic conditions in steppe Ukraine during the mentioned climatic event and analyses the reaction of the Neolithic population to changes in the water regime of rivers and floristic assemblages. As part of the site-oriented approach, the authors turn to the materials of the Melnychna Krucha settlement, which contains asequenceoflayerscovering7,500-1,200 BC. One of the authors' conclusions is that the coo ling event 6,200 BC was accompanied by po werful changes in the water regime of large ri vers of the Black Sea coast as Southern Bug and Dnieper.
The article of Andriy Sorokun and Pavlo Shydlovskyi is presents an attempt to analyse the archaeological and climate backgrounds of the spread of Kukrek technocomplex together with the traditions of ceramic production in the Kyiv Dnieper Region. One of the main results of the study is the conclusion about the complexity of migration processes in the Early Holocene, which ismanifestedinsignificantvariabilityofsites,and in various combinations of Janislawice, Kukrek, Bug-Dniester and Dnipro-Donetsk components in lithic and ceramic assemblages. Settlement dynamicswasmarkedbysignificantfluctuations and uneven peopling of the Kyiv Dnieper Region. At the base of this dynamic was global climate change, the main ones being the coolings of the Younger Dryas and the 6,200 BC event.
The paper by Olga Lozovskaya and Ekaterina Ershova considers the transformations of material culture features of the hunting and fishing population of the Volga-Oka interfluve during the catastrophiceventsof8.2kyBP,studiedonthe exampleofZamostje 2.Theresultsofarchaeological and paleoecological research and comparison with published data on this region shows a picture of the rapid development of traditions of material culture in the second half of the 7 th andearly6 th millennia BConthebackgroundof regional instability of the ecological situation. This publication will be important for the study of the local manifestations of the different responses of prehistoric societies to climate setbacks in the early Holocene. We feel the need to increase the rational, conscious factors in human behaviour. Therefore, one of the main vectors of activities of modern science should be the use of holistic and ecological approaches in research and educational practice. Education with a focus on sustainability should be based on scientific data that provide an understanding of the objective state of affairs in the interaction of nature and society in the past and present. An intensive examination of these topics in the study of prehistory at universities is to demand. Due to the new challenges facing the education sector as a result of the pandemic situation, it was a matter ofurgencyin2020/2021todeveloponlineformats for training courses. These had to take into accountthespecificityofarchaeologicaleducation, which requires direct interaction with objects and artefacts. In order to unite science and training through the interaction of the student audience with the professional environment, the CentreforPalaeoethnologicalResearchdecided to develop a multimedia training course "Na-tureandSocietyinPrehistoricEurope"in2021. The theme of the course was directly related to the current problems of society's relations with the environment. Lecturers -all well-known researchers of prehistory from universities and museums in France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and Ukraine -were involved in creating the course content (http://vovkcenter.org. ua/en/naturesociety/ ). The organisation of this multimedia training course was kindly supported by the European Union in the framework of the House of Europe Programme (https://houseofeurope.org.ua/en ).