Digging up Past Feelings: The Crisis of Neolithisation Through Reflection on Emotions
Keywords:
Neolithisation, crisis, emotions, materiality, Mesolithic, hunter-gatherersAbstract
Here, we investigate emotions within Mesolithic communities initiated by the Neolithisation process, which is seen as a stressful period. This specifically dramatic environment for indigenous hunter-gatherers’ groups would provoke multi-level crisis: narrowing the territory of exploitation, competition for resources, crowding and social tensions, and an encounter (imposing) of new items and worldviews, which is endangering for own’s culture and identity. Emotions are related to behaviour and are also manifested in and stimulated by the materialistic world, making them traceable in archaeological remains and contexts. In this work, we relate basic emotions with archaeological indicators of the Neolithic diffusion in Europe. Fast advancing Neolithic would indicate local people’s fearful withdrawal or intense and good relationships accompanied by positive emotions among locals and migrants. On the other hand, a slow Neolithisation process would indicate passivity with sadness in accepting innovations or fierce resistance of the autochthonous communities. The resulting maps of ancient emotions should not be taken as definitive but as a directive for future research on emotionality. The following steps would be to look closely at archaeological material on a regional level together with inter and intrasite contextual analyses.
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