Global Processes, Regional Dynamics?

• Main Authors: Héctor Martínez-Grau, Reto Jagher, F. Xavier Oms, Joan Anton Barceló, Salvador Pardo-Gordó, Ferran Antolín
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts) 2020-12-01
• Series: Documenta Praehistorica
• Subjects: Mesolithic-Neolithic transition; 14C; chrono-geostatistics; Bayesian analysis; GIS
• Online Access: https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/DocumentaPraehistorica/article/view/8814

The goal of this paper is to discuss the validity of radiocarbon dates as a source of knowledge for explaining social dynamics over a large region and a long period of time. We have carefully selected c. 1000 14C dates for the time interval 8000–4000 cal BC within the northwestern Mediterranean area (NE Iberian Peninsula, SE France, N Italy) and Switzerland. Using statistical analysis, we have modelled the summed probability distribution of those dates for each of the analysed ecoregion and discussed the rhythms of neolithisation in these regions and the probability of social contact between previous Mesolithic and new Neolithic populations.