emmer, while those on the Mediterranean coastal route fo-
cused on naked wheat. By around 6000 b.c.e. these dispersals
had reached the Great Hungarian Plain of central Europe and
southern Italy in the western Mediterranean; 500 years later
farming and herding had spread as far as southwestern Ger-
many and the Iberian Peninsula. By around 5000 b.c.e. farm-
ing and herding were practiced all along the Mediterranean
coast and across much of the European interior. Aft er a pause
of about 1,000 years, agriculture was eventually adopted in
southern Scandinavia, the Atlantic fringe of western Europe,
and the British Isles. Th is conspicuous halt in the spread of
agriculture probably refl ects the tenacity of local hunter-
gatherer communities and their way of life in resource-rich
coastal environments, though climatic factors may also have
played a role. Farming did not reach some regions of north-
ern Europe until the fi rst millennium c.e.
Scholars are divided on the question of whether agricul-
ture and herding spread as a consequence of the movement
of people or as novel practices imparted from one group to
another. A combination of the two processes is a strong pos-
sibility, but in either case the nature of agricultural and the
nature of herding practices are equally important for under-
standing these early farming communities. Th ese everyday
routines subsequently shaped the development of later pre-
historic communities.
As new practices that spread together into Europe, early
farming and herding were closely associated from the out-
set. Th e most common domesticated animal of the early
Neolithic in the Near East and in adjacent parts of south-
east Europe (Greece and the Balkans) was the sheep. Th e
zooarchaeologist Paul Halstead has pointed out that sheep
are particularly suitable for integration with farming, since
they provide manure for maintaining soil fertility and are
used to graze fi elds of unripe cereals in order to regulate
crop growth. Halstead developed a model of small-scale,
labor-intensive farming for Neolithic Greece that incor-
porates manure from livestock and rotation between crops
as well as careful tilling, weeding, and watering during the
growing season. Th is model, which has relevance across
Neolithic Europe, has largely replaced earlier theories based
on the idea of shift ing cultivation, or slash-and-burn (short-
term cultivation on newly cleared forest soil, followed by a
shift to new plots due to soil exhaustion). Current zooar-
chaeological and archaeobotanical evidence from various
parts of Europe suggests that early farming was of a sustain-
able type, relying on high inputs of time and eff ort to create
small but very productive cultivation areas, in some ways
resembling gardens. Early European agriculture, therefore,
was more akin to horticulture (small-scale cultivation of
diverse garden crops) than to the large-scale cultivation of
grain crops that is dominant in Europe today.
Viewed from above, the landscapes of Neolithic Europe
would appear largely to have retained the extensive wood-
lands that developed aft er the end of the last ice age. Early
farming communities were largely confi ned to areas with
fertile, easily tilled soils. Th e small scale of cultivation did
not require extensive clearance, and nearby woodland was
carefully managed to provide a renewable source of fi re-
wood and timber.
Th e crop and livestock package that initially spread to
Europe was altered as it passed from the Mediterranean cli-
mate of mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers to the frosty,
harsh winters of central Europe. Th ese changes are visible as
a reduction in the number of original Neolithic crops from
the Near East, since certain crops (such as chickpeas) could
not be grown successfully in colder climates, and as a general
shift from sheep to cattle, which are better adapted to colder
climatic conditions. New additions to the original crop spec-
trum also began to appear: Th e opium poppy, native to the
western Mediterranean, was probably exploited for both its
oil-rich seeds and its narcotic properties.
Although agriculture continued to play a major role in
Neolithic communities of central and western Europe, there
are archaeological indications that it was increasingly supple-
mented by more intensive use of livestock, in particular for
dairy products. Zooarchaeological data on cattle-culling pat-
terns (the ages at which male and female animals were slaugh-
tered) and recent analysis of organic residues on pottery
suggest that milking was practiced in various parts of central
and northwestern Europe during the earlier Neolithic.
Milking is one example of the exploitation of secondary
products from animals: resources that can be extracted re-
peatedly during the animal’s lifetime, such as milk, wool or
hair, and muscle (draft ) power for pulling a sledge, plow, or
cart. As early as the seventh millennium b.c.e. on Crete (at
Neolithic Knossos) there is evidence for the use of cattle as
draft animals, which leaves characteristic deformations and
wear patterns on certain parts of the skeleton. Early cattle
traction in Crete, and probably elsewhere in Europe, focused
on cows—female animals kept into their advanced years for
the purpose of reproduction and milking and not specifi cally
raised and bred for the purpose of pulling a cart or a plow.
Th ese early draft cattle, therefore, were not the powerful ox
teams of later times, and their impact on the nature of farm-
ing was limited, though they would have spared human labor
to an appreciable degree.
A detailed snapshot of Neolithic farming life in central
Europe is provided by Hornstaad-Hörnle, a village on the
western shore of Lake Constance in southwest Germany
and one of many prehistoric lakeshore villages in the Al-
pine Foreland (the foothills of the Alps). Ten years aft er the
fi rst houses were built (in 3915 b.c.e., according to tree-ring
dating), the village burned down shortly aft er harvest time,
preserving large amounts of stored crops in each house.
Th ese household crop stores, along with similar tool kits
found in each dwelling, suggest that each family produced
its own food. Farming tools recovered at the site included
angled wooden digging sticks and the remains of a sieve for
removing weed seeds and chaff from the threshed and win-
nowed crop. Weed seeds found as occasional contaminants34 agriculture: Europe