EUROFARM · Transmission of innovations: comparison and modelling of early farming and associated technologies in Europe

This project will investigate the transmission of farming and associated technological innovations (landscape use, pottery, lithics) in the western Balkans during the 6th and 5th millennium BC through a combination of new data collection (archaeological field work, access to museum collections and literature survey), analysis and agent-based modelling. The research area provides a unique opportunity to observe the creation and initial dispersal of the two cultural streams (inland and maritime) responsible for the introduction of farming across much of Europe. This project will be the first one to consider explicitly this process from the point of view of the transmission of innovations, that is how one becomes a farmer. The analytical work will characterise the competences and knowledge required for the transmission of each selected technological innovation. The agent-based modelling will aim at comparing these technologies together and weighing their respective impact in shaping the variability between the inland and maritime streams of neolithisation. Thanks to its combination of robust analytical work and modelling, this project will achieve the difficult balance between reflecting the complexity inherent to each technology, and the need for abstraction required for comparison.""