TransCER · The Transmission of Early Farmers Ceramic Traditions towards the Atlantic: Modelling Cultural Interactions through Artefact Geometry and Computational Networks

The Atlantic regions of southwestern Europe and northwestern Africa represent the westernmost edge of the European Neolithic expansion that took place from the Mediterranean during the mid-sixth mil. BCE. To reach the Atlantic façade, the first agropastoral groups spread rapidly along the European coasts and islands of the Mediterranean, necessarily crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, and ended up interacting with the last persistent groups of hunter-gatherers from these remote regions of Europe and Africa. However, what were the exact routes taken by these early Atlantic farmers and what was the nature of the connections and technological transfers between the two continents? Furthermore, what were the cultural consequences of the biological interaction between farmers and local hunter-gatherers? Taking ceramic productions as a high-resolution proxy for tracing human migration and interactions, TransCER aims to investigate the transmission of early pottery traditions in the Atlantic façade in order to trace the spatial trajectories and social networks of the first farmers groups, as well as to explore the cultural implications of farmer-forager interactions. TransCER will undertake an interdisciplinary approach combining the applicant's expertise in pottery technology with a deep training in 3D artefact geometry, material science techniques (micro-CT), experimental archaeology and computational modelling to study the early ceramic vessels from eleven Neolithic sites in Portugal, south Spain and north Morocco. In line with the UNESCO Convention of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) and the SDG 11 of Horizon Europe, TransCER will implement an inter-sectoral strategy to stimulate the research and valorisation of traditional ceramic practices and their historical and social significance for safeguarding cultural diversity.