Lecture | Borderlands: New Approaches to the LBK on Its Western Margins

Borderlands: New Approaches to the LBK on Its Western Margins

Johanna Hilpert (HESCOR/ Department of Prehistoric Archaeology/ UoC, Germany)

23 April, 14:10 CET 

The lecture takes place onsite in the Library of the Institute of Archeology in Prague (Letenská 4, Praha 1) and online via Zoom (https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/91965248167 | Passcode: 23042026).

Abstract:

This talk explores the northwestern margins of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK, ca. 5400–4950 BCE) through an integrative approach combining land-use reconstruction, environmental suitability modelling, and raw material network analysis. Focusing on the Rhineland, the research investigates how early Neolithic communities adapted, expanded, and interacted across ecological and social boundaries at the edge of the LBK expansion.

By integrating spatial modelling, lithic provenance data, and environmental reconstruction, the study examines patterns of resource accessibility, mobility, and territorial organisation. These datasets are used to better understand how environmental constraints and opportunities structured settlement dynamics and exchange networks.

As an ongoing research project, this work contributes to refining broader discussions on the feedback processes between human adaptation, landscape transformation, and cultural connectivity in the western frontier zones of Europe’s first farming societies.