Neolithic Pottery Finds at the Wetland Site of Bazel-Kruibeke (prov. Oost-Vlaanderen / B)

Evidence of Long-Distance Forager-Farmer Contact during the Late 6th and 5th Millennium Cal BC in the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt Area

Abstract

The salvage excavation of the wetland site of Bazel-Kruibeke yielded the first firm evidence of forager-farmer contact in the Scheldt valley already from the late LBK onwards. From then on contact most likely gradually increased leading to a piecemeal introduction of Neolithic commodities and knowledge. Around the middle of the 5th millennium cal BC the technique of pottery production and very likely also stock-breeding were adopted from contemporaneous farmer communities in the loess belonging to the (Epi-)Rössen tradition. At the transition from the 5th to the 4th millennium cal BC exchange with the Michelsberg / Spiere group culture led to an almost complete acculturation of these local communities probably also involving the introduction of agriculture in the Lower Scheldt basin.