Müller, Johannes (2017) Inheritance, population and social indentities. Southeast Europe 5200-4300 BCE. Balkan Dialogues. Negotiating Identity between Prehistory and the Present. . pp. 156-168.

Abstract

During recent decades, many models of population dynamics, changes of
subsistence, shifts in settlement patterns and introduction of technologies
have been postulated and discussed. In principle, all of these descriptions of
distribution patterns and demographic or technological flows are quite rel-
evant in order to describe transformations within Late Neolithic and Early
Chalcolithic Southeast Europe. Nevertheless, reasons, for instance, for the
occupation of “new land”, whether on the basis of primary or secondary
colonization or acculturation processes, have never been clearly described.
Quite distinct, and also mentioned by most of the authors, is the observation
that there is nearly no evidence for internal population pressure, which could
theoretically represent the trigger for emigration(s) from the Near East to
Southeast Europe and for internal colonization. Additionally, the intensively
discussed abandonment of Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic tell sites has been
described as a demographic or economic shift, but not explained thoroughly.
Since important climatic changes with long-lasting sequences of “bad years”
have not yet been identified for Southeast Europe in the time period under
consideration (ca. 5500–4200 BCE), reasons for changes might be sought in
social institutions. In doing this, we have to keep in mind that from a meth-
odological point of view the reconstruction of “social institutions” is one of
the most difficult tasks in prehistoric archaeology

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