Linearbandkeramik enclosures: evidence

of Fortification in the early Neolithic of

central Europe
Mark Golitko
Lawrence H. Keeley
University of Illinois at Chicago
Department of Anthropology

The Linearbandkeramik (LBK)

c. 5300-5200 BC
c. 5300BC

c. 5100-4900 BC

c. 5700 BC

=Enclosed LBK sites Dark grey stippling indicates limits of earliest LBK,
light grey stippling limits of late phases of the culture

The Linienbandkeramik, or LBK, culture is the first Neolithic culture in much of

central Europe. It originated near modern day Budapest early in the 6th millennium
BC, and spread through much of western, central and eastern Europe during the
following eight centuries, divided here into three phases, early, middle, and late.
Because of the novelty of the material culture and mode of subsistence introduced
by the LBK, most researchers have tended to view migration as the primary means
by which the LBK spread into central Europe. In the past, it was common to view
this as an essentially peaceful process, but much recent research contradicts this
view.

Rates of Traumatic Injury

(From Petrasch
1999, Milisauskas
2002)

32.2%

10-15%

17.2%
6.2%

2.2%

A recent review of frequency of traumatic injuries on skeletons from LBK contexts

by Jrg Petrasch reveals some startling numbers.
He found that some 17.2% of all known individuals suffered at least one traumatic
injury during their lives, often fatal. This number includes all skeletal material found
at the sites of Herxheim, where caches of skulls and other remains representing
some 330 individuals were found, and Schletz-Asparn and Talheim, where
massacres of whole village populations seem to have occurred. Removing these
sites, some 6.2% of all individuals had suffered injury. This number is much lower
in the eastern LBK region, where only some 2.2% of burials bore such evidence,
meaning that in the western area, 32.2% of all burials evidenced injury, or some 1015% if one removes the material from Talheim and Herxheim. Furthermore, it
seems that trauma became more frequent during later phases of the LBK,
particularly in the west.

Examples of Traumatic Injury

Vaihingen a.d. Enz

Franzenhausen

LBK Adze

Much of this evidence takes the form of wounds caused by characteristic LBK axes
or adzes.
We see here some examples of bodies dumped into the enclosure ditch at the site
of Vaihingen, as well as skulls recovered at Franzenhausen bearing evidence of
injuries caused by LBK adzes. In most ethnographically studied sedentary cultures,
violence of this frequency necessitates a host of cultural responses, which may
include relocation to more defensible sites, aggregation into larger settlements, as
well as the construction of some form of defensive architecture.

Kln-Lindenthal
Palisade

Darion-Colia
(from Bosquet
1992)

Pond

Ditch

Palisade
(from Schmotz 1997)

Ditch and
Berm

Enclosed LBK villages have been known since the early 20th century, and even the
type site of the culture, Kln-Lindenthal, was surrounded by a series of enclosing
palisades and ditches for most of its occupation.

Proposed functions of LBK Enclosures

Fortification
Animal penning
Delimitation of social space
Ritual-possible precursors to middle Neolithic
ring ditch installations

Researchers referred to these as defensive in nature, but this view of their function has been
criticized as of late.
Kaufmann, for instance, while recognizing the likely defensive function of some enclosures, defines
those with an internal area of less than 1ha. and lacking clear signs of internal settlement as nondefensive, while other researchers have claimed that the ditches found at some sites are not deep
enough to be effective as fortifications. However, neither of these criticisms is grounded in a review
of historically and ethnographically known fortifications. There is in fact no lower limit to the effective
size of a fort, and smaller refuge forts are known from many cultures-these tend to be easier to build
and maintain, and require fewer people to defend effectively. Our review of known LBK enclosures,
of which there are at present at least eighty-four, indicates that enclosure ditches average 2.8 meters
wide and 1.6 meters deep-taking into account the erosion that has occurred almost every LBK site,
these must originally have been between .5 and 1.5 meters deeper than at present, and 1-2 meters
wider.
Given that the Roman army found a ditch of 9/10 of a meter deep enough to defend their camps,
there is no reason to suppose that a 1.5 to 3 meter deep ditch would have been insufficiently
defensive.
Other researchers have viewed LBK enclosures as having an exclusively ritual function, and as
possible precursors to middle Neolithic ring ditches, or as social delineations of space. Never the
less, the ethnographic record makes it clear that warfare and ritual are in no way mutually exclusive
activities, so the performance of ritual at enclosed sites does not rule out a defensive function. What
we know of early LBK religious practice shows clear ties to early Neolithic practices in the Balkans,
and involves items such as clay idols and altars. By the middle and later LBK, such items virtually
disappear from the archaeological record. The ritual found at most enclosed LBK sites is of a very
different type, typically involving intentional physical manipulation of human beings, or their remains.
Skull drinking cups are known from a number of sites including the earliest enclosed LBK site of
Eilsleben, while at later western sites, there is even evidence for cannibalism, for instance at OberHrgern, where charred left leg bones were recovered from the enclosure ditch. Remains of this kind
are virtually never found at unenclosed sites-this has led some to argue that the enclosures served a
purely ritual function, with human remains come by in a peaceful manner. While there is no denying
that many cultures use human remains of ancestors or other members of the community in a ritual
manner, the LBK evidence does not support such an argument. Ritual remains are often carelessly
deposited in trash pits, and the more than 300 cached skulls and skull-caps at Herxheim show
evidence of injuires inflicted by LBK axes or adzes, for instance those shown here.

Trophy Skulls from Herxheim

(from Huer 1998)

Furthermore, it is unlikely that a village of less than 100 individuals would be able to
peacefully acquire 300 skulls in a relatively short period of time. The most likely
scenario is the sacrifice of captured enemies.
One must therefore ask, what evidence is there as to the potential defensive nature
of these sites? While there have been several comprehensive reviews of known
enclosed villages, notably by Hckmann and Lning, neither sought to
comprehensively analyze the frequency of features associated specifically with
fortification.
A forthcoming review of the historical, ethnographic, and archaeological record by
one of us indicates that there are a number of such features, two of which are
pertinent to the analysis of LBK enclosures: V-profiled enclosure ditches, and
complex gates.

V/Y-profiled Ditches

Cutting a ditch into a V or Y profile is more difficult than most other shapes, as they
are harder to maintain, and erode much more quickly than a flat-bottomed or Usectioned ditch. They are thus impractical to dig if one simply needs earth for other
construction purposes, or for purposes of drainage or irrigation. However, they
provide a number of advantages when used for defense, primarily because they are
difficult to traverse for attackers, and because they offer no protection against
projectiles launched from above. It was for these reasons that Roman military
engineers recommended this shape for fortification ditches, which they referred to
as fossae fastigata.

Defensive Gates

There are many types of complex gates used for defensive purposes, most notably
of several forms that may be referred to as baffled, including bent-axis, crab-claw,
and screened forms.

Defensive Gates

Gates of this sort are needlessly difficult to traverse if defense is not a

consideration, particularly if one needs to move large herds of livestock in and out of
a village. Their chief defensive purposes include screening defenders from
projectile fire, while forcing attackers to traverse a longer route, and forcing them to
expose an undefended side to attack upon entry.

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Defensive Gates

Larger gates are often defended with inward flanking curtain walls, or flanked by
chambers or bastions, which balance improved defensiveness with the need to
accommodate every day activities. It should be stressed that these features are not
sometimes associated with fortification and response to military threat; they are
invariably built for this purpose. Finding them on prehistoric enclosures therefore
implies that at least one of the purposes of the enclosure was defense against
attack, although this does not rule out secondary functions such as penning
animals.

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V/Y-profiled Ditches from LBK Sites

1.9m

Usingen
(from Laufer 2002)

c. 1.4m

Rosheim

c. 2 m
Vaux-etBorset
(from Jeunesse 1992)
(redrawn from Caspar et al. 1991)

75% of all known LBK enclosures include ditches. V or Y sectioned ditches are
found at many LBK enclosed sites, while those that do not have such ditches tend
to be either U profiled, flat-bottomed, or irregular in profile. We show here a sample
of ditches of this type from several sites, including the ditch we continued
excavation of during the summer of 2005 at the Belgian site of WaremmeLongchamps

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Waremme-Longchamps

c. 2m

c. 2m

(from Keeley and Cahen 1989)

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Defensive Gates at LBK Sites

Bracht

Kln-Lindenthal

Baffled
Gate
Baffled Gate
(redrawn after Bernhardt 1986)

(redrawn from Uenze 1951)

While gates were not excavated at all known LBK enclosures, a number of complex
gate arrangements are shown here, primarily of the baffled, screened, inset, and
oblique types.

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Straubing-Lerchenhaid

Becseheley
Oblique
Gate

(redrawn from Hckmann 1990)

Inset Gate

(redrawn from Schmotz 1997)

Kln-Lindenthal

Screened Gate

(redrawn from Bernhardt

1986)

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Waremme-Longchamps
Baffled Gate

Off-set
Palisade

(from Keeley and Cahen 1989)

While we did not excavate any gate areas during the summer of 2005, excavation in
the late 1980s at Waremme-Longchamps uncovered the sites south gate, which
has both a baffled ditch opening, and an offset palisade backing this up. There
would likely have been a berm behind the ditch, as well.

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Percentage of Sites with Defensive Features

Far from being occasional or uncommon features of LBK enclosures, a full 59% of
those with ditches are of the V or Y profiled type, while 54% of all enclosed sites at
which at least one interruption was excavated possessed some form of complex
gate that can be reconstructed as having served a defensive function. Combining
both lines of data, the total number of LBK enclosures that possess defensive
features is 51, or 70% of those for which sufficient data is available.
It should be noted, however, that the lack of such direct evidence of fortification can
be a result of limited excavation or preservation in some cases, and that a defensive
role cannot be ruled out for sites that possess neither such features. SchletzAsparn, for instance, was clearly attacked, as the remains of some 300 individuals
found in its enclosure ditch demonstrate, yet the ditch was flat bottomed, and no
complex gates have been uncovered to date.

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Earliest LBK Enclosures (12%)

r=sites with V-profiled ditches, and/or complex gates =sites lacking these features.
Grey stippling indicates limits of LBK settlement

During the earliest stages of settlement, enclosures are exclusively located on the
very fringes of territory settled by the LBK

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Middle Period LBK Enclosures (41%)

r=sites with V-profiled ditches, and/or complex gates =sites lacking these features.
Grey stippling indicates limits of LBK settlement

During the middle stages of LBK settlement, enclosed sites are located equally in
eastern and western central Europe. I define west vs. east as roughly divided by
the Rhine valley and uplands to the east of the river, which marks a cultural and
stylistic divide in the LBK culture that begins in this period. 41% of enclosed sites
date to this period.

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Late LBK Enclosures (47%)

r=sites with V-profiled ditches, and/or complex gates =sites lacking these features.
Grey stippling indicates limits of LBK settlement

47% of LBK enclosures date to the final phase of the culture, and 76.5% of these
are located in the western LBK area.

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Conclusions:
Earliest LBK: Low levels of violence, ritual primarily
associated with Balkan traditions, few enclosures, all located
on boundaries of LBK distribution
Middle LBK: Moderate levels of violence, some violent
ritual, even distribution of enclosures between the eastern and
western LBK regions
Late LBK: Extreme violence in the west, continued low levels
of violence in the east-majority of violent ritual at enclosed
western sites, majority of enclosures found in the western LBK
region
Combining this data with frequent inclusion of defensive
features, we view these enclosures as primarily functioning as
fortifications

Thus, we have three converging lines of evidence-violence, which is indisputable

and attested to by traumatic injuries found on buried human remains, violent ritual,
which seems related to this conflict, and the presence of enclosed LBK villages, the
majority of which have features ethnographically and historically known to imply a
defensive function. These three lines of data are well correlated spatially and
temporally: where there is little violence, in early and eastern LBK contexts, there is
little violent ritual, and few enclosures. Where there is extreme violence, in later
western contexts, there is much evidence of violent ritual, and many fortified sites.
The evidence would suggest that the LBK was not different from many other human
cultures when faced with increasing violence, building fortifications to protect
themselves, utilizing tried and true elements of military architecture.
While we contend that the primary function of LBK enclosures was the protection of
those living inside, there is no need to assign a single function to LBK villages to the
exclusion of others, and it is to be expected that any number of activities took place
at them, including all the normal components of human economic, social, and ritual
life.

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Thanks to:
Dr. Ivan Jadin, Dominique Bosquet, the Institut Royal de
Sciences Naturelles de Belgique (I.R.S.N.B.) and
Russell Quick
Our database of enclosed LBK sites is available for
download at:
http://www.uic.edu/depts/anth/faculty/keeley.html

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