Moving on: the contribution of isotope studies to the early Neolithic of Central Europe.

Bickle, Penny ; Hofmann, Daniela

Introduction

The strontium isotope ratio recorded in the teeth and bone of both human and animal skeletons can be used to infer movements made during an individual's lifetime (Price et al. 2001; Bentley et al. 2002; 2003a; 2003b; Bentley & Knipper 2005; Price & Bentley 2005; Bentley 2006). The [sup.87]Sr/[sup.86]Sr ratio remains constant as it passes from local geology into the water cycle and food chain. Thus the isotope ratio laid down in a skeleton is a geochemical marker for the region where individuals sourced the majority of their food (Bentley et al. 2002: 799). As adult teeth are formed between birth and 12-14 years, and bone is constantly turned over during life, any differences in [sup.87]Sr/[sup.86]Sr ratio between the teeth and the bone can indicate a change in living location or diet during an individual's lifetime (Price & Bentley 2005: 204). Further comparison of these ratios with the values from the local geology can indicate whether an individual moved into the region during later life (Price & Bentley 2005: 204). It must, however, be noted that bone is much more susceptible to contamination by groundwater and other agents in the burial environment than tooth enamel. As a result, the strontium content in bone can become in time more similar to the burial environment (Bentley 2006: 163-9).

The strontium isotope analysis of skeletal remains from Linearbandkeramik (LBK, c. 5500-4900 cal BC) sites in south-west Germany has presented a compelling case for high levels of mobility in these Neolithic communities (Price et al. 2001; Bentley et al. 2002; 2003a; 2003b; Bentley & Knipper 2005; Price & Bentley 2005; Bentley 2006). Two particular aspects of movement have been addressed through this research: the migration of farmers into Central Europe at the beginning of the Neolithic and possible social differences within established LBK communities (Price et al. 2001; Bentley et al. 2003a; 2003b; Price & Bentley 2005). While the method has offered archaeologists the opportunity to move from generalised arguments about migration and mobility to debating the specific forms that movement in the past may have taken, the conclusions drawn in these particular studies have not yet received wider critical consideration.

The problem we perceive with the way in which models based on isotopic data have been adopted in the literature is not unique to the LBK. As Milner et al. (2004: 18ff.) have pointed out, there is often a tendency to accept uncritically conclusions based on isotopic data, because the technique is derived from unfamiliar disciplines. However, isotopes are only one among several sources of evidence. As such, they can inform our reconstructions of the past to a considerable extent, but they cannot substitute for the archaeological groundwork and the careful and balanced appraisal of as many kinds of information as possible.

In this paper, we seek to evaluate the assumptions made in the interpretation of isotopic data and the models developed on this basis. The most salient issues to be addressed concern the dating framework and the kinds of mobility suggested. With the very significant evidence for regional variation found throughout the LBK (Modderman 1988; Gronenborn 1999; 2007a), over-generalising narratives of this period should be resisted. We suggest alternative interpretations by raising some of the contradictions between the isotope data and the archaeological material.

Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in south-west Germany

By the late 1990s, debates about the spread of the early Neolithic across Central Europe had reached a critical point. Long-standing models of demic diffusion and colonisation were increasingly challenged, with more scholars favouring varying degrees of indigenous involvement in the uptake of the Neolithic (Modderman 1988; Tillmann 1993; Whittle 1996; 2003; Kind 1997; 1998; Gronenborn 1999; Jeunesse 2000). South-west Germany is an obvious area to choose for further study, since the local Mesolithic has left a comparatively rich material record, especially in lacustrine environments. Although the vast majority of this material dates to rather earlier in the Mesolithic (Jochim 1998), the terminal Mesolithic is assumed to be marked by the presence of La Hoguette pottery. This style of ceramic, which demonstrates influences from both the LBK and the Southern French Cardial traditions, has long been interpreted as the product of forager groups selectively adopting Neolithic traits and living alongside the earliest LBK (Jeunesse 1987; 2003; Ltining et al. 1989; van Berg 1990; Erny-Rodmann et al. 1997; Gronenborn 1998; 1999; 2007a). This claim was to be tested by the presence or absence of non-local isotopic signatures in LBK cemetery populations. The largely unspoken assumption was that farmers, once settled, would use predominantly local lowland resources, while non-locals would be migrants into the area and were therefore thought to represent the Mesolithic population.

At both Flomborn and Schwetzingen (Figure 1), the two cemeteries chosen, a high incidence of non-locals was revealed (64 per cent and 33 per cent respectively) (Price et al. 2001: 600). At the earlier site of Flomborn (c. 5300 BC), which was to give its name to a sub-phase of the LBK, no age or sex patterning seemed particularly evident and two contrasting interpretations were offered: either the population had 'moved there from some distance, perhaps from the east' and represented the incoming agricultural settlers of the area; or they came from the nearby uplands of the Odenwald and could be acculturated hunter-gatherers (Price et al. 2001: 601). At the later Schwetzingen cemetery (5100-5000 BC), migration seemed to involve mostly women moving from highland to lowland areas. These could either be local foragers marrying into an established agricultural community or residents from LBK settlements in the highlands, again having moved upon marriage (Price et al. 2001: 601). Thus it was concluded that there was substantial residential mobility in the LBK, potentially changing in character over time, and that simplistic either/or scenarios of colonisation or acculturation in the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition would have to be revised (Price et al. 2001: 601f).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Already, two main problems are apparent here. First, sample sizes were relatively restricted, comprising 11 out of 85 individuals for Flomborn and 31 out of 202 at Schwetzingen (Price & Bentley 2003: 208-9). Secondly, the dating of LBK cemetery sites can at best be characterised as an estimate, based on the correlation of relatively few radiocarbon dates with ceramic typological sequences. A plateau in the calibration curve that covers the second half of the LBK is also creating considerable problems, as it results in large spans for dates. Bayesian modelling approaches, which have recently yielded very precise biographies for British Neolithic long barrows (Bayliss & Whittle 2007), rely in large part on vertical stratigraphy to narrow down date ranges, but this, too, is absent on LBK cemeteries. This means that the dating of LBK cemeteries, and of individual graves within them, should be regarded with caution.

Even if we accept incoming farmers from the south-east, it is still uncertain how long the process of acculturation lasted. Initial LBK migration into the area is generally put at 5600-5500BC, but as yet, few skeletons from this earliest phase have been tested for isotopic signatures. The earliest individuals to receive this treatment come from the Stuttgart-Muhlhausen cemetery, which begins very late in the Earliest LBK and carries on until the end of the LBK sequence (Kurz 1992; 1993; Price et al. 2003; Stauble 2005: 252) (Figure 2). Non-locals accounted for 46 per cent of the sample and are most common in the early phases of the site, but no correlation with age or sex of the individuals was recognised (Price & Bentley 2005: 206). If all non-locals are acculturated foragers, this would imply the survival of such groups in the area for 100-200 years after the arrival of LBK settlers. In the case of the Schwetzingen cemetery, where a forager identity is also suggested for the female non-locals, the number increases to 400-600 years. Once again, it must be pointed out that these estimates rely on a rather uncertain dating framework, and that at present we simply cannot date key sites and processes with the necessary precision.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

In south-western Germany, as elsewhere, sites from the late Mesolithic are rare compared to those from previous periods (Schonweiss 1988; Jochim 1990; 1998; Jochim et al. 1998; Cupillard & Perrenoud-Cupillard 2003). The idea that foragers could have continued to live in this region alongside the initial LBK settlers rests on a model proposed by Kind and largely based on his excavation of the multi-phase Mesolithic site at Henauhof-Nord II in southern Baden-Wurttemberg (Kind 1997). This site has provided evidence for an essentially late Mesolithic lifestyle, without any indication of contact with Neolithic groups, between 5620 and 4687 cal BC (Kind 1997:115-7). Kind defines a new Mesolithic culture, the Buchauer Gruppe, which he believes existed alongside LBK immigrants and foraging groups with some Neolithic traits (such as the La Hoguette group) without any significant interaction (Kind 1997: 120-38). However, the dates originally taken also included a series of outliers, which Kind (1997:115f) assumes are due to some form of contamination of the AMS samples. The resulting chronological scheme is based on only three dates (Gronenborn 1998).

But in a subsequent model based on the series of Mesolithic sites at Rottenburg-Siebenlinden, also in Baden-Wurttemberg, Kind (1998) radically changed his mind. He here dismisses the Henauhof evidence as 'of peripheral interest' (Kind 1998: 4; authors' translation). Instead of suggesting a parallel existence of foragers and farmers, who lived side by side without much interaction, he proceeds to construct a model of autochthonous adoption and development of the LBK, with a drastically limited role for the incoming population (Kind 1998: 20-2). La Hoguette ceramics seem to persist until the Flomborn phase (Gronenborn 1998) and there could well be some chronological and cultural overlap between those practising a farming economy, whether immigrants or not, and those adhering to a hunter-gatherer economy.

What is more, the nature of LBK development itself, and especially the character of the Flomborn phase, is now being questioned. It is during this phase that a secondary expansion into westerly areas takes place, that houses become even more monumental than in the earliest phase and that pottery decoration changes. We also see the beginning of several long-lasting cemeteries, the abandonment of many sites settled in the earliest phase and the establishment of new ones (Cladders & Stauble 2003; Frirdich 2003). If this development overlaps with the Earliest LBK (Luning 2005), the palimpsest of potential groupings and ways of life becomes increasingly complex. La Hoguette and Limburg, Earliest LBK, Flomborn and traditional hunter-gatherers populate various models to differing extents, interacting to different degrees and playing various roles. It is certainly unwise at this stage to adhere too closely to any one of the plethora of models, which occasionally use the same facts to argue for totally different routes to the Neolithic (as summarised in Scharl 2004:67-81).

Where does this leave isotopic studies? On balance, people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle may have persisted as late as the Flomborn phase, but whether this involved people practising some form of mixed economy, as suggested for La Hoguette, or purely hunting and gathering groups such as the possible Buchauer Gruppe is not clear. We should also be more critical about assuming that economy would be the most salient criterion for the self-definition of ethnic groups (Robb & Miracle 2007). There are very few hunter-gatherer camps from before the putative arrival of LBK colonists, and none confidently datable to as late as 5100 BC. Overall, then, isotopes have not really solved the problem of the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition in south-western Germany, and we should not be too eager to see non-local isotope signatures as a tell-tale reflection of the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition, simply because this is a 'big question'.

Farmers and foragers in the Neolithic

As isotopic research progressed, other avenues of investigation were increasingly explored: the relative input of hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers in a community, continued mobility during the LBK, the dominance of females amongst non-local signatures (Bentley et al. 2002; Price & Bentley 2005), and the development of a model suggesting patrilocality (Price & Bentley 2005; Bentley 2006; also considered by Eisenhauer 2003). In more recent papers, this has been expanded to include a different ethnicity proposed for pastoralists, a possibility also suggested by Hachem (2000) on the basis of the differences in animal bone assemblages between houses at Cuiry-les-Chaudardes in the Paris Basin, and the possible presence of nuclear families during the LBK (Bentley 2006; 2007).

These models attempt the correlation of isotopic signatures with material indicators; in the case of cemeteries, with body position and grave goods. For instance, at Schwetzingen individuals with non-local signatures were more likely to be buried with their head in directions between north and east, while locals show a wider spread and could also be interred with head to the south-west (Price & Bentley 2005: 210). On the other hand, at Flomborn and Dillingen, a site in western Bavaria, there is no clear correlation between non-locals and a specific body orientation, but adzes are preferentially buried with locals (Price & Bentley 2005:208-11). Price and Bentley themselves point out that it would in the future be desirable to test for correlation of strontium signatures with other kinds of grave goods, for instance Spondylus shells, an artefact often considered a marker of LBK identity (Whittle 1996; Bradley 2001: 55). The ultimate goal is 'to evaluate artefactual connotations of residence status' (Price & Bentley 2005: 212).

However, we should be wary of simply trying to squeeze material culture into a role as passive reflector of clearly defined social identities, an idea strontium studies had, after all, set out to refine (Price et al. 2001: 594). Where the deposition of adzes is concerned, the numbers involved are in any case very low. Once women, who do not generally receive stone adzes, are excluded, the pool of the non-locals is very small indeed (at Flomborn, it comprises two males and one unsexed skeleton; see Bentley et al. 2002: 801). How reliable, then, are these material culture proxies for social identity, even if backed up by isotopes? What is more, if the pattern cannot be repeated everywhere, would we not be misled in applying it to other cemeteries without further checks?

At Aiterhofen, a large LBK cemetery in Lower Bavaria, estimated on typological grounds to cover the period of roughly 5300-5000/4900 BC (Nieszery 1995), grave goods associations can be observed to follow a complex pattern combining sex, age and location of burials alongside possible chronological trends. For instance, orientation of burials with their head not in the majority direction, here the east, is most likely to vary with age. Young children and individuals over 45 years of age are the most frequently affected, and this is also true for body positions that do not correspond to the tradition of inhumations crouched on their left side. What is more, there are not just orientations to the west, but also to the south and north and various intermediate directions, revealing a potential for greater complexity than a simple binary migrant/local division would allow (Hofmann 2006). Work on the Lower Bavarian material has also shown that preferences in burial ritual, such as the kind and frequency of grave goods or the adherence to 'classic' orientations and positions, may change over the course of the LBK. It is thus premature to relate observed difference to the display of a social status implicitly conceived as stable, both throughout an individual life and throughout the lifespan of the culture as a whole. The sample base of isotopic studies must now be widened specifically with these questions in mind. This will allow a better assessment of the relative importance of different factors such as age, sex and changing ideas about appropriate burial rites.

At Flomborn, it is estimated that the cemetery received burials for as long as 150 years (Price & Bentley 2005: 208), which gives an average of under 0.6 burials per year. Thus the 11 skeletons studied by Price et al. (2001) could well be spread out across the different generations. The same applies to the other cemeteries, where consideration of the chronological distribution of the burials may further complicate whether we can infer LBK identities. Across the LBK, we see variety and complexity at every turn, as the basic 'features' of LBK existence are played out at a local level. Isotope studies can help us find reasons for this variation and are an intriguing starting point for further study, but recourse to simple ethnic classifications is unlikely to do justice to the observed patterns. Goods and elements of burial ritual can operate at a series of levels, referencing various relationships and identities--personal, ethnic, gender, age or status--simultaneously (Hofmann 2006).

Patrilocality after marriage (Price & Bentley 2005) has recently been elaborated using the late LBK mass-burial site of Talheim, in the Neckar valley (Bentley 2007). The 34 individuals recovered were killed by adze blows before being unceremoniously dumped together in a communal pit (Wahl & Konig 1987). Epigenetic traits suggested to Wahl and Konig (1987) that the individuals in the pit were closely related, but using a comparison between the strontium and oxygen isotope ratios the burials could be subdivided into three groups. Diets and/or patterns of mobility seem to have varied between groups (Bentley 2007) and differences in demography can also be noted: the first group (all locals) comprises no adult females; the second, on which our discussion focuses, is suggested by the researchers to be a 'nuclear family'; the third is a group with higher strontium isotopic ratios than the rest and consists of two males and two females (Bentley 2007).

When the strontium/oxygen isotope study is compared with the genetic trait analysis carried out by Alt et al. (1997), Bentley (2007) argue that group 2 represents a nuclear family group. The suggestion that a nuclear family was the basis of LBK social organisation is a very interesting proposition, especially given the rather young age suggested for the possible 'mother'. However it is only a starting point. The impact of diet, as well as social factors such as the age at which a woman could conceive and a man would have been allowed to establish a family, need more critical consideration. The average age at menarche has been linked to the proportion of body fat (hence to diet) and has fallen by three to four months every decade over the last century (Scott & Duncan 1999). In addition, the onset of menarche does not necessarily lead directly to pregnancy. Studies of the Dobe !Kung hunter-gatherers show a delay of three to four years between menarche (at around 16-17 years of age) and first pregnancy, while women continue to fall pregnant into their early forties (Howell 1979: 141-79). While few comparisons can be made between Dobe !Kung and LBK diet or social organisation, it does illustrate the need for strontium results to be correlated with other forms of archaeological evidence.

Alt et al. (1997) found shared epigenetic traits that suggested many other close relations amongst the community. When this is correlated with the spread of isotopic results (Bentley 2007), mobility appears to have cut across familial relations. Further studies, which compare strontium isotopic values of different teeth from the same individual, may allow various forms of mobility to be identified more specifically (Knipper 2004). However, as isotope studies do not (at present) allow us to distinguish between one-off migrations and routine movement, we simply cannot infer the degree to which kinship, shared locality and different mobility strategies were related. We must also be careful not to transpose uncritically interpretations from the later LBK to the whole of the culture's duration.

Finally, strontium isotopes have also been used to address questions of economic diversity within the LBK, most notably the practice of pastoralism already suggested by Hachem (2000). This has been developed in most detail for Vaihingen, a long-lived site on the river Enz, a tributary of the Neckar, settled until very late in the LBK sequence (Krause 1998). The site is first established in the Flomborn period and partially surrounded by a ditch, later used for burial. Burials are also found among the houses. Again, no significant distinctions between the 46 males and females studied were identified, but a minimum of 42 per cent of those buried in the ditch were non-locals, compared to only 18 per cent from the rest of the site (Bentley et al. 2003b: 479-82). Interestingly, this also included individuals with a strontium signature both above and below the local range. Strontium studies on cattle teeth (Bentley & Knipper 2005) also suggest transhumance of cattle between a variety of geological substrates. Consequently, individuals with a signature above the local range may have derived a larger proportion of their diet from the uplands, while a lower ratio could be connected to the consumption of large quantities of milk by cattle grazed on nearby Middle Triassic Muschelkalk (Bentley et al. 2003b: 483).

However, strontium in meat and milk is absorbed to a far smaller extent than strontium obtained from plants. Plant foods can hence 'mask' dietary variation to a degree (Bentley 2006: 170-2). This means that the individuals in question here either consumed a lot of meat and milk, or alternatively relied on plant foods grown on different geological substrates. In either case, the picture of an LBK economy tied to loess soils must be revised and the question of differences in resource exploitation addressed.

There are several interpretations open, as pointed out by Bentley et al. (2003b: 484) themselves. To begin with, the observed variation between the ditch and the settlement could be chronological. Alternatively, if both sets of burials overlapped in time, the two burial locations could mark out different social identities. It then remains to be established whether the non-locals are the descendants of hunter-gatherers or instead a group of transhumant pastoralists (Bentley et al. 2003b: 482-4). Burials in the ditch generally do not have many grave goods and there are isolated instances in which the body appears to have been thrown in without much ceremony (Bentley et al. 2003b: 473). In addition, the demographic profile of all ages and both sexes contradicts the idea of forager women marrying into LBK communities, as developed at Schwetzingen and elsewhere (Price et al. 2001:601; Bentley et al. 2002: 802; 2003b). Bentley et al. (2003b: 484) thus conclude that these individuals were 'ethnically different and of lower status' compared to the population in the settlement, and that the more plausible explanation is that they were mobile pastoralists (see also Price & Bentley 2005: 206-8). Taken together, '[t]he results from Vaihingen fit within this emergent pattern of social differences between non-locals and locals' (Bentley et al. 2003b: 484).

The question, however, remains as to what exactly this pattern is. After all, at cemetery sites the preferred interpretation had until then been the presence of acculturated foragers. For Vaihingen, one could also ask whether it is wise to discount so quickly the possibility of a chronological differentiation between burials in the ditch and those in the settlement. Burials occur at varying levels in the ditch fill (Krause 1998: 19f). It is hence conceivable that the ditch was used for burial whilst still visible, with interments taking place in pits close to it once silting was complete. Burials could then have taken place in other areas of the site as well. In such a scenario, non-local strontium signatures would simply have become less frequent over time, coinciding with a focus on regional identities detected in other aspects of material culture, such as pottery (Modderman 1988). In this model, the decision to travel reduced distances with the herds may have to do with less value being placed on the long-distance contacts such a practice may have helped sustain, or a change in the nature of such contacts. It has also recently been argued that inter-group hostilities may have been increasing later in the LBK (Gronenborn 2007a; 2007b), in which case the use of more circumscribed territories could be connected with the wish not to leave the security of one's group for too long.

It is also notable that Welge, who works on the Vaihingen burials, characterises the status of the buried individuals according to whether they followed what is generally taken to be the classic LBK rite (i.e. burial in a crouched position), a condition not fulfilled by all burials in either the ditch or the settlement. In this model, lowest status is assigned to fragmented human remains (Welge 1998: 94-6) which have not been incorporated into the samples selected for analysis. It is, however, worth keeping in mind that LBK burial is diverse and that rites involving the fragmentation of human bodies and their deposition in alternative contexts may actually increase over time. Recent research at the late LBK Herxheim enclosure in Rhineland-Palatinate has, for instance, shown the secondary burial of parts of over 450 individuals in an enclosure ditch, associated with deposits of pottery and other material culture (Zeeb-Lanz et al. 2006). At the northern Bavarian Jungfernhohle cave, which also dates late in the LBK sequence, fragmented human bone was mixed with animal bone and broken artefacts in a similar secondary burial rite (Orschiedt 1999). Furthermore, at the late LBK site of Cuiry-les-Chaudardes, faunal studies have connected pastoralism with the larger houses and wild animal consumption with smaller ones. On this basis, pastoralism has been tentatively suggested as a high, rather than low, status activity (Hachem 2000:311).

The dimension of change throughout an individual's lifetime must also be considered in more detail. For instance, the bones of non-local individuals show much less strontium variation than their teeth and are closer to or within the local range (Bentley et al. 2003b: 481). It must, however, be noted that bone is much more susceptible to contamination by groundwater and other agents in the burial environment than tooth enamel. As a result, the strontium content in bone can become more similar to the burial environment (Bentley 2006: 163-9). Assuming we could take account of this, the difference in variation means that the majority of the sampled individuals' diet may have been procured locally in the years before they died, while most of the variation concerns their dietary intake in childhood. This could actually be compatible with an acculturation of foragers, but at the very least it suggests that herding may have been a practice carried out at some point in people's biographies, but not at the same intensity throughout their lifetime. This at once raises questions of the social composition of putative herding groups. Was this an activity undertaken by families, or predominantly by (older?) children? Would it really have been necessary to travel into the uplands simply to graze cattle, or could there have been other motivations?

Perhaps, then, what is visible at Vaihingen is not a straightforward categorisation of people into clearly bounded ethnic or social groups, but a range of dietary strategies which may have varied across a lifetime. A different diet in childhood is interesting here and further studies comparing data from an individual's molars may prove insightful. Thus, a number of potential avenues for further isotopic studies of the LBK remain, but they must be correlated with more nuanced models of the relationship between different forms of movement, identity and diet.

Conclusion

The aim here has not been to refute the results from strontium isotope studies, but to explore their conclusions and situate their results more firmly in the wider context of the LBK. Clearly, isotope studies are no quick fixes for our 'big questions', but they have proven crucial to raising questions of social organisation and mobility with renewed force and have opened up new avenues of thinking. Two main issues have been raised from this discussion; first, that we must think carefully about different forms of movement, such as large-scale, one-off migrations or routine patterns of mobility; and second, that identities such as 'forager' or 'pastoralist' are inadequate to deal fully with the complex relations between daily life, diet and burial. The preferred interpretations of strontium isotope patterns partially depend on specific theories of the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition, or the importance of spatial patterns. They are hence not independent from other archaeological data, but must be carefully integrated with them. Kinship relations, mobility and community life in the LBK thus require further contextual consideration. This in turn could provide the inspiration for further directed archaeological groundwork to be undertaken, for instance tackling the possibility of long-lasting hunter-gatherer 'survivals', or providing more precise chronological models for key transitions in the LBK.

In addition, to draw out the full potential of isotopic methods, they must be applied more consistently. So far, most of the strontium case studies are geographically rather restricted. Pending the results from the Moravian site of Vedrovice, where a series of bioarchaeological methods is currently being applied to an earliest and early LBK cemetery (A. Lukes pers. comm.), we are left with sites located exclusively in south-western Germany. Bentley et al. repeatedly stress that even here the observed patterns are geographically diverse and complex (Bentley et al. 2003a: 65; 2003b: 484). This should sound a note of caution when trying to apply the conclusions regarding LBK social structure or forager/farmer interaction to other areas. There is still a tendency to the regard 'the' LBK as a unitary phenomenon, with case studies at one end of its distribution unproblematically applicable elsewhere (e.g. in Bradley 2001; Jones 2005). This is precisely the kind of stance that future, geographically more extensive and archaeologically contextualised strontium isotope studies could help to critique.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are due to Martin Carver for encouraging us to write this article and for his thoughtful editing. We wish to thank Alex Bentley, Hazel Chapman, Detlef Gronenborn, Robert Hedges, Corina Knipper, Rick Schulting and Alasdair Whittle for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Steve Mills kindly helped with Figure 1. Needless to say, all errors and omissions remain our own.

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Penny Bickle & Daniela Hofmann *

* School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University, Humanities Building, Colum Road, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK (Email: bicklepf@cardiff.ac.uk; hofmanndl@cardiff.ac.uk)