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. 2017 Jan 31;114(5):897-902.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1613413114. Epub 2017 Jan 17.

Modeling the role of voyaging in the coastal spread of the Early Neolithic in the West Mediterranean

Neus Isern  1 , João Zilhão  2   3 , Joaquim Fort  4   3 , Albert J Ammerman  5
Affiliations

Modeling the role of voyaging in the coastal spread of the Early Neolithic in the West Mediterranean

Neus Isern et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .

Abstract

The earliest dates for the West Mediterranean Neolithic indicate that it expanded across 2,500 km in about 300 y. Such a fast spread is held to be mainly due to a demic process driven by dispersal along coastal routes. Here, we model the Neolithic spread in the region by focusing on the role of voyaging to understand better the core elements that produced the observed pattern of dates. We also explore the effect of cultural interaction with Mesolithic populations living along the coast. The simulation study shows that (i) sea travel is required to obtain reasonable predictions, with a minimum sea-travel range of 300 km per generation; (ii) leapfrog coastal dispersals yield the best results (quantitatively and qualitatively); and (iii) interaction with Mesolithic people can assist the spread, but long-range voyaging is still needed to explain the archaeological pattern.

Keywords: Neolithic; coastal spread; computational model; cultural transmission; voyaging.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Early Neolithic sites and chronology of the Neolithic spread in the West Mediterranean. (A) Archaeological sites (circles) are colored according to the median of the calibrated age range of their earliest date. The interpolation map has been obtained by using the natural neighbor technique and disregarding coastal sites with medians younger than 5000 BC to avoid masking effects. Those sites disregarded in the interpolation are Vale de Boi (4943 BC), La Draga (4966 BC), Pou Nou 3 (4930 BC), Cova de St Llorenç (4894 BC), and El Zafrín (Islas Chafarinas; 4416 BC). (B) Database dates represented by areas and chronologically (following, from bottom to top, the order in Dataset S1). Symbols represent the calibrated dates before Christ (cal BC), and the error bars indicate their 2σ error ranges. The dates shown as diamonds are the earliest for each area and are the dates used to test the validity of the different models; they are also shown as diamonds in Figs. 2–4.
Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.
Model predictions for the Neolithic expansion. (A) Model 1: no voyaging. (B) Model 2: voyaging along the coast within 350 km with preference for closer destinations. (C) Model 3: voyaging along the coast with all destinations within 350 km being equally probable. (D) Model 4: leapfrog voyaging with jumps of about 350 km. White diamonds represent areas reached within the calibrated 2σ range; black diamonds represent areas reached by the model later than the calibrated range. (In all panels, voyage distances are computed along the coast and a = 2.8%.)
Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.
Early Neolithic dates against distance along the coast to Arene Candide. For each area defined in Fig. 1B, its earliest date is represented (diamonds) with its 2σ error range (error bars). Simulation results at the same location as the archaeological data are also plotted for the three models with maritime voyaging: model 2 (inverted triangles), model 3 (triangles), and model 4 (stars). All simulations have been computed with the same parameters as Fig. 2 (a = 2.8% and sea-travel ranges of 350 km).
Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.
Effect of Neolithic–Mesolithic interaction on the expansion process. The results derive from the use of model 4, with a voyage range of 350 km and an intrinsic growth rate of a = 1.8% for three cases: no interaction (A; η = 0, C = 0), vertical cultural transmission only (B; η = 0.5, C = 0), and vertical and horizontal cultural transmission (C; η = 0.5, C = 0.2). We assume Mesolithic bands of 50 people, but the results for 80 people are similar (SI Appendix). White diamonds represent areas reached within the calibrated 2σ range; black diamonds represent areas reached by the model later than the calibrated range.
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