Early Neolithic figurines

Turning West: On the Disappearance of Figurative Representations in Neolithic West-Central Europe

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Rebecca Bristow
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1678-798X

Abstract

At the start of the Middle Neolithic (5000 BCE), as the central-European Linear Pottery culture (LBK) dissolved into smaller cultural groups, the traditional making of figurative representations was either transformed or radically abandoned. For thousands of years, these clay figurines and vessels representing humans and animals had been a hallmark of Early Neolithic lifestyle. They were found in hundreds in Southeastern Europe during the 6th millennium BCE and continued to be produced as the Neolithic reached Central Europe, although in smaller numbers. By the start of the Middle Neolithic, however, figurative representations seem to have disappeared from the western LBK, or turned into highly stylised motifs. This dissolution of a thousand-year-old figurative tradition may have been the outcome of increasing collective activities and contacts with local hunter-gatherers since the start of the LBK.

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How to Cite
Bristow 2025: R. Bristow, Turning West: On the Disappearance of Figurative Representations in Neolithic West-Central Europe. JNA 27, 2025, 1–21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12766/jna.2025.1.