| This thesis explores the development of specialist production as a means of building alliances between villages of the early Neolithic Linienbandkeramik (LBK) culture (∼5650-4900 calBC) in the Hesbaye region of eastern Belgium in context of intensive warfare with indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. The scope and intensity of economic interactions between Hesbayen LBK villages were assessed by the chemical compositional analysis of 389 LBK ceramic sherds and 105 Hesbayen clay and loess samples using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry. Seven compositional profiles were identified among the analyzed ceramics, four of non-Hesbayen production, and three of local Hesbayen production. While early period assemblages contain a diverse set of paste types, late period ceramic assemblages, contemporaneous with evidence for intensive warfare, are dominated by a single paste type. In conjunction with evidence that lithic production also became increasingly monopolized during later settlement, it is suggested that villages in the northern Hesbaye became increasingly economically linked in the context of inter-village alliances in response to increasing levels of conflict. |
