https://www.offa-journal.org/index.php/jna/issue/feedJournal of Neolithic Archaeology2025-01-28T14:47:06+01:00Nils Müller-Scheeßelnils.mueller-scheessel@ufg.uni-kiel.deOpen Journal Systems<p>The Journal of Neolithic Archaeology provides a scientific information platform on the archaeology of the Neolithic period. The articles are mainly in German and English, and for all articles English summaries and figure captions are available.</p> <p>The Journal was originally founded in 1999 as a pioneering web-based open access online journal. Since 2003, the Journal has been edited by an international team of archaeologists.</p> <p>This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. There is no publication fee charged.</p>https://www.offa-journal.org/index.php/jna/article/view/1576Turning West: On the Disappearance of Figurative Representations in Neolithic West-Central Europe2024-04-16T12:34:19+02:00Rebecca Bristowrb@hum.ku.dk<p>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.</p>2025-01-28T00:00:00+01:00Copyright (c) 2025 Rebecca Bristow