Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 February 2012
From its origins in the Starčcevo-Körös culture of the Hungarian Plain around 5700 BC the Neolithic archaeological assemblage of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) spread within two centuries to reach Alsace and the middle Rhine by 5500 BC, though the rapidity of the spread makes it difficult to measure using available radiocarbon evidence (Dolukhanov et al. 2005). In this same time period, during the Terminal Mesolithic, c. 5800 to 5500 BC, there is evidence for forager-herder-horticulturists in Central andWestern Europe prior to the appearance of the LBK (Gronenborn 1999, 2009). The Cardial Neolithic complex spread round the shores of the northern Mediterranean from southern Italy to Portugal in the period 5700’5400 BC.