New Chronological Frame for the Young Neolithic Baden Culture in Central Europe (4th Millennium BC)

Abstract

The Baden Culture is a widely spread culture of the Young Neolithics in east-central Europe. In southeast Europe, several parallel cultures are found at different places. The main innovations in east-central Europe associated with the Baden Culture were traditionally thought to originate in southeast Europe, Anatolia, and the Levant. However, in recent years, doubt about this theory has arisen among archaeologists. Here, we try to contribute to this question by increasing the radiocarbon data set available for the Baden Culture. Thirty-two age determinations of samples from different sites assigned to the Baden Culture were performed by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating. The new data were combined with previously published 14C dates. Data from the individual cultural phases of the entire Baden period and the parallel cultures in southeast Europe (Sitagroi, Cernavoda, and Ezero) were analyzed by sum calibration. Comparison of the results indicates that the southeastern cultures cannot be synchronized with the Boleráz period, the early phase of the Baden Culture. It seems that these cultures were parallel to the Baden Classical period. This finding, which has to be verified by more data from the southeastern cultures, contradicts the theory of the east–west spreading of these cultures.