Tracing the Beginning of Sedentary Life in the Carpathian Basin: The Formation of the LBK House

Abstract

According to our present knowledge, the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) longhouse evolved in the western Carpathian Basin. This chapter presents new evidence from recently investigated Transdanubian Early Neolithic sites on the emergence and spread of LBK longhouses. It also gives an account of the possible local Mesolithic and south-east European antecedents, and argues for a rather different cultural development of the east Hungarian Alföld LBK, giving the reasons why it seems to have had little direct impact on the spread of the LBK into central Europe. In discussing these processes, environmental, chronological and social issues are invoked to outline the beginnings of sedentary life in the mid-6th millennium bc central Europe.