Last hunter-gatherers and first farmers of Europe.

ABSTRACT

The Neolithisation of Europe has seen the transformation of hunting-gathering societies into farming communities. At least partly exogenous in its origins, this process led to major transformations in many aspects of life-styles, such as social structures, land use or diet. It involved the arrival of new human populations and gave way to the importation, intentional or unwanted of many non-European animal and plant species. It also provoked important changes in interactions between humans and natural environments. In many respects, it set the foundations of long-term European peasantry developments and prefigured later agropastoral colonizations. As such, it must be seen as a major turning point in the history of European populations.