The commission aims to bring together researchers working on the first farming societies of the Mediterranean and Europe, right up to the development of Bronze Age societies. The themes covered by the commission's activities are very diverse: historiography, emergence, development, diffusion and evolution of Neolithic societies and economies, technological approaches, material culture, environmental reconstructions, social organization, settlements, funerary, ritual and symbolic practices, etc.
Geographically, the commission covers the whole of Europe and the Mediterranean, including North Africa and the Middle East, in order to better understand the diffusion phenomena which mark the period from Eastern Neolithization to Western societies of the third millennium.
Our vision of the Neolithic has changed considerably in just a few decades. New analyses and new approaches in archaeology (isotope chemistry, genetics and genomics, etc.) and new tools (statistics, 3D, drones, etc.) have led to new knowledge and new perspectives on the questions of Neolithization and the Neolithic. The commission is interested in all these new contributions, without neglecting more traditional approaches (inventories, typology, technology, etc.).
The commission aims to:
- Create links between researchers working in different languages and of different geographical and institutional origins,
- Facilitate research, organization of projects, and of scientific events,
- Unite researchers around common themes or activities.
It contributes to:
- Producing and developing archaeological data,
- Engaging with ideas, hypotheses and interpretations,
- Disseminating archeological data and the interpretations based on those data through events and publications.
