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The long-term decline in terms of trade and the neolithisation of Northern Europe

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  • Serge Svizzero

Abstract

While agriculture spread quite rapidly from the Levant to most parts of Europe during the sixth millennium, its adoption was delayed to the fourth millennium in Northern Europe, an area inhabited by complex hunter-gatherers (HGs) - mainly the Erteb�lle culture. This hiatus leads us to reject diffusion by migration or acculturation. It favours integrationist models of contact between foragers and farmers and attributes the shift to agriculture to social competition between HGs. We provide an alternative explanation of this shift, based on an economic mechanism related to trade between foragers and farmers. We demonstrate that the terms of trade of raw materials extracted and sold by foragers have a tendency to decline in the long term in relation to the food resources produced and sold by farmers. Neolithisation of Northern Europe can therefore be viewed as the outcome of a long-term process based on trade in which HGs voluntarily get involved without forecasting that it will, in the end, constrain most of them to give up their way of life. Such an explanation is consistent with the long period of contact between foragers and farmers provided by archaeological records and recent palaeogenetic studies.

Suggested Citation

  • Serge Svizzero, 2015. "The long-term decline in terms of trade and the neolithisation of Northern Europe," Scandinavian Economic History Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 63(3), pages 260-279, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:sehrxx:v:63:y:2015:i:3:p:260-279
    DOI: 10.1080/03585522.2015.1008566
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    1. Ricardo, David, 1821. "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, edition 3, number ricardo1821.
    2. Jacob L. Weisdorf, 2003. "Stone Age Economics: The Origins of Agriculture and the Emergence of Non-Food Specialists," Discussion Papers 03-34, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    3. Prebisch, Raúl, 1950. "The economic development of Latin America and its principal problems," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 29973, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
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    Cited by:

    1. Serge Svizzero, 2015. "Farmers' spatial behaviour, demographic density dependence and the spread of Neolithic agriculture in Central Europe," Post-Print hal-02150100, HAL.
    2. Serge Svizzero, 2017. "Persistent Controversies about the Neolithic Revolution," Post-Print hal-02145483, HAL.
    3. Serge Svizzero, 2015. "Trade, immiserising growth and the long-term neolithisation process of the Pitted Ware Culture," Post-Print hal-02148984, HAL.

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