Abstract
Phylogenetic techniques are used to analyse the spread of Neolithic plant
economies from the Near East to northwest Europe as a branching process from a
founding ancestor. The analyses are based on a database of c. 7500 records of
plant taxa from 250 sites dated to the early Neolithic of the region in which
they occur, aggregated into a number of regional groups. The analysis
demonstrates that a phylogenetic signal exists in the data but it is complicated
by the fact that in comparison with the changes that occurred when the crop
agriculture complex expanded out of the Near East, once it arrived in Europe it
underwent only limited further changes. On the basis of the analysis it has
been possible to identify the species losses and gains that occurred as the
complex of crops and associated weeds spread and to show the influence of
geographical location and cultural affinity on the pattern of losses and gains.
This has led to consideration of the processes producing that history,
including some reasons why the dispersal process did not produce a perfect tree
phylogeny, as well as to the identification of some specific anomalies, such as
the unusual nature of the Bulgarian pattern, which raise further questions for
the future.
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