![[Starčevo1.jpg]] *Starčevo culture artifacts from Serbia, about 7,500 years old.* By about 9,000 to 7,000 years ago, agricultural techniques including farming and herding had spread from the places they had developed into surrounding regions. The best-studied of these spreads is from the fertile crescent into Europe (but we can assume expansion in other regions happened over similar time-scales and in similar ways), from Anatolia (Turkey) by way of the Mediterranean Sea and the Danube River. The first places reached in Europe were in the eastern Mediterranean, where 8,500 year old sites like [Franchthi Cave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franchthi_Cave) (Greece) and the [Starčevo-Körös-Criș](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star%C4%8Devo%E2%80%93K%C3%B6r%C3%B6s%E2%80%93Cri%C8%99_culture) culture in the Balkans show signs of farmers using pottery, polished stone tools, and living in village settlements. By about 7,500 years ago, longhouses, distinctive pottery designs, and intensive farming techniques had reached Hungary and Germany along the Danube. Although these agricultural innovations spread partly by the migration of people and partly through cultural exchange (people learning things from neighboring cultures), there was a significant amount of migration. Recent genetic analysis of the residents of the Mediterranean island of Sardinia show their genetic heritage derives between 80% and 90% from a group known as [Early European Farmers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_European_Farmers) (EEF) descended from these Anatolian migrant farmers. Historians of the ancient world make distinctions between farmers and pastoralists (herders) that I think will be very valid later on (like when we talk about the Bronze Age cultures described in the Old Testament), but probably did not apply to the earliest stages of these two related agricultural developments. The separation of farmers and pastoralists into distinct (frequently hostile) groups was probably not an issue, in the early stages, although it's possible that herding (like hunting) became a bit more "men's work" and farming (like gathering), women's. After widespread adoption of ox-drawn plows, some farm work may have become more male-dominated. ---- Next: [[2.7 - Ötzi]] Back: [[2.5 - Yoked Aurochs]]