ABSTRACT
It would seem from the available evidence that, after the initial expansion of the earliest agriculturalists into south-east Europe, there was very little influence on the subsequent evolution of their culture from outside central and south-east Europe. In the previous chapter it has been shown that there is no reason to suspect that the Vinca and Veselinovo and later Linear Pottery cultures were the result of a secondary colonisation from Greece and the Near East. Similarly it seems very likely that the succeeding cultures (referred to generally as the late neolithic and eneolithic cultures) of eastern Europe, including the innovations in their equipment, even the appearance of metallurgy, were the result of internal evolution within eastern Europe, although there is no doubt that there was a certain amount of contact with areas further south. In general, the broad culture areas, which were visible in the earlier neolithic period (described in the preceding chapter), distinguished by similarities in their means of subsistence, settlement and house types and material culture, continued into the later neolithic and eneolithic periods.1 The regional segmentation in the forms and decoration of pottery and the emergence of local pottery styles which could be seen in the earlier neolithic period became more apparent and crystallised in the later neolithic and eneolithic periods with the result that a large number of small cultures have been distinguished in these periods. These 'cultures' or 'sub-cultures', in fact, frequently reflect only regional variation in the pottery, whereas the rest of the material culture retained its uniformity.
