Rostovtzeff Lecture Series: The Emergence, Adventures and Legacies of Early Farming in Western Eurasia

This lecture will take place in person at ISAW.

Registration is required at THIS LINK.

The Rostovtzeff Lectures are supported in part by a generous endowment fund given by Roger and Whitney Bagnall.

This lecture series considers current archaeological evidence for the emergence of mixed farming in western Asia, its dispersal and establishment across Europe and the long-term creativity and resilience of early farming households and communities. Complementing recent research into the ancient genomics of early farmers, this series explores the ‘how’ of early farming as practice. Farming has changed radically over thousands of years since its emergence, yet there are striking reflections of contemporary values surrounding high agrobiodiversity, regenerative farming, sharing of ecological knowledge and equality in the ‘distant mirror’ of the Neolithic. Investigation of farming as a long-term process that continues today frames new questions about its initial establishment and evolution.

This lecture will focus on recent research in northern Greece, eastern Albania and North Macedonia has revealed Europe’s earliest cluster of upland lakeshore sites. Built of wooden timbers (‘piles’), these distinctive settlements can be dated with high precision through dendrochronology and offer a wealth of organic evidence for farming and land use due to anaerobic conditions in waterlogged stratigraphy. Through the lens of this remarkable and endangered wetland archaeology, Neolithic farming is revealed as a diverse set of practices combining foraging, fishing and hunting with herding and cultivation. The phenomenon of Neolithic pile-built lakeshore settlements in this region persisted for over 1000 years and anticipates the famous lakeshore Neolithic of the circum-Alpine region in central Europe.

Amy Bogaard is Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford. A fellow of the British Academy since 2021, Bogaard publishes widely on the nature of Neolithic-Bronze Age farming in western Eurasia, including Neolithic farming in central Europe (2004), Plant use and crop husbandry in an early Neolithic village (2011), Subsistence and society in prehistory (with Alan Outram, 2019) and From first farmers to first cities in western Asia and Europe: The long revolution (in press, 2026). Bogaard’s interdisciplinary research into prehistoric farming has received support from the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council and the European Research Council. She is recipient of research awards from the Shanghai Archaeology Forum in 2015 and 2025, and of the Christiane and Jean Guilaine prize from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 2025.

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