Daily life at Bylany in Bohemia during the Neolithic

At Bylany near Kutná Hora, in present-day Czechia, archaeological remains reveal generations of early farmers. This account focuses on the Linear Pottery culture settlement: its homes, working tools and evidence for food preparation.

A settlement built across generations

Bylany lies near Kutná Hora in Bohemia. The Institute of Archaeology describes roughly five centuries of Linear Pottery culture occupation ending around the close of the sixth millennium BCE. Later Neolithic occupation followed after a gap; it should not be treated as part of one unchanging village.

Almost 150 longhouse plans were identified across the excavated area, but these accumulated over time. They do not represent 150 households living together. The institute’s reconstruction estimates between two or three and eleven contemporary houses in different phases, while acknowledging uncertainty about which buildings were occupied or abandoned. Source: Archaeologists and the First Farmers in Bylany.

Homes and the work of maintaining them

Longhouse ground plans survive principally as features cut into the ground. Rows of postholes reveal the structure, while pits beside the long walls are interpreted as sources of clay for wall daub. Building and maintaining such homes would have required gathering materials and repeated physical work; this is an inference from the construction evidence.

The interiors are much less certain. Lost floor surfaces prevent a confident room-by-room account of sleeping, cooking or storage. A recessed silo within one Bylany house plan is an unusual surviving clue, rather than proof that every house followed the same arrangement. Reconstructions of furnished interiors should therefore be read as possibilities. Source: The People from Longhouses.

Grinding, cutting and making

Finds at Bylany include grinding slabs and handstones, chipped stone, polished axes and adzes, whetstones and pottery fragments. These offer evidence for a working settlement. Grinding tools suggest repeated processing tasks; axes, adzes and sharpening equipment point towards maintaining useful cutting edges. The objects alone do not identify who performed each job or how tasks were divided by age or gender.

Incised pottery decoration also helps archaeologists distinguish phases of occupation. Pots were practical possessions, but their surviving fragments now help reconstruct changes over generations. Source: Květina and Končelová, sections 2–3.

What cooking vessels reveal about food

A study of pottery from settlement phase 19 identified residues consistent with both animal and plant products. This gives direct evidence about substances processed in vessels, although it does not recover complete meals or recipes. The researchers found no identifiable difference in food-processing practices between the house types they compared.

Dairy fats were not detected in the investigated pottery. That result applies to the analysed material and phase: it does not establish that nobody at Bylany ever consumed milk. Similarly, residues cannot reveal an individual’s daily portions or a complete seasonal menu. Source: Matlova and colleagues, study abstract.

Everyday life seen through discarded objects

Much of the evidence comes from pits outside houses, rather than objects left on intact floors. A pot fragment beside a building need not have belonged to its occupants: dumping, runoff and later activity could alter deposits. Květina and Končelová therefore question treating each house and its neighbouring pits as a straightforward household inventory. This limits detailed reconstructions of individual families while preserving evidence for work across the settlement. Source: Settlement-pattern study, sections 1–2 and 5.

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