From Newsgroup: talk.origins
https://www.science.org/content/article/headless-bodies-hint-why-europe-s-first-farmers-vanished
It was the first agricultural population spread across Europe, but they
sort of destroyed themselves. These people lived in communities because
they had to protect their farm land and what they produced on that land.
Everything is fine until you run out of new farm land. They rapidly expanded into the best areas of Europe, but your own population pressure
works against your culture. As long as you can clear more land and
start new communities everything can be fine, but when the expansion
stops you have the issue with things like the oldest son inheriting the
farm, and the others have to be married off or find their own way. When
you get enough of these detached people communities have to grow larger
or be subject to being taken over by someone else. To grow larger you
have to take from the surrounding communities or join in some type of
workable alliance. Their main worry is no longer protecting their
crops, but their very existence depends on them being able to deal with
the displaced population that they are creating. The old ways no longer
work, and something new has to be established.
Think Biblically where a tribe of herders was able to build up a large
enough population so that they could take over and enslave the villages
of a fertile valley. That is what these small agricultural communities
had to deal with. Whole villages could be repopulated by someone else
that wanted what they had.
Ron Okimoto
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