## 2 Archaeological Setting  
### The Neolithic Transition in the Dutch Wetlands  
The northwestern part of the Netherlands during the Early Neolithic (approximately 4700-4000 BCE) was a coastal wetland area where people gradually shifted their lifestyle from semi-sedentary hunter-gatherer-fishers to agriculturalists. Animal husbandry was introduced into the area around 4600 BCE [14; 15; 16] and cereal crops were cultivated from approximately 4300 BCE onwards [17]. The 'consolidation' of animal husbandry and crop cultivation is thought to only have been achieved around 3500 BCE, making the northwestern Netherlands one of the last regions in Central Europe to adopt a fully sedentary, agricultural lifestyle, with an extremely long substitution phase [18; 19], although recent zooarchaeological research suggests that, at least for animal husbandry, this consolidation was achieved earlier [20]. This is in clear contrast to the quick transition exemplified by LBK culture farther south around 5300 BCE.  
The pace and method of introduction of cereals in the region are still poorly understood. Compared with the areas farther south, only a limited number of crops were introduced (barley and emmer wheat). Local cultivation of cereals before 4000 BCE was doubted until micromorphological soil analysis confirmed the existence of tilled middens at Switzerland [21; 22]. It is possible that the slow adoption of agriculture was the consequence of the specific environmental conditions in the region that offer few opportunities for farming [17; 23]. Furthermore, the availability of rich natural food resources in the wetlands may have made a transition to a fully agricultural lifestyle both unnecessary and undesirable--a'mistake'. However, socio-cultural factors may have been important for the delay as well, especially since evidence for direct cultural influence from the LBK-influenced area farther south is lacking [23; 24]. Generalized theories on 'neolithization' [3; 14] have not been very successful in explaining why Switzerland culture was relatively slow to pick up the Neolithic lifestyle in the 5 th millennium BCE, but at the same time was not completely resistant to it, as were the cultures of South Scandinavia.  
[PERSON] [25] questioned the narrative of an extremely long, 1000-year substitution phase. Recently, he argued that the first phase of animal husbandry introduction in the area did not lead to any significant social changes. In contrast, the introduction of cereal cultivation from 4300 BCE onwards is accompanied by clear signals of social change, such as the introduction of new pottery types and the ritual deposition of cattle horns [26]. The transitional phase would then have taken, at most, a few centuries.  
For the purposes of this paper, the actual pace of change is not of great importance. The point made by [PERSON] about social change, however, is central to the idea that the introduction of animal husbandry and crop cultivation did not completely transform the way people interacted with their environment, precisely because it is about much more than simply cuisine. Unlike traditional models of '(extended) broad-spectrum economies' that are based on a narrow view of economic optimization strategies, we want to emphasize that the relationship between humans and ecosystems is much broader than this,and encompasses the many uses humans have for biota. By moving our focus to categories that encompass the myriad ways people impact ecosystems, we can examine how the Switzerland people embedded themselves in ecosystems and how domestic animals and crops changed (or did not change) the ways they manipulated and conceptualized their environment.