Since the beginning of archaeology as a discipline, the control of time, or in other words the placement of specific phenomena in a certain time frame has represented the basis of all research. ...Despite criticism of the concept of time in archaeology as limitedand linear, it is still prevalent. Absolute dating methods, as they are becoming more precise and available, are being widely used to thepoint that, no matter the subject matter, there are practically no scholarly articles that do not present in detail the results of dating multiplesets of samples. Simultaneously, methods of relative dating are not losing significance, so typology still represent the mainmethodological procedure with which archaeological finds are culturally and chronologically identified. On the other hand, however,scientific questions of the past are becoming more complicated. Numerous processes (which can either be long-lasting or relatively short episodes) are inextricably linked with dating, but it is not always clear how it contributes to the complete understanding of saidprocesses. This is where processes of technological innovation and of cultural transmission, which, in addition to temporally, can be spatially limited, come to light. This is why it is important to question the nearlyuniversally received stance, according to which dating methods have interpretative potential and, relating to that, whether they are always crucial for understanding the mechanisms of cul- tural processes. In other words, do the results of dating represent an illusion of scientificity as a substitute for weakness in interpretation.
Building upon the idea of Douglass Bailey (1994) that prehistoric figurines represent actual individuals, it is suggested here that their makers represented people in the manner they perceived them, ...following the role models familiar from their own society. This further implies that, on the grounds of certain indicators, it may be possible to identify social differences depending on the age, sex/gender, and possibly other modes of inequality. An attempt is made here to define the criteria identifying the markers – indicators of inequality, such as: representations of hair style and jewellery, size of figurines, as well as the correlation between these indicators and the details on the figurines’ bodies pointing to their sex/gender or age. In the assemblage from the site Pavlovac-Čukar, the correlation has been established between the representations ascribed as male and massive bangle bracelets and belts, indicating that adult male individuals of higher status were marked out by the number of bangles and the way of wearing the belt. A similar suggestion is proposed concerning the large-size figurines, marked with incisions perhaps representing tattoo marks, with looser breasts, indicating the possibility that older women obtained higher social status than the young ones. It is worth noting that in the case of the Vinča figurines little attention is paid to the representation of hair style, although it has been established that in the preindustrial societies, hair is an important indicator of social status, even more than jewellery. Hair length, specific hair styles, as well as various ornaments placed here, indicate sex/gender and social differences, various group and individual identities, as well as aesthetic ideas. Two heads from Čukar, as well as the one from Predionica, perform specific hair styles – hair shorter, reaching just below ears, and the crown is shaven. Bearing in mind that these figurines may show portrait characteristics, it may be suggested that these individuals may have achieved higher social status.
Since the inception of the discipline of archaeology, figurines have been considered as the basis for research into the praehistoric social order and religious ideas. In spite of the numerous ...critiques, the idea that they are the reflection of adoration of Mother Goddess and fertility cults, has persevered even to the present day, mainly thanks to the work of Maria Gimbutas. Her simplified approach to praehistory, apart from giving rise to pseudo-archaeological narratives, has induced severe criticism and polemics inside archaeology. The concept of the Goddess has migrated during the recent period from the academic writing to the realm of pseudo-science, daily politics and activism. In our country, the ideas of the Golden Past, considered to be the origin of the European civilization, are particularly present in the „grey zone“: the public sphere, facilitated through media. All these narratives are based upon the preconception that in the Neolithic collections the representations of women dominate. The results of the preliminary analyses of gender representation in Neolithic assemblages have proven that the claims of women’s dominance are ill-founded, and emphasized once more the significant presence, or even dominance of asexual figurines. On the other hand, the criteria for identification have shown to be unreliable, raising the question of usefulness of such attempts, as well as a number of new questions. Primarily, the role and meaning of the presence/absence of secondary sex attributes, their correlation to age, as well as possible regional differences in meaning and function of figurines are discussed.
The introduction of the skill of pottery-making has been recognized as the turning point in the human past from the very inception of the disciplines of archaeology/anthropology. Until recently, ...pottery has been explained as a part of the Neolithic package and linked to the beginnings of agriculture and sedentarism. However, the pottery registered among the hunters-gatherers of the late Pleistocene in the Far East has demonstrated beyond doubt that it represents an innovation completely independent from plant cultivation and domestication of animals. This has induced a reconsideration of our knowledge. Although various hypotheses explained the appearance of the earliest pottery, it seems today that the invention of pottery technology was most probably induced by utilitarian, practical reasons. On the grounds of the analyses of the organic contents of the vessels, their qualities and the distribution of use alterations, it is certain that pottery is closely linked to preparation and partially with storage of food of animal, often aquatic origin, and sometimes of nuts. On the other hand, the causes and mechanisms of adoption of pottery as a new technology may have been diverse and dependent on various factors. For example, pottery production may be seen as prestige technology among hunters-gatherers, where individuals compete for power, prestige and status by organizing feasts, but in the non-stratified societies as well, where it was used as a medium during the festivities aimed at strengthening the group cohesion, or on the occasion of marriages of members of different groups, where they are reminded of communal obligations and alliances. One of the characteristics of pottery in mobile communities is its close link to twined/woven objects: many pottery assemblages from these groups bear traces on their surfaces that are the consequence of pressing such material (cords, baskets, sacks, mats, fabric, etc.), so sometimes “ceramization” of these older technologies is mentioned. However, the importance of spun material should be stressed in the technology of pottery production. These may have been used in the process of modelling of vessels, as supports or moulds. Finally, the text considers the Starčevo pottery. In spite of the fact that it “reaches” into the Balkans along with other characteristics of the Neolithic package, it performs important similarities to the pottery of mobile communities, from its transportability as a desired feature, to indications that at least some forms were executed in baskets as moulds. The examples of the Starčevo pottery exist bearing the impressions of textile on their interior surfaces, probably due to easier separation of the dried vessel from the mould. All these data raise the issue of interdependence of soft technologies and pottery, as well as wider questions, such as mechanisms of cultural transmission.
Since their domestication in the Mediterranean zone of Southwest Asia in the eighth millennium BC, sheep, goats, pigs and cattle have been remarkably successful in colonizing a broad variety of ...environments. The initial steps in this process can be traced back to the dispersal of farming groups into the interior of the Balkans in the early sixth millennium BC, who were the first to introduce Mediterranean livestock beyond its natural climatic range. Here, we combine analysis of biomolecular and isotopic compositions of lipids preserved in prehistoric pottery with faunal analyses of taxonomic composition from the earliest farming sites in southeast Europe to reconstruct this pivotal event in the early history of animal husbandry. We observe a marked divergence between the (sub)Mediterranean and temperate regions of Southeast Europe, and in particular a significant increase of dairying in the biochemical record coupled with a shift to cattle and wild fauna at most sites north of the Balkan mountain range. The findings strongly suggest that dairying was crucial for the expansion of the earliest farming system beyond its native bioclimatic zone.
The paper discusses the ways in which cultural heritage is invented and accepted by the public on the grounds of the spurious pseudo-scientific idea of the Vinča script, illustrated by one Bronze Age ...artefact. The miniature clay spindle whorl from Vatin bearing incised signs is abundantly mentioned in the pseudo-scientific literature as one example of the Vinča script whose message is deciphered: “life is love”, the “translation” attributed to Radivoje Pešić, although in his writings the method of translation is not mentioned at all. However, thanks to the media and especially via the Internet, the Bronze Age object becomes the Neolithic one, and his various (pseudo-scientific) interpretations reach the public space, creating the image of deeply spiritual and philosophically inclined Vinča civilization. The greatest danger lies in the fact that the maxim “life is love” and the idea of the Vinča script in general are emphasized as a part of the cultural heritage and advertised, among other, in the sector of cultural tourism. Since heritage is seen as usage of the past as a cultural, economic and political resource, the issue of heritage is additionally complex in our environment, where it is literally invented. It is therefore extremely important for the professional archaeologists to devote more energy to the domain of public archaeology, sharing information, taking part in education, and influencing the awareness about cultural heritage in the public sphere.
In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years
. ...Although the selection of LP and the consumption of prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configuration and specific interactions
. Here we provide detailed distributions of milk exploitation across Europe over the past 9,000 years using around 7,000 pottery fat residues from more than 550 archaeological sites. European milk use was widespread from the Neolithic period onwards but varied spatially and temporally in intensity. Notably, LP selection varying with levels of prehistoric milk exploitation is no better at explaining LP allele frequency trajectories than uniform selection since the Neolithic period. In the UK Biobank
cohort of 500,000 contemporary Europeans, LP genotype was only weakly associated with milk consumption and did not show consistent associations with improved fitness or health indicators. This suggests that other reasons for the beneficial effects of LP should be considered for its rapid frequency increase. We propose that lactase non-persistent individuals consumed milk when it became available but, under conditions of famine and/or increased pathogen exposure, this was disadvantageous, driving LP selection in prehistoric Europe. Comparison of model likelihoods indicates that population fluctuations, settlement density and wild animal exploitation-proxies for these drivers-provide better explanations of LP selection than the extent of milk exploitation. These findings offer new perspectives on prehistoric milk exploitation and LP evolution.
The consideration of the relationship between pottery studies and the application of hard sciences in archaeology includes the scrutiny of the importance of pottery studies in the history of ...archaeology as a discipline, and especially the differences in the approach to material culture between European and North American researchers. After modest beginnings during the 19th century, petrographic analyses were introduced into ceramology during the first decades of the 20th century, mainly thanks to the works of Anna Shepard. She was one of the initiators of the first conference on the ceramic technology, held as early as 1938. For archaeology in general, it is significant to note that the beginning of pottery studies, stressing the importance of social anthropology as well as the application of hard science methods, markedly predates the expansion of processual archaeology.
It is also vital to explore certain tensions and differences in approaches to ceramics, exiting today as the consequence of polarization inside archaeology, among researchers primarily leaning upon natural sciences, and the ones regarding material culture as the product of cultural processes. Archaeometry is widely applicable in ceramology, above all in identifying the pottery recipes, raw material provenance, firing regimes, and many other aspects that are the consequences of various cultural practices. Maybe paradoxically, the researchers leaning towards natural sciences have most frequently embraced the concept of technological choices, presupposing that every human activity is the consequence of social relations, leading artisans to choose one of several technical possibilities, depending upon social norms. On the other hand, ethno-archaeological research relativizes to a certain extent the “solid” and unambiguous results of natural sciences, more readily accepting the concept of technological style, i.e. considering the socially influenced technological traditions. The concept of archaeological biomarkers, i.e. research into the remains of organic matters on ceramic vessels, indicates the differences between the scientistically oriented European archaeology, as opposed to the North American, dominated by the anthropological dimension of research, and pottery is not treated as a mere source of data, but as an object of research in its own right.
An additional difficulty in pottery studies is presented by the essential misunderstanding between archaeologists and natural scientists, also present in Serbia. We are still faced with the insufficient knowledge of possibilities of analytical techniques. On the other hand, the majority of research is conducted by the natural scientists, resulting in one-sided or multidisciplinary outcomes, and interdisciplinary studies are extremely rare. At the same time, although with exceptional possibilities, natural sciences applied to the research into the past are not infallible, and have been criticized on several levels, concerning the issues of raw material provenance, as well as identifying the remains of organic material on pottery vessels. Interdisciplinarity should undoubtedly be considered as an advantage in archaeological research, but we should bear in mind that the aim of pottery studies is the understanding of people and processes in the past, so the ultimate responsibility of interpretation rests upon archaeologists. For this very reason, they are obliged to understand the advantages as well as limitations of analytic techniques, and above all to formulate the theoretical framework, research topics and hypotheses.
If the object of research is Neolithic ceramics, it would seem that the researcher is at a loss when it comes to illuminating certain social aspects of the manufacture of pottery. In archaeological ...inquiry the artisan always remain “invisible”, even though their identities are crucial in the reconstruction of social relations. Thus, if we wish to identify the gender and social standing of artisans in the deeper layers of history, we must turn to ethnoarchaeological and anthropological research.
A number of ethnoarchaeological and anthropological studies confirms the conclusion that pottery can be considered a female occupation in non-industrialized societies. However it seems that a rough, gender-based division of production to non-specialized – female and specialized – male, is too simplified. According to this point of view, women engage in pottery only when they have no other work to do – be it household chores or agricultural labor, and they produce pottery only to meet the needs of their own household. Ethnoarchaeological research, however, shows that women can indeed become specialized artisans.
The specialization of women can be observed in three forms: 1. In those communities where only some households engage in production of pottery, 2. In specialized communities and 3. In communities where female pottery makers belong to specific social groups.
Based on anthropological research, we can assume that the adoption of pottery is directly linked to the gender based division in everyday activities. Beliefs, rituals and taboos connected to the production of pottery which have been ethnographically documented, and wherein the production of pottery is equated with the shift in the life cycle, birth and death, only serve to vouch for the identity of the artisan in the earliest ceramic communities.
Numerous Neolithic sites from the territory of modern Serbia and adjacent areas have traditionally been attributed, on the grounds of the archaeological finds, to two “cultures” – Starčevo and Vinča. ...Their definition and relative-chronological demarcation have been based upon the extreme abundance of pottery finds; unsurprisingly, the issues of transition between “early” and “late” Neolithic have also been treated from the culture-historical point of view, above all according to the qualities of shards. Differing opinions concerning the role of the Central Balkans in the process of transition led to several different solutions to the problem. On one hand, the “Vinča migration” has been postulated, leading to dislocation of the autochthonous population of the Starčevo culture towards north and northwest; this scenario includes conflicts, though some authors suggested peaceful coexistence of the newcomers and the locals. On the other hand, the region of the Central Balkans has been considered as the centre in which the Vinča culture evolved from the Starčevo one, in the internal process. The concept of “Vinčanization” has been introduced, paradoxically used by the proponents of both interpretations: in the first instance in the sense of violent colonization, and in the second one to describe a peaceful transformation without the interference of external influences. The third solution, aiming at compromise, suggests that the Vinča culture is the consequence of migrations as well as diffusion, so the late phases of Starčevo are simultaneous to the earliest Vinča phase. Although the issues of genesis of cultural groups have played the central role in interpretations of prehistoric phenomena, the interpretations are primarily based upon pottery finds. It is worth noting that in the case of the Starčevo – Vinča sequence, the same elements are stressed as crucial arguments of both mutually conflicted positions: “biconization” of shapes, techniques of surface roughening (barbotine), ornamentation execution.
The inadequacies of the traditional archaeological approach to Neolithic transition are particularly apparent in two points:
The obligatory emphasis upon typology as the only methodological procedure, resulting in the approach to ceramics as the completely autonomous element, not dependent upon people or social ordering. Defining the “transitory” types also blurs the identification of hybrids – one of the most important elements in understanding the transitory periods;
The need to clearly differentiate between Starčevo and Vinča cultures in vertical sequence, and the refusal to consider the possibility that this need not be the case.
By the end of 1990s, the issue of the Neolithic transition has been totally neglected, in spite of the fact that extensive field research has been conducted since then and a number of new sites have been identified. On the other hand, the current archaeological approaches treating the variability of archaeological material (pottery) and interpretation based upon the analysis of technological style with the aim to identify social groups, i.e. group identities, would be highly appropriate for the study of transition processes. Pottery is still crucial, but not as a corpus of material with certain typological characteristics, but as a source of information on socially conditioned practices (techniques of production, ways of learning and transferring knowledge), as the consequences of specific traditions. The research into the problem of the Neolithic transition from this angle would offer answers to crucial, but yet unresolved questions.
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