neolithic houses in yugoslavia

8/6/2019 Neolithic Houses in Yugoslavia

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~1(lgnet()111eterLocutionof

By ALAN McPHERRON and ELIZABETH K. RALPH

The first cesium magnetometer survey ofprehistoric sites in Yugoslavia was carried out byElizabeth K. Ralph in June 1969, on Neolithicsites being excavated under the joint directionof Drs. Alan McPherron, University of Pitts-burgh, and Dragoslav Srejovic, University ofBelgrade. Our aim was to see if the pattern ofhouses in a prehistoric village could be deter-mined before digging. The results were spectac-ularly successful: we discovered whole rows ofmagnetic anomalies and testing by excavationconfirmed that they were in fact house floors.The work shows that magnetometers are power-ful tools in furthering the aims of modern arch-aeological research, even at sites as early as4,000 B.C.Neolithic cultures in Yugoslavia are wellknown among specialists because of their ele-gant ceramics and sophisticated human figurines.In Serbia, where the study was conducted, theearliest known Neolithic farming culture is calledStarcevo and its painted pottery shows relation-ships with that of Greece and Bulgaria, areasthrough which the farming way of life, based onsuch domesticated foods and animals as wheat,barley, sheep, cattle, and pigs, was diffusing

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from its center of origin in the Near East. Radio-carbon dates indicate that Starcevo beganaround 5500 B.C. in the Serbian part of Yugo-slavia. Around 4500 B.c., Starcevo gave wayto a Late Neolithic culture called Vinca. An ap-parently indigenous development, Vinca is oneof a number of contemporary local cultures withdistinctive styles of pottery and figurines, all ofthem seeming to indicate somewhat improvedadaptations to the local environmental condi-tions of south and central Europe.Despite the fact that we know quite a bitabout the pottery and other artifacts made by theStarcevo and Vinca peoples, we know very littleabout how they lived. Except for the systematicexcavations carried out years ago by Vasic atthe type-site of Vinca, a tell on the Danube nearBelgrade, no site has been dug extensivelyenough to yield data on the nature of settlement-that is, on the spacial distribution of housesand other structures, storage facilities, and areaswhere specialized activities were carried out.Also, we know next to nothing about the reasons

why particular spots were selected for settlement.Such information can be obtained only throughlarge-scale excavation carried out with a high

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ITALY

TYRRHENIANSEA

- ' ~'b-C : J ' lf Belgrade

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Zagreb

YUGOSLAVIA B elgrad e

ADRIATICSEA

ALBANIA

IONIANSEA

GREECE

StarcevoVinca

U G L A.. Banja

Rajae~Divostin ... KRAGUJEVACGrivae

~ Dobrovodiea

Lepinski Vir ~

v I A

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keeping separate the superimposed levels thatplague the digging of deeply stratified tells. Onesite in this area, Divostin, about 100 km. southof Belgrade and 10 km. west of Kragujevac, wasselected for extensive and intensive investigationsin a project organized by Drs. McPherron andSrcjovic. Generous financial support was ob-tained-in local currency (Yugoslav dinars)from the Smithsonian Institution's Foreign Cur-rency Program, and in U. S. dollars from theNational Science Foundation (Grant Nos.8-0592 and GS-2218 respectively). Digging atDivostin began in September 1968 and con-tinued for six months, with a break during thewinter.

Divostin, at the present time, is a smallSerbian farming village, where the local peopleraise corn, wheat, tree fruits and other crops,and keep cattle, sheep, and pigs. They also dis-till and consume impressive quantities of thefamous national drink schlivovits, a plum brandy.From the scatter of materials on the surface, theexistence of a large Neolithic site underlyingmost of the contemporary houses and fields hadbeen known for years and it was also known tohave Starcevo and Vinca occupations that werea little different stylistically from one studiedpreviously in central Serbia.

The excavations in 1968-69 soon revealedthat while the Starcevo occupation was poorly pre-served (for the most part only in the form of rub-bish pits dug into the subsoil), the Vinca levelwas remarkably well preserved, with nearly intacthouse floors that appeared in the form of rec-tangles, up to 6 by 18 meters in plan, made ofpounded earth and straw that had burned into abrick-red material like crumbly pottery. When thehouses were burned-whether by accident or de-sign is uncertain-the floors were rendered imper-ishable and were thus preserved along with whatlay on them at the time of burning: baked elayhearths, packed-earth bins and work areas, potteryvessels, loom weights, milling stones, flint toolsand flaking debris. The pottery yield from onehouse was over eighty reconstructible vessels,which is even more impressive if one considers thatfloors were encountered sometimes as little as 20centimeters under the surface. Fortunately, thesite had been plowed only superficially with ox-drawn plows. Had a modern tractor-drawn plowbeen used once, the site would have been de-stroyed.

House floors, found so well preserved, areimportant for a number of reasons. First, theymake it easy to study the patterns of settlement onthe site. Second, the distribution of materials inhouses provides a remarkable record of the activi-

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ties that were being performed at the time of burn-ing. When comparisons from house to house aremade, using modem multivariate statistical tech-niques performed on computers, inferences can bemade about such non-material aspects of life onthe site as the social units that existed, family life,and the organization of work. Similar studies haveb~en ~arried out successfully for rooms in pre-histone pueblos of our Southwest. Third, archaeo-magnetic dating can be applied to the fired floorsand baked clay hearths, because their magneticproperties reflect parameters of the earth's mag-netic field at the time of burning.

The Yugoslavian Geomagnetic Institute, atDr. McPherron's request, brought a proton mag-netometer to Divostin in October 1968, and welearned that the house floors and hearths wereeasy to detect with such instruments. The crewfrom the Institute surveyed a portion of the siteand located a number of anomalies-areas withpronounced magnetic properties. In every case,when such anomalies were excavated, a housefloor was found. Thus it appeared that magne-tometer surveying could make it possible to map awhole site, at least as far as burned houses wereconcerned, before digging.

This successful survey made it obvious thatit would be worthwhile to conduct more extensivemagnetometer surveys at Divostin and at otherNeolithic sites with similar burned house floors.Therefore, Dr. McPherron invited Miss Ralph tocome in the spring of 1969 with the MASCA(Museum Applied Science Center for Archaeol-ogy) cesium magnetometers. The big advantageof these magnetometers is that, with them, areascan be covered much more rapidly. Also, thoughthis was of little importance here, they are moresensitive.

Two types of cesium magnetometers, bothmanufactured bv Varian Associates, were used.One utilizes the ~precision readout which was de-signed and built especially for MASCA for use inthe search for Svbaris and has been describedpreviously (Expedition. Vol. 7, No.2, Winter,1965). The other has a simplified audio readout.With this, the instrument crew can walk in linesat a fast pace and simply listen for anomalies. Weused this to delineate the extent of anomalies atsites or, in their absence, to eliminate areas with-out anomalies very rapidly. After the preliminaryaudio exploration, we laid out grids in the areasof interest, to be covered in detail with the pre-cision readout.

The site at Divostin was covered thoroughlyin twelve grids insofar as ripening wheat fields andcontemporary buildings permitted. In these grids,which covered 50,000 square meters, fifteen pro-

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S Divostin G 'densor H . h rt #5tg t 7 .'Average B ' 5 em .ase R ."approximate! 4 ~admg,y 0 units.

0

0C J 0 0 0

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nounced anomalies as well asmany lesser ones were found.Three of the large anomalies wereconfirmed by excavation as beingrepresentative of burned Neo-lithic house floors. The largeanomaly in grid No. 5 and thehouse floor revealed upon exca-vation are shown in the accom-panying illustrations. In thephotograph, one sees also a fewsmaller anomalies ( the regionswith closely spaced contours ofequal magnetic intensity), but inthis and in the other grids madeat Divostin the anomalies arescattered, that is, they do notform any particular patterns.

At two pure Starcevo sitesin the vicinity of Divostin, themagnetometer results were nega-tive because of the absence ofburned earth. However, at twoother sites with Vinta occupa-tions the results were in one case(Rajac) good, and in the other(Grivac), downright spectacular.

Grivac, another site, likeDivostin, with both Starcevo andVinca components, is about 20km. west of Divostin, and in June1969, two test squares were exca-vated there under the auspices ofthe Divostin Project by Dr.Branko Gavela of the Universityof Belgrade, who had dug theresome years before. His investiga-tions produced corners of twoburned Vinca houses, one in eachsquare, at depths of about onemeter and each with an evenmore massive layer of fired-earthfloor than at Divostin.

Miss Ralph did a detailedsurvey of an area about 100 by140 meters at Grivac, or perhaps a

Burned floor of Neolithic house #99(approximately 12 meters long)cted by magnetometer in Divostin #5.

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Grivac Grid #1.Contour Interval,50 units;

1 unit approximately0.5 gamma.

Base Reading,80,000 units(plotted as 0).

Sensor Height, 75 em.Stippling =

magnetic anomaliesgreater than80,100 units.

Diagonal hatching =magnetic anomaliesless than 79.950 units.

/~I )C~"APPROXIMATE LOCA"

OF EXCAVATIONS, 19

sixth of the whole site, as determined by rapid ex-ploration with the audio readout. The drawing onthis page shows the results of one grid. One seesa patterned and orderly disposition of anomaliesthat can be reasonably interpreted as parallel rowsof houses on the basis of the Divostin work and the

two excavated Grivac house floors. Such orderedrows of houses are even more impressive if oneean extrapolate from the surveyed area to the en-tire site.

The situation at Divostin and at Grivac andpossibly Rajac (not yet excavated) is certainly un-

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common, in that one would not expect every Neo-lithic site to have burned house floors in a goodstate of preservation, and it is clearly importantthat further magnetometer work coupled with ex-cavation be done in the area. A number of ques-tions arise immediately from inspection of theGrivac grids of anomalies:

( 1) Does the system of parallel rows extendto the rest of the site?(2) Does each anomaly actually represent ahouse?(3) Are all houses identical in terms of sizeand function?

Why are all the houses apparentlybu~ed here (there hardly seems roomto fit in any hypothetical unburned ones

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on the map), whereas at Divostin thiswas not the case. Also some housesexcavated at Divostin could be detectedonly when the subsoil was reached.Then, the foundation trenches for theirwalls were revealed by their differentsoil colors.

We hope that these questions can be an-swered by more extensive magnetometer work,especially at Grivac, followed by test excavations.Careful interpretation of anomalies, both large andsmall, may help to maximize the potentials pro-vided by the powerful tool of magnetometer sur-veying while minimizing the biasing effect causedby the fact that magnetometers can detect onlycertain types of archaeological features. ~

SUGGESTED READINGS. PIGGOTT, Ancient Europe from the Beginnings ofAgriculture to Classical Antiquity, Chapter2. Aldine Pubishing Company, Chicago,1965.COLIN RENFREW, The Arts of the First Farmers.Sheffield City Museum, Sheffield, England,1969.

L. TRIFUNOVlt, Editor, Les R(;?ions Centrales desBalkans (I I'Epoque N(;olithique. (In Serbo-croatian, with French summaries.) NationalMuseum, Belgrade, 1968.H. T. WATERBOLK,"Food Production in PrehistoricEurope." Science, Vol. 162, pp. 1093-1102,December 6, 1968.

ELIZABETH K. RALPH, Associate Directorof the Museum Applied Science Center forArchaeology (MASCA) and a Research As-sociate in Physics, has been on the staff ofthe University of Pennsylvania since 1951,Previously she had worked for seven years foran electronics firm where her duties includedcontrol of electroplating and heat treating,design and supervision of electrical inspectionequipment, development of electronic appa-ratus, and miscellaneous production engineer-ing. The present projects of MASCA includeC-14 dating, tree-ring dating, experiments withthe thcrrnolurninescent technique of datingpottery, and the use and development of in-struments for underground exploration. Thelatter endeavor has taken Miss Ralph on fieldtrips in Italy, Ireland, Mexico, and Yugoslavia.ALAN McPHERRON, Associate Professor inthe Department of Anthropology of the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh, attended the Unversityof Chicago and the University of Michigan,receiving his Ph.D. from the latter in 1967.He has excavated at Teotlhuacdn, Mexico andin Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Heis the author of a monograph, The JuntunenSite and the Late Woodland Prehistory of theUpper Great Lakes Area, published by theUniversity of Michigan. He first went toYugoslavia in 1966, studying museum collec-tions, visiting sites, and consulting with Yugo-slav archaeologists. Later, he returned for fif-teen months of excavations and study. Herehe is seen with Dr. Sreiovii' studying the burnedhouse [ioor at Divostin,

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neolithic houses in yugoslavia

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