symposium timisoaraten years after: the neolithic of the balkans uncovered by the last decade of...

TEN YEARS AFTER: THE NEOLITHIC OF THE BALKANS,AS UNCOVERED BY THE LAST DECADE OF RESEARCH

MVSEVM BANATICVMTEMESIENSE

BIBLIOTHECA HISTORICAET ARCHAEOLOGICA

BANATICA

XLIX

Edenda curavitDr. Florin Draºovean

TIMIªOARA MMIX

THE MUSEUM OF BANAT

TEN YEARS AFTER:THE NEOLITHIC OF THE BALKANS,

AS UNCOVEREDBY THE LAST DECADE OF RESEARCH

Proceedings of the Conference held at theMuseum of Banat on November 9th-10th, 2007

Edited byFlorin Draºovean, Dan Leopold Ciobotaru and Margaret Maddison

Editura MarineasaTimiºoara 2009

CUPRINS / CONTENTS

John Nandriº, Foreword. Towards Another Decade of Endeavour .............................................. 7

John Nandriº, Ethnoarchaeological Attitudes ........................................................................... 11

Ma³gorzata Kaczanowska, Janus K.Koz³owski, The Spread of the First Temperate Neolithicacross the Balkans as Seen from the Perspective of Macroblade Technology .......................... 17

Ivan Gatsov, Petranka Nedelcheva, Rana Özbal, Fokke Gerritsen, Prehistoric Barcin Höyük: 2007Excavations and Chipped Stone Artifact Analysis ..................................................................... 35

Stratis Papadopoulos, Questions about Neolithic Chronology in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace,Northern Greece ........................................................................................................................ 49

Alexander Chohadzhiev, The Hotnitsa Tell �– 50 Years Later. Eight Years of New Excavations �–Some Results and Perspectives .................................................................................................. 67

Marcel Buriæ, Tihomila Te�žak-Gregl, Bapska, a Late Neolithic Settlement in Eastern Croatia �– aNew Project ................................................................................................................................ 85

Pál Raczky, Archaeological Data on Space Use at a Tell-Like Settlement of the Tisza Culture(New Results from Öcsöd�–Kováshalom, Hungary ................................................................... 101

Ma³gorzata Kaczanowsk, Janusz K. Koz³owski, Pál Sümegi, Lithic Industries from the Öcsöd�–Kováshalom Tell-Like Settlement in Hungary ......................................................................... 125

Zsófia E. Kovács, Erika Gál, Animal Remains from the Site Öcsöd�–Kováshalom .................. 151

Ferenc Horváth, Comments on the Tells in the Carpathian Basin: Terminology, Classification andFormation ................................................................................................................................ 159

Renato Nisbet, New Evidence of Neolithic and Copper Age Agriculture and Wood Use inTransylvania and the Banat (Romania) ................................................................................... 167

Gheorghe Lazarovici, The Zau Culture ................................................................................... 179

Wolfram Schier, Tell Formation and Architectural Sequence at Late Neolithic Uivar(Romania) ................................................................................................................................ 219

Barbara Dammers, Ceramics and Cultural Identity between the Balkans and Middle Europe: theVinèa C Site of Uivar (Romanian Banat) ................................................................................. 235

Florin Draºovean, Cultural Relationships in the Late Neolithic of the Banat ......................... 259

D. Kiosak, The Flint Inventory of the Sabatynivka 1 Site (Trypillia B1) ................................ 275

Svend Hansen, Meda Toderaº, Agathe Reingruber, Pietrele. A Chalcolithic Settlement on theLower Danube River ................................................................................................................ 289

Yavor Boyad�žiev, Matrimonial Relations in the Chalcolithic Based on Data from Cemeteriesfrom Northeastern Bulgaria ..................................................................................................... 311

Dragomir Nicolae Popovici, New Data Concerning the Gumelniþa Culture to the North of theDanube in the Light of Recent Research .................................................................................. 323

Dragoº Diaconescu, Tiszapolgár Culture in Romania. The Present State of Research ........... 329

FOREWORDTowards another Decade of Endeavour.

The Symposium which gathered in Timiºoara in November 2007, to assess the outcome of adecade of research into the Neolithic of the Balkans, reflected the truly international scope of ourefforts to create a better understanding of this crucial and formative aspect of our commonEuropean culture. The participants came not just from the host country Romania, but also fromBulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Hungary, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Serbia, and theUkraine.

All the participants are indebted to the efforts of the organizers, especially Paolo Biagi, DanCiobotaru, Florin Draºovean and Michela Spataro. The international nature of the Sponsorship isconfirmed by the appreciation which is due to Venice University (Centro Interdipartimentale diStudi Balcanici of the Università Ca�’ Foscar, and the Dipartimento di Scienze dell�’Antichità e delVicino Oriente) ; the Centro Studi e Richerche Ligabue Venezia ; the Consolato Generale d�’Italiaa Timiºoara ; Direcþia pentru Culturã, Culte ºi Patrimoniul Cultural Naþional a judeþului Timiº;Consiliul Judeþean Timiº and Muzeul Banatului Timiºoara.

The outcome of these efforts was both congenial and academically profitable, in a city ofbroad Romanian hospitality and culture both old and new. This was aptly symbolized in thegleaming steel monument by Paul Neagu in Piaþa Victoriei, standing between the Cathedral andthe rich collections from antiquity which are contained in the Museum of the Banat. This culturaldimension of the city was given further emphasis by a joint exhibition of the drawings of PaulNeagu and Horia Bernea, which spoke to me personally, since I shared the same date of birth withthese considerable artists, and we mourn them both as friends.

The meeting opened with a charming recital by young Romanian musicians, and culminatedin a cogent final discussion. In every way the gathering was a demonstration that ourarchaeological activities are not just a matter of ticking boxes to satisfy bureaucratic exigency butare, like every scientific endeavour, a collegiate social undertaking which reinforces humaninteraction and mutual understanding.

It is not necessary to summarize individual papers, since that is the remit of this publication.A few general observations on the outcome may however be in order, drawing especially on thefinal discussion as a statement of our aspirations for the future of the topic. These unsystematicreactions to points arising from the meeting in no way imply that other sites or papers notmentioned by name are not of equal importance.

For clarity I confine myself to listing five potential areas for future research, which seemed tome to emerge during the final discussion. It may be that over the next ten years we can give anadditional push in these directions, while continuing work in progress. As desirable objectivesthey do nothing to minimize the achievements outlined in these Proceedings, and I certainly hopethey are not exclusive of other possibilities.

They are the study of :1. The First Temperate Neolithic ( FTN)2. Comparative Ethnoarchaeology (EA) ; integrated with visual and experimental archaeology,

and replication. Material culture as social signals.3. The Organic dimensions of prehistoric culture.4. Landscape Archaeology.5. Environmental reconstruction ; together with with laboratory-basedstudies, such as thin sectioning or advances in lithic technology.It is clear that some of these demand serious resources and facilities, for example

environmental reconstruction, or thin sectioning. Others are first and foremost mental attitudes.Several papers dealt with aspects of the FTN, the first fully-formed Neolithic of the temperate

zone, certainly within Europe and probably more widely. It is gratifying to see this locally-differentiated but unitary phenomenon being given the attention it deserves. This may be one ofthe most heartening developments of the last decade. Kozlowski�’s presentation of the lithicmaterial from the Tisza culture of Öcsöd, along with the work of Kaczanowska, placed thediscussion in a very much wider context, including the FTN whose lithics are when it comes to

TEN YEARS AFTER: THE NEOLITHIC OF THE BALKANS, AS UNCOVERED BY THE LAST DECADE OF RESEARCH,TIMIªOARA, 2009. Edited by Florin Draºovean, Dan Leopold Ciobotaru and Margaret Maddison

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it a blade-and-trapeze industry. He has elsewhere outlined the long-term background of theAegean and late Glacial, which were so significant for the FTN. Biagi drew attention to the factthat the FTN has both Carpathian and Slovak obsidians, eg., from Silagiu and ªeuºa. Spataro gavea cogent account from 78 samples, of the thin-sectioning and dating, of the important FTN site ofGura Baciului, where pottery production was stable for eight hundred years. Gatsov enlarged thediscussion of the distinctive FTN of Bulgaria with a welcome consideration of eight or moreAnatolian sites, while Papadopoulos outlined the neolithic chronology of the connective zones ofeastern Macedonia and Thrace.

The study of the FTN in short unifies the efforts of all the south-east European countries tounderstand the emergence of the Neolithic throughout the area. As an adaptive mediator betweenMediterranean and Temperate Europe, at a time of increasing vegetational productivity, it iscrucial for the emergence of the European Neolithic. Even better integration of the phenomenonof the FTN should be one of the archaeological objectives of the next decade.

Comparative Ethnoarchaeology, always moving to and fro between the past and the present,goes a long way towards compensating both for deficiencies of the archaeological imagination,and for poor organic preservation. It is an inexpensive field methodology which illuminatesaspects of choice and behaviour inaccessible to conventional archaeology. Its most fruitfulapplication has been in the Anglo-Romanian collaborations of the Highland ZoneEthnoarchaeology Project. The term �“comparative�” draws attention to the fact that outwardlyinsignificant sites acquire meaning when the evidence collected from them at first hand isintegrated more widely. Experimental Archaeology and Replication, along with the VisualAnthropology of our photographic records over several decades, comprise valuable ancillarytechniques in EA.. Romania has also already set an example to Europe with its recording of OralTestimony to a Time of Sorrows, Memoriile Durerilor. None of these techniques require immenseresources. In all of Europe, Romania is outstandingly rich in ethnoarchaeological evidence, andhas led the way in incorporating this with the archaeology into its museum displays and universityteaching.

It has been emphasized by Nandriº that the Sibylline Book of Ethnoarchaeology is a fadingresource, as changes and regulations intervene. The millennial practice of the pastoral techno-complex of the Carpathians is gratuitously menaced by an un-comprehending and distantEuropean bureaucracy. The integrity of the villages and customs of the Maramureº is ineluctablyeroded by modernity. The pastures and villages, especially of the Highland Zone, remaininvaluable sources for our understanding of our own past and future. By accepting this Romaniangift to European self-knowledge we may yet hoep to grasp the importance of non-utilitarianfunctionality ; of obedience to the unenforceable limits of social convention ; and of the supra-functional dimensions of material culture operating as social symbols. It is a matter of someurgency to pursue the further study of Romanian ethnoarchaeology at first hand, before the tracesfinally vanish. No study is more democratic than archaeology sensu lato, in giving credit to theachievements of the modest but effective people who shaped Europe.

The elusive organic dimension of prehistoric culture represents a regrettable distortion of ourview of the Neolithic, which it would be well to rectify. Careful excavation can produce hints,such as the wattle, wooden beams and planks at Hotnica. The ground water which hindered theexcavation of the lower levels of Hotnica ought perhaps to be regarded as more of an opportunitythan an impediment. Taken together there is already a substantial body of evidence for organicmaterials. Nisbet has made valuable archaeobotanical contributions, and ethnoarchaeology cansupplement the evidence for actual artefacts. In his consideration of gender relationshipsBoyad�žiev makes the point that female tools relating to such activities as weaving were usuallyorganic, and like the weaveries themselves have not survived. In general we need to make apositive effort to find prehistoric sites offering the conditions for organic preservation.

Landscape archaeology takes sites out of the bureau, off the veranda, and into the real world.It considers the placing of sites in their environment, together with their resource zonations andsite catchment. It would include a better understanding of �“tell�” settlements and �“hill forts�” (Cf.eg., Cucuteni, and the Hungarian cases studied by Horváth) including their formation, and thesymbolic value in social terms of the contrasting landscape monuments of eastern and westernEurope. These are artefacts of behaviour, and signifiers of European identity. Even the houses ofthe Neolithic posessed symbolic value not inferior to a Japanese temple.

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For Uivar, Schier presented an integrated and informative archaeological excavation of whatmust surely become a classic site. It relates to Vinèa C, but with interesting outward reference,such as the ramps leading out of the site. These recall the Gumelniþa of Ovèarovo in Bulgaria andmay indicate some form of transport such as the sled or travois. As at Uivar ; Ovèarovo,Poljanitsa, Delèevo, &cc., are small highly concentrated sites with closely aligned houses, and weseek the social significance of this. There are also more upper floors in the Neolithic than wemight have supposed. At Pietrele, Hansen even has an oven on the second level.

Within a similar time frame Lazarovici has been elucidating the late Neolithic of the Banat,and his reconstruction of the symbolic site of Parþa forms a major feature of the museum. Did thecinnabar on the red-painted Banat Culture pottery, and/or at Uivar, come from Avala? - and whatsocial relationships were involved in its re-distribution ? Dammers has noted that potters wereproducing quite discrete pottery styles at Uivar. This situation can be paralleled in theethnoarchaeology of Romania, where occupational village potter was always male, and willing toproduce in the styles of different customers, which casts doubt on some of the more literalist linesof archaeological reasoning about pottery styles. But then the five burnishing pebbles found bySchier and Draºovean at Uivar remind us that the potter buried in the Boian culture cemetery ofCernica, with her cherished burnishing pebble, was a woman. In this manner we continue toengender fruitful comparisons, and remind ourselves that the past may have been unimaginablydifferent.

John Nandriº, FSA

ETHNOARCHAEOLOGICAL ATTITUDES

John Nandriº*

Keywords: Neolithic, Ethnoarchaeology, pastoralism.

The international 2007 Timiºoara Symposium covered an impressive range of research into thesouth-east European Neoithic during the last decade. Even to summarize the topics, let alone dojustice to the work of individual contributors, would not be easy. The 2007 Symposium endedwith a general discussion of ways forward for Neolithic studes in our area. I hope this paper maybe accepted as a brief meditation on Ethnoarchaeology as an intrinsic component of futureresearch. It does no more than draw attention once more to the importance of the Ethnoarchaeo-logical Attitude in Prehistoric studies. It is not possible here to consider the detail of site plansand associated data from well over two decades of fieldwork in the highland zone.

The collaborative fieldwork carried out over that period in Romania by the Highland ZoneComparative Ethnoarchaeology Project [HZCEP] received only brief mention at the Symposium.I would have liked like to acknowledge fully my chief collaborators in the field, especially ProfGh Lazarovici, but in reality there is a long list which extends back to Professors Constantin andHadrian Daicoviciu, Prof Mihail Dâncuº, the organizers of the Timiºoara Symposium themselves,and very many others. I can only beg their indulgence on grounds of space. I must acknowledgefunding received from the sources including the British Academy, the Romanian Academy, theWenner-Gren Foundation, the Society of Antiquaries, UCL, and the Central Research Fund ofLondon University.

Among future lines of enquiry the 2007 Symposium saw the need ideally:

to exploit the rapidly-metamorphosing ethnoarchaeological evidence;

to seek to recover more of the organic dimension of our cultures;

to place sites in their context through environmental reconstruction, dating, site catchmentand resource zonation;

to explore the symbolic functions of �“tell�” settlement in the archaeology of landscape;

to define the supra-functional dimension of material culture operating as social symbols;and

to encourage experimental archaeology and the replication of artefacts and behaviour.

Comparative Ethnoarchaeology

Rapid change and destruction of evidence affects both the social and natural environments.The rich material written in the Sibylline Book of south-east European Comparative Ethnoarch-aeology must be included among future research objectives before the evidence disappears. Wewill try to define the scope of Comparative Ethnoarchaeology, which is independent of anyAmerican or other usage of the term ethnoarchaeology, or of what is termed ethnohistory.

Archaeology scrutinises the long-term processes of change in environment, economy,technology and the bio-social sphere through time and space which are documented by afragmentary material record. Archaeologists must take pride in having developed methodologiesfor dealing with imperfect data ; by contrast with attempts by the social sciences to make sense

* Oxford, UK, [email protected].


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of an over-abundance of actual data. Archaeological data somewhat resembles time-lapsephotography of a growing plant. The frames of the film may be the data from an excavation ; butwe cannot even always be certain that we observe the same plant. Artefacts and sites are theoutcome of behaviour which we cannot observe directly. Contemporaneity of sites even to withina generation is rare, so that even the supposed patterns seen on most distribution maps are asillusory as the constellations in the sky.

Ethnoarchaeology deals with evidence for the material outcome of behaviour which can beobserved in existing traditional practice, and seeks to exploit this in the service of scientificarchaeology. Information may sometimes be gained from documentary or oral sources, and thebasis of ethnoarchaeology is first-hand observation in the field. The techniques which we haveevolved are highly economical by comparison with eg., excavation.

Comparative Ethnoarchaeology elicits patterns of interpretation from often small andapparently insignificant sites by wider comparison. It includes one of the few approximations toexperimental technique to be found in archaeology, namely the investigation of deserted, evenburied, sites whose previous occupants are still available for interview. Comparison of therespective interpretations of the archaeologist and the recollections of the ex-occupants oftenreveal that neither is infallible. In this way interpretation is refined. The recording in detail by theHZCEP of upland sites such as the Romanian stîne [which are sheepfolds as components in ahierarchy of seasonal sites] yields interpretations which alternate between the present and theprehistoric, in consideration of different mechanisms for the seasonal exploitation of highlandzone resources. An ethnoarchaeological site may be defined as any site at which it is possible toobserve the material outcome of behaviour in course of formation, and to place this in anexplanatory framework. This is a more carefully considered process than the exploitation ofethnographic evidence for its comparative value, or what used to be referred to as �“ethnographicparallels�”. We seek to understand the exigencies of a mode of behaviour, especially theadaptations of its social determinants, to long-term processes of change.

Traditional practice never ceases to amaze and enlighten by revealing the ingenuity whichensured that our ancestors featured in the archaeological record. It confirms the insufficiency ofdesk-bound interpretations which merely reflect the researchers�’ own cultural parameters. It hasbeen said that a �“Conservative�” is simply a �“Liberal�” who has been assaulted by reality. AnEthnoarchaeologist could be seen as an Archaeologist who has undergone a similar experience.

First-hand observation of the formation of the material outcome of behaviour is an attribute ofethnoarchaeology which cannot be derived from other archaeological sources. Among the firstlessons we learned was that the smallest and outwardly simplest of sites, among for example thestîne of the Carpathians, are highly complex. They often comprise a palimpsest of re-utilisation andtransformation, within a complex of socio-economic relationships. Their social forms can not bederived literally from their morphology, as archaeology often seeks to do ; but their morphology andcontents may well confirm the known nature of the sites, which gives hope to the archaeologist.

The technology and terminology of the Romanian stîna are spatio-temporally widespreadthroughout south-east Europe, from the Aromâni of the Pindus to the Gorale of the PolishCarpathians, or the Morlachs of Dalmatia. This constitutes a distinctively European mode ofbehaviour which, viewed in the broadest perspective, is related to the ancient near-easternpastoral technocomplexes; although we have to bear in mind that these last often represent theuptake of pastoralism by formerely settled societies. Paradoxically a more secure antecedent lieswith Palaeolithic Drive-Site techniques, and those experiments with man-animal relationshipswhich took place in the Near East during the early Holocene [eg., with Gazella and Dama].Central to these relationships was the Dog, the earliest domesticate, whose territorialty remainscentral to behaviour at the stîna.

Economic and social relationships, which ought to have supplied a context for our stîna sites,were so grossly and systematically distorted during the decades of Soviet domination in easternEurope that it was not realistic to take them literally. The stîna inhabited by a few old men andboys does not represent the flourishing pastoralism which could be sustained by the extensivepasture-lands created by the peneplanation [Borescu surfaces] of the Carpathian summits. The re-animation of Romanian pastoralism is now further threatened by petty regulations created byEuropean bureaucrats, apparently contemptuous of tradition, and ignorant of the reality of asuccessful adaptation which goes back for millennia.

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This interference confirms that the highlands do not exist in dissociation from the macro-economic and political context of the lowlands ; and this was true even in the Palaeolithic. Itemphasizes the poverty and decline of once-flourishing pastoral systems under the reactionarySoviet Empire, whose exploitation of its colonies stunted and isolated every aspect of economy,technology and society independent of altitude. The highly-evolved technology of pastoralism wasmore succesful when allowed to operate freely by the political context. The absence of frontiersunder the Ottoman Empire opened out the landscape to Aromân pastoralists, and encourageddemand for meat and wool in Constantinople, under the patronage of the Valide Sultan1.

Material evidence is the domain of archaeology, but it is of little value without anunderstanding of the social and behavioural context, and the importance of the non-utilitarianfunctions in human society. The obiter dictum of Terence, Humani nil a me alienum puto2, is thebest possible ethnoarchaeological motto. No dimension of human social behaviour or belief canbe ruled out in ethnoarchaeological work, because it is precisely here that the boundaries ofarchaeology may be enlarged.

Ethnoarchaeology reminds us that archaeology itself is not exclusively about the past. Like allscientific thinking it arises from an emergent consensus between its twentieth-first centurypractitioners as to validity and tenability. It must take account not only of the observer but alsothe informant. Questions to informants need to be formulated with an awareness not just ofwestern anthropological methodology but of local cultural preconceptions. Not all, perhaps few,responses can be taken literally. For example during his fieldwork in Kenya, Ian Hodder describeshow he was given information about some pottery, and an estimate of 80 years for its age. Thisproved on subsequent visits to be untrue, the actual age being rarely more than 8 years3.

Ethnoarchaeology has be more than some form of human or economic geography or socialanthropology. It has to be kept in empirical contact with the special individuality of archaeology,which lies in constant re-integration of the long-term into our knowledge of change, using themethods evolved by the subject for dealing with imperfect evidence.

The ethnography of south-east European traditional societies is much more than amanifestation of regional identity, strong though this may be. It has a more universal andespecially European importance. It represents patterns of behaviour established in antiquitywhich were formerly more widely distributed in Europe, not only throughout Mediaeval but ineven earlier times. We need only look to the paintings of Breughel. Traditional culture has beenpreserved in areas such as the Maramureº or at the stîna, not because it was backward, butprecisely because it was so highly-adapted.

Europe itself has an ethnography, but just as left-wing intellectuals in the west contrived fordecades to ignore the truth about the backwardness of authoritarian socialism, so many have beenequally ill-informed about the culture of their eastern neighbours, in which this ethnographicheritage was best exemplified. The exploitation of highland zone resources by pastoral societies,and even by prehistoric hunters, was never detached in romantic isolation from macro-politicalconditions in the lowlands. The ethno-political relationship was nowhere better represented thanin a country such as Romania. Endowed with great natural riches it suffered repression andpoverty under authoritarian socialism. Paradoxically the highland zone preserved something ofthe riches of vanished European historical traditions at partial remove from the socialist attemptto control every aspect of human behaviour.

In order to enhance archaeological explanation by post-diction into European prehistory it ispreferable to look within European culture than too far outside it. It will be remembered thatGordon Childe looked to the remote ethnography of Malaysian societies for his model ofBandkeramik �“cyclic agriculture�” ; but the rapid exhaustion of tropical laterite soils proved to bea misleading analogy for temperate European conditions4.

The work of the HZEP was predicated on the assumption that ethnoarchaeological explanationderives from a relational analogy with behaviour, not just from formal analogies drawn between

1 J G Nandris 1994. The Enduring Identity, Social Being, and Material Culture of south-easternEuropean Latinity.Journal of the American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences [ Davis, California ] 19, 74-1112 Heauton Timoroumenos 773 Ian Hodder, 1982. The Present Past. Batsford Books, p.414 Cf., Modderman 1971. Bandkeramiker und Wanderbauerntum. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt, 1, 7-10

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material objects. An understanding of the role of analogy is crucial in ethnoarchaeology, but it isnot possible to consider the literature on this here, which in any case dwelt too indulgently ontheoretical implications.

The question of how to relate the experience to the data does raise theoretical problems. Inarchaeological explanation, causality seems at times to be in its infancy, with a too ready accept-ance of single-factor explanations and static models. The search for certainty led to dogmatictheories about �“stages of development�”, environmental or economic causation, or events like�“invasion�”. The intercalated dynamisms of plant ecology and animal behaviour provide a moreappropriate framework consonant with established evolutionary theory. Archaeologists have totake account of the role of the observer, and to be aware of the impact of their own values upontheir explanations. To state the theoretiocally obvious, there is no such thing as a fact aside fromits interpretation.

What exactly constitutes the identity of a human group is a question of quite fundamentalimportance for archaeology. In it is implicated a re-examination of the concept of �“cultures�”. Thiswas explored by Nandris in relation to the Jebeliyeh Bedouin of Sinai, who were sent by Justinianto Sinai in the sixth century AD from �“The Land of Vlah�” 5.

Ethnoarchaeology confirms that identity is not co-terminous with commonly understoodfundamentals of social definition, such as language, genetic inheritance, dress, appearance, orreligion ; and certainly not with the archaeological assemblages known as �“cultures�”. This vitiatesmuch archaeological explanation. The ramifications of ethnoarchaeological interpretation canextend to discussion of issues such as the nature and identity of the early Indo-Europeans, forwhich there is little archaeological evidence.

Eastern European archaeology has perpetuated the nineteenth-century assumption that cultures[in effect usually based on pottery assemblages �– �“because they are there�”] can be equated withhuman groups, envisaged on a quasi-tribal model. The ethnoarchaeological work of Hodder inKenya, or the many studies of Pueblo pottery, demonstrate how boundaries in pottery distributionare affected by social relationships and interpenetrate with social definitions. They do notinvariably coincide with the limits of social groups, and one must ask how far the situation wasdifferent during the Neolithic.

We were aware of the methodological difficulties when undertaking our fieldwork, but wecould not allow ourselves to be paralysed by them, any more than we could be deterred by thepractical difficulties of working under authoritarian socialist regimes. The ethnoarchaeologicalevidence in all its fragile variety is too important to await the definitive theoretical stance. Theevidence itself is changing too rapidly, as are explanatory fashions, and it is more urgent to savethe phenomena than to conform to the fashions. Our stance is not dogmatic, and its impact willbecome clear in time.

The mountains themselves were perceived to present a series of fascinating problems. Whilemost archaeology is lowland archaeology, the European highlands have nevertheless, since thetime at least of the epi-palaeolithic ibex hunters onwards, been exploited by man. The mountainswere able to supply autonomous resources, usually seasonally available, and to complementlowland sites. They functioned for mankind not as a barrier but as an living environment and arefuge from stress, just as they did for plant and animal species. They have preserved certainaspects of human culture just long enough for us to gain an inkling of these before they vanishinto the late twentieth-first century.

Acute logistical and practical problems arise in studying the highland zone. The sites are oftenephemeral, and overwhelmingly based on organics. They are subject to processes of erosion anddegradation which are more marked than those met with in lowland conditions, but change anddecay are themselves integral with our ethnoarchaeological subject-matter. The logistics ofworking in the mountains at altitudes up to 2500 metres are not simple; but they accurately reflectthe rewards and perils which faced man at any period, when he chose to exploit the resourcesoffered by the highland zone. The interpretation of the data from the man preserved in ice fromthe third Mbc at the Ötztal-Similaun in the north Italian Alps is in this sense pure highland zone

5 Nandris J G 1990. The Jebeliyeh of Mount Sinai and the Land of Vlah. Quaderni di Studi Arabi - 8, 45-80.Oriental Institute, Universitá degli Studi, Venice.

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ethnoarchaeology. The 2007 Timiºoara Symposium has shown that the Ethnoarchaeology andPrehistory of Romania jointly have the potential to yield further unexpected insights.

The humble agro-pastoralism still accessible to ethnoarchaeological study in the Romanianvillage exemplifies something formerly much more widespread in Europe. �“The importance ofthe Neolithic village is that it effectively continued from its small-scale beginnings, and its quitelarge-scale Climax Neolithic sites, through historical accretion and differentiation across theMiddle Ages, to underpin European civilization. The demography, economy and technology of itssettlements supplied a fertile medium for the flowering of European complexity. Its socialelaborations on the themes of domesticity and domestication gave rise to some of the most highly-polished cultural and political forms on the planet, and have been widely emulated. Thisevolutionary success cannot be dismissed as a �‘Eurocentric�’ construct, since it created conditionsfor the free expression of individual potential to which much of humanity aspires�” 6.

6 J G Nandris. Adaptive Mediation in the FTN. Società per la Preistoria e Protoistoria della Regione Friuli-Venezia Giula, Quaderno 12. Eds. Spataro & Biagi, Trieste 2007, 11-23

THE SPREAD OF THE FIRST TEMPERATE NEOLITHIC ACROSS THE BALKANSAS SEEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MACROBLADE TECHNOLOGY

Ma³gorzata Kaczanowska and Janus K.Koz³owski*

Keywords: Balkans, Early Neolithic, macroblade technology.

I. INTRODUCTION

The appearance of the first groups of Neolithic population in the Balkans has been the object ofcontroversies revolving around the relations between the immigrants and local groups of hunter-gath-erers. These controversies also concern models of the evolution of material culture which accompaniedthe introduction of a farming-breeding economy. Among the disputed issues are:

1. the hypothetical existence of the Pre-ceramic (Aceramic) phase in the Balkans and its rela-tion to the Pre-ceramic Neolithic in the Near East,

2. the first appearance of ceramics in the Balkans, primarily the question of the Monochromephase that preceded the phase with white-painted pottery,

3. the origin and diffusion of the Neolithic with white-painted ceramics, which is the first uni-form FTN horizon in the Balkans.

These questions cannot be resolved unless we take into account lithic industries that �– besidespainted ceramics �– constitute one of the markers of the FTN in the territories from Greece as far as theDanube, between the second half of the VIIIth and the second half of the VIth millenium B.C.

The problem of the Pre-ceramic Neolithic in Greece was critically reviewed by C. Perles(1989, 2001) who pointed out that the arguments in support of the existence of Pre-ceramic(aceramic) layers in the tells of Thessaly (Argissa, Gediki, Sesklo, Soufli Magoula) are question-able: these layers, indeed, contained sherds, but the small areas explored in them were the reasonwhy, in comparison with the upper settlement levels, the quantity of ceramics seemed small (Fig.1). There are arguments, on the other hand, to confirm the appearance, mainly on the Aegean Seaislands, of elements of Neolithic economy (semi-domesticated suids and caprids, intensive plantprocessing by grinding stone equipment) or even a full package of Neolithic innovations in thePre-ceramic context in the period between the middle of IXth and the first half of the VIIthmillenium (Fig. 2). The lithic industries that accompanied those innovations were derived fromlocal Mesolithic traditions. This is the case at, for example, the Cyclope Cave on the island ofGioura (Sampson - Koz³owski 1999), the site of Maroulas on the island of Kythnos (Sampson etal. 2002), layer X from Knossos �– trenches A and X (Evans 1964, 1971), and mainland sites suchas phase X (Initial Neolithic) in the Franchthi Cave (Perlès 1990, Hansen 1991). In the case ofMaroulas a large settlement with about 30 round dwelling structures with stone foundations andpavements has been identified accompanied by about 15 complete and partial graves (Fig. 4). Atnone of the sites, either in the Balkans or in the Aegean Sea basin, is evidence of contacts withthe Pre-ceramic Neolithic of the Near East registered in the technologies or typology of lithicindustries (evidence such as: naviform cores, blade points shaped by surface retouches etc.).

II. THE PROBLEM OF THE MONOCHROME PHASE

The problem of the phase with Monochrome ceramics was reported, first of all, from Bulgariawhere two sites yielded stratigraphical sequences with Monochrome ceramics below the White-painted pottery phase. These are the sites of Koprivets in north-east Bulgaria (Popov 1994) andKrainitsi in south-west Bulgaria (Stefanova 1996). Single-layer sites in northern Bulgaria such asPolyanitsa Palato and Ohoden have also been assigned to the Monochrome phase. H. Todorova


* Jagellonian University, Institute of Archaeology, Kraków, Poland. [email protected]

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(2003) believes them to represent the earliest Balkan Neolithic that embraced only some parts ofthe eastern Balkans, excluding Thrace and Dobrudza. However, in practical terms, to isolate theMonochrome phase is problematic: only fairly small areas of those sites have been explored; thepresence of monochrome sherds (just as the hypothetical lack of ceramics in the lower layers oftells in Thessaly) could be the effect of special activities carried out in the various sectors of a siteand specific discard patterns. Nonetheless, there is one argument in favour of existence of theMonochrome phase, as a discrete stage: this is the specific character of lithic industries that oc-cur in monochrome layers described by I. Gatsov (2000, 2001). At Koprivets these were flakesand flake tools exclusively, mainly notched tools from local, poor quality raw materials, whereasat Krainitsi these were only �“few pieces of flakes�”. These assemblages are different frommacroblade industries concurrent with white painted ceramics.

The hypothetical Monochrome phase at the beginning of the Neolithic in Bulgaria is believedto have been related to the Early Neolithic of north-west Turkey, notably to the archaic Fikirtepephase (Özdögan - Basgelen 1999). Similarly the flake industry from Bulgarian Monochrome sitesis considered to be similar to the industry from Hoça Ceºme in Turkish Thrace, the industry thatwas based also on local raw materials (Gatsov 2001). At Hoça Ceºme macroblade artefacts fromyellow flint imported from Bulgaria appear only in the penultimate phase (phase II).

The hypothetical migration of Monochrome ceramics population groups from Turkish Thraceand, possibly, from north-western Anatolia (associated with the archaic phase of the Fikirtepeculture) to the territory of eastern Bulgaria could not have played an important role in theneolithization of the Balkans: there is no evidence whatsoever of evolution in material culture(ceramics, stone industry) in the interval between the Monochrome phase and the Neolithic withwhite (or white-on-red) pottery.

It is believed that a monochromous phase, preceding the Protosesklo culture with white-paintedceramics, could have existed in Greece, too. This hypothesis is based on the assumption that the pre-ceramic layers in the tells of Thessaly contained few unpainted sherds. For example at Argissa a totalof 122 sherds were discovered (in spit XXXI and in the pits underneath the tell) that V. Milojèiæ (1962)believed to be intrusive. Also at Sesklo Teocharis (1963) distinguished an �“Early Neolithic I�” horizonthat contained �“primitive�” crude, unfired or poorly fired sherds. If this assumption is true �– which isquestioned by some researchers (e.g. Wijnen 1981), then this would mean that in the initial phase ofthe Neolithic in Greece we are concerned with experiments leading to the discovery of ceramic ware.The introduction of pottery would then, however, have taken place in the context of macroblade indus-try �– known both from the �“Pre-ceramic�” levels and from the initial Neolithic in Thessalian tells(Perlès 1986), in the period between 7760±100 (the earliest date on charcoals from Argissa, apart fromtwo earlier dates of 8100/7900 on bone) and 7755±97 and 7483±72 B.P. (for the end of the �“pre-ce-ramic�” phase at Sesklo �– Perlès 2001).

Recently, the investigations in the Sarakenos Cave in Beotia have shed new light on the question ofthe Monochrome phase in central-eastern Greece (Fig. 3). The Early Neolithic layers in this cave, start-ing from spit 17 to 27, in trench A revealed the occurrence of red-on-white/cream painted ceramics;lower down, in the layers dated at between 7560±50 (spit 31, trench A) and 7460±50 (spit 29) there areexclusively Monochrome ceramics ( Fig. 5). This is, however, a fairly thin-walled ceramic withsmooth, brown or red surfaces, occurring with some few macroblade artefacts from extralocal yellowflint or obsidian. The quality of this ceramic, unlike the ceramics in the Thessalian tells, does not showcrude craftmanship despite the fact that chronologically the layers in spits 29�–30 are almost contem-poraneous with the end of the �“Pre-ceramic�” phase at Thessaly.

The comparison of chipped stone industries assigned to the hypothetical Monochrome phase inGreece and in Bulgaria reveals an essential difference between them: in Greece there is macrobladetechnique and imported raw materials �– just like in the Neolithic with white-painted ceramics(Protosesklo), in Bulgaria �– on the other hand �– there is flake technique and local raw materials.

The question of the origins of macroblade technology in Greece is still a puzzle. In the fewindisputably Late Mesolithic sites this technology is unknown; lithic production at LateMesolithic sites of the mainland (Klisoura Cave 1, layers 3-5 �– Koumouzelis et al. 2003,Franchthi phase IX �– Perles 1990, Sarakenos Cave spits 29-3 in trench A) and on Aegean islands(Gioura, Cyclope Cave, Late Mesolithic �– Sampson et al. 2003) is based essentially on flakedebitage, rarely on bladelets production, nearly exclusively on local raw materials. It is only inthe �“Initial Neolithic more regular blades appear�” in the Franchthi Cave (phase X) (Perles 1990,

19

Fig. 24:1-9), associated with trapezes and transverse arrowheads. This could be the effect of theconnections with the central and the western Mediterranean Castelnovian cultural zone (Fig. 6).This tradition of regular blades and trapezes could have played a role in the origin of macrobladetechnology in the �“Aceramic�” Phase (which is, in fact, the equivalent of the Monochrome Phase)in Thessaly, such as Argissa Magula (pit ) (Tellenbach 1983, Perlès 1987) ( Fig. 7).

III. WHITE-PAINTED POTTERY HORIZON

The wide diffusion of the Neolithic in the Balkans is related to the White-painted ceramicshorizon, represented in Greece by the �“Protosesklo phase�”. This phase spread in the central andeastern Balkans along the Vardar and the Morava rivers, and along the Styrmen-Struma valleysreaching the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain, Banat and central Transylvania. Theprocess of diffusion of the white-painted ceramics was very fast. The oldest sites of this phase inGreece are dated at 7400�–7200 B.P., the sites in Bulgaria and Serbia �– on the other hand �–at be-tween 7200�–7000 B.P., whereas those in Rumania and southern Hungary are dated at 7100�–6900B.P. (Whittle et al. 2002, Domboroczky 2003)

The spread of white-painted ceramics was associated with the simultaneous spread of tech-niques of stone working that are diagnostic for this horizon, namely:

a) macroblade technique using single-platform cores with prepared flaking surfaces,b) advanced technique of blade detachment: by pressure or with a punch,c) production based on extralocal raw materials,d) import of yellow flint mostly from the Pre-Balkan plateau. Unfortunately Early Neolithic

workshops have not been recorded in these regions,e) limited discard of cores and debitage products,f) specific style of tools shaped by means of lateral retouch.The production of long blades with parallel lateral edges was determined by two factors:1. the knapper�’s skill2. selection of suitable raw material.Blade detachment was preceded by a number of operations that aimed to give the raw mate-

rial nodule its appropriate shape and to obtain the appropriate coring angle. Long blades withparallel lateral edges were detached from single-platform cores with a carefully prepared plat-form which was, subsequently, rejuvenated by detaching a series of fine flakes. The pre-flakingface of single-platform cores was shaped by means of a crest. Blades were split off with the useof a soft hammer or by means of pressure technique. Both these techniques produced regular,standardized blanks. The use of such advanced technologies required that a knapper should behighly skilled. This leads to the conclusion that lithic production belonged to a narrow group ofskilled workers. This hypothesis has been confirmed by the fact that a full cycle of lithic produc-tion on-site is absent at FTN settlements. Usually, long blades or their fragments and blade toolsare recorded in the settlements. In the Eastern Balkans blades were made, as a rule, from lightyellow, weakly transparent raw material referred to in literature as �“silex blond�” (honey-colouredflint). So far, the presence of outcrops of this type of flint in Greece has not been confirmed un-til now. Similar flint recorded in the Therma-Nigrita region in Macedonia (Kambouroglou -Peristeri 2004) appears only in small nodules, unsuitable for macroblade production. At sites ofthe northern part of the Balkans and in the Great Hungarian Plain artefacts occur which are madefrom similar flint with precipitations in the form of spots, which is described in literature as�“Balkan�” or �“Banat�” flint. It is likely that this is a variant of the same raw material whose depositsare situated in the territory of the Pre-Balkan plateau.

Blades made from these raw materials are known from Early Neolithic sites in thePeloponnese (Lerna �– Koz³owski et al. 1996, and Dendra (Protontariou-Deilaki 1992), fromThessaly (Argissa �– Perlès 1987), and from the Neolithic layer in the Cave of Cyclope on the is-land of Gioura, Northern Sporades (Koz³owski - Kaczanowska, in press), from the sites in theStruma valley (Kovachevo, Galabnik, Slatina �– Gatsov 1993), in the Thrace Basin (Karanovo �–Gatsov, Kurèatov 1997). Yellow flint is known from Köros and Starèevo culture sites in the north-ern Balkans [among others: Divostin, Golokut (Kaczanowska - Koz³owski 1984-1985)], Starèevo,Donja Branjevina (�Šariæ 2005) and from the Great Hungarian Plain. The northernmost sites thatyielded macroblades from yellow flint are Mehtelek (Starnini 1994) and Tiszaszölös-Domahaza

20

in the Tisza basin. In all likelihood, most of the blades were produced outside settlement areas,possibly in specialized workshops in the vicinity of extraction points - unidentified so far �– and,subsequently, were traded as finished products. A small number of flakes from settlements indi-cate that occasionally cores were exploited on-site, probably in several episodes. Debitage fromrejuvenation stored in a vessel was discovered at the site of Endröd 39 (Kaczanowska et al. 1986).Core exploitation in several episodes consisted in detaching only individual blades as need arose.Then, blades were shaped into tools mostly with marginal retouch.

In the territories further away from the deposits of �“silex blond�” or the so-called �“Banat flint�”,where raw materials obtained by barter did not satisfy the demand for stone artefacts, some toolswere made from deposits of siliceous rocks, which were easily accessible in the vicinity of settle-ments. Sometimes local production used a technique similar to that used in the production ofblades from exotic rocks (Szolnok Szanda-Tenyósziget). When the quality of raw material waspoor or when the skill of knappers was inadequate the standard of produced blades was low.

When the system of distribution of raw materials is analysed two hypotheses should be takeninto consideration:

1. that artefacts from �“Banat�” flint or �“silex blond�” were made by groups who inhabited areasin the immediate vicinity of the areas of deposits and that through barter they reached wider ter-ritories;

2. that these raw materials were accessible to many groups inhabiting territories further awayfrom areas of deposits. Flint was obtained by parties during trips in search of raw materials.

The first model assumes the existence of some kind of property rights to specific areas andrudiments of group specialization in the production of bartered goods. The second model holdsthat each community had its own specialist knappers. Among the various communities a systemof information transmission would have operated as to the location of deposits of raw materials,while a common technological tradition would have existed. So far, investigations into lithic rawmaterials distribution in the Early Neolithic support the former of the two models of raw materi-als procurement.

IV. REGIONAL VARIANTS OF THE WHITE-PAINTED POTTERY HORIZON

Within the fairly homogeneous horizon of white-painted pottery several techno-typologicalvariants can be distinguished:

1. The Thrace Plain �– the Karanovo Culture (Fig. 9)The largest series of lithic artefacts comes from the tell at Karanovo. The oldest layer,

Karanovo I, yielded a series of only 338 artefacts (Gatsov - Kurèatov 1997). It should be bornein mind, however, that at this site the area exposed was large, about 625 sq m. Three horizonswith architectural remains, namely seven dwellings, correspond to Karanovo I. Thus, the numberof artefacts made from siliceous rocks in proportion to the investigated area (0.6 artefacts per sqm.) is not important. It should be stressed �– however �– that in the younger layers of the tell, as-sociated with the phases Karanovo II, and especially with Karanovo II�–III and Karanovo III, thenumber of artefacts drops markedly. Thus, we can tentatively put forward a hypothesis that thesettlement was set up by a group who brought with it a small store of a few cores and blanks and/or that this group maintained close contacts with other communities which supplied the newcom-ers with completed products. In time, ties gradually loosened, as is documented by the drop in thenumber of artefacts and more intensive exploitation of tools in Karanovo II. The supply of rawmaterials breaks down after Karanovo phase II (i.e. after 5700�–5500 B.C.). The lithic industryfrom the site at Karanovo is consistent with the characteristic features of the White-Painted Pot-tery horizon:

1. the main body of blanks, possibly also of tools, was made off-site,2. the inventory is dominated by blades (31.9%) with parallel edges and a straight or weakly

convex profile and a single-blow platform. Most specimens are broken. The proportions of whole,relatively small, specimens indicate that their length could have been from 6.2 to 10.0 cm.

3. The proportion of retouched tools is high (31.7%); predominantly one and two-sided, some-times convergent specimens.

21

4. Other tools such as perforators or end-scrapers also often have retouched sides, or weremade on retouched blades.

2. The North-Central Balkans �– the Starèevo Culture (Fig. 10)At the sites of the Starèevo Culture the presence of a relatively small number of chipped stone

artefacts was recorded. Most of them were made from yellow flint �– probably from the Pre-Balkan plateau. In addition, it seems that the number of artefacts decreases at settlements of laterphases of the Starèevo culture. For example: while at Donja Branjevina the proportions are 0.6artefact per 1 sq m of the explored area (�Šariæ 2005), at Golokut, on the other hand, this index ismerely 0.02 (Kaczanowska - Koz³owski 1984-1985). Providing these data are confirmed by alarger series of sites, then we can assume that, just as in the case of Karanovo, we are also deal-ing at Starèevo with a break-down of lithic production that took place in the younger developmen-tal phases of this culture. This collapse was probably related to the gradual decline of workshopssituated close to outcrops and shifting production to the household cluster, leading to the disin-tegration of the distribution network of yellow flint existing until then.

All the Starèevo culture sites, even those with traces of additional on-site production from lo-cal raw materials (Donja Branjevina in Voivodina - �Šariæ 2005), exhibit a distinctive inventorystructure with the domination of blades over flakes and with a high tool index. In tool groups longblades with lateral retouch are most frequent, although other tools begin to appear more fre-quently. Of particular interest is the occurrence of geometric microliths (trapezes) at a number ofsites such as Donja Branjevina, Starèevo and at Cuina Turcului where these are most numerous( Pãunescu 1970). It is likely, that the presence of trapezes is related to hunting and fishing activi-ties rather than indicating the persistence of Mesolithic tradition.

3. The Tisza basin �– the Körös-Criº Culture (Fig.8)The sites of the Körös culture are distributed mainly in the Great Hungarian Plain i.e. the ter-

ritory without natural deposits of flint siliceous rocks.Among finds from settlements there weresmall series of several up to a dozen or so discarded lithic artefacts; of particular interest is thepresence, among them, of long blades and retouched blades from �“Balkan�” or �“Banat�” flint(Starnini - Szakmany 1998). The Körös culture population also found and exploited obsidian de-posits at the northern boundaries of Alföld. It was only the Szatmar group people who settled theareas of obsidian outcrops.

In recent years a number of sites discovered on the Middle Tisza at the northern outskirts ofthe Körös cultures yielded small series of chipped artefacts (Raczky et al. in press). It seems thatalongside the continuation of Balkan traditions, seen in the presence of tools with lateral retouchand artefacts made from �“Banat�” or �“Balkan�” flint, there appear new tendencies that were prob-ably inspired by transformations in economy, adapting the Balkan model to local conditions.Moreover, attempts were made at exploitation of other raw materials from the deposits in theupper Tisza basin such as limnoquartzites of much poorer quality.

A similar process of departure from the Balkan tradition can also be seen at the site of Szarvassituated south of the lower Körös river where the inventory contained some elements related tothe Vinèa culture and the LBK (Kaczanowska - Koz³owski 2007).

V. CONCLUSIONS

The macroblade technology described in this work (Fig.11), that constituted an attribute of theFTN from the Peloponnese as far as the Carpathian Basin, is part of the full Neolithic packagewith no roots in local, pre-Neolithic technologies. Lithic industries of the Monochrome horizon�– providing such a horizon did exist �– did not provide a substratum for the development of theindustries of the White-Painted phase, possibly with the exception of some sites in Greece.

The phenomenon of macroblade technologies spread across an extensive territory (just like theWhite-Painted Ceramics) in a relatively short time period. Despite some local variations thisphenomenon is fairly uniform. At sites on the northern outskirts of the FTN certain deviationsoccur from these standard raw materials and Balkan technologies. Historically, a breakdown inproduction and distribution is recorded at about the middle of the VIth millenium BC cal.

22

FTN populations are characterized by highly advanced technologies that contrast both with theMesolithic as well as the Middle Neolithic. This advance can also be seen in social organization,namely in group specialization and a stable network of long-distance exchange. Exchange couldinclude various taxonomic units, but as the traded goods were a specific group of products madefrom specific raw materials this exchange could have been in its nature an exchange of presti-gious goods or be related to the ceremonial sphere. An analogy offers itself with the ritual ex-change in the Trobriand Islands described by B. Malinowski: �“this is, thus, an extensive, inter-tribal social network, a huge institution embracing thousands of people bound by a great commonpassion which is the Kula exchange and by many minor links and interests�” (Malinowski 1967,125).

Acknoledgements

Most of the researches discussed in this paper have received support from the European spe-cific targeted research project FEPRE (Foundation of Europe: Prehistoric Population Dynamicsand the Roots of Socio-Cultural Diversity).

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in the Vojvodina (Serbia). Biaggi, P. (ed) Societa per la Preistoria e Protoistoria delle Regione Friuli-Venezia Giulia,10, (2005), 57- 64

Tellenbach 1983,Tellenbach, M., Materialien zum Präkeramischen Neolithikum in Süd �–Ost Europa. Bericht der Römisch �–

Germanischen Kommision 64, (1983), 23-137.

Teocharis 1973,Teocharis D., Neolithic Greece. National Bank of Greece, Athens, (1973).

Todorova 2003,Todorova H., Das Fruhneolithikum Nordbulgariens im Kontext des Ostbalkanisches Neolithikums. Tell Karanovo

und dans Balkan-Neolithikum. Internazionalen Kolloquium in Salzburg, (2003), 9-25.

Whittle et alii 2002,Whittle, A., Bartosiewicz, L., Boriæ, D., Pettitt, P., and Richards, M., In the beginning: radiocarbon dates from

the Early Neolithic in northern Serbia and south-east Hungary. Antaeus 25, (2002), 63-117.

Wijnen 1981,Wijnen, M. H. J. M. N., The Early Neolithic settlement at Sesklo; an early farming community in Thessaly,

Greece. Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 14, (1981).

25

Fig.1. Map of the Mesolithic (with incipient food producing economy) and Early Neolithic sites(Monochrome and White Painted Phase) in the Balkans and middle Danube Basin.

26

Fig. 2. Table showing the elements of incipient food producing economy in pre-Neolithic sites of Greece.

Fig. 3. Profile of Sarakenos Cave (Beotia, Greece), trench A, with radiocarbon dates. Stratigraphic units:1-3 �– Early Neolithic with painted pottery, 4 �– Early Neolithic with monochrome pottery,

5 �– latest Mesolithic layer, 6-8 �– Mesolithic layers, 9-10 �– Final Palaeolithic layers.

27

Fig. 4. Map of the excavations at Maroulas (Kythnos) with stone structures (C1-27), graves (G1-11).Trenches are marked by �“T�”. According to A. Sampson.

28

Fig. 5. Sarakenos (Beotia, Greece). Early Neolithic Macroblade industry and monochrome pottery.

29

Fig. 6. Franchthi Cave (Argolid, Greece). Lithic find from phase X: 1-5 regular blades, 6,7 �– transversearrowheads, 88-11 �– trapezes (and fragments) on regular blades, 12-16 notched implements on flakes

(according to C.Perles).

30

Fig. 7. Argissa-Magula, Thessaly, Greece. Lithic finds from pit : 1-6 macroblades, 7-10 �– trapezes,11 �– arched backed bladelet (according to M.Tellenbach).

Fig. 8. Lithic industries from FTN sites on the Great Hungarian Plain: 1-6; Endröd 119; 7,8 �– Endröd35, 9 �– Szarvas 105; 10 �– Szarvas 158 (according to E. Starnini and G. Szakmany).

31

Fig. 9. Karanovo (Thrace, Bulgaria). Lithic finds from phase I: 1-3 �– blade cores,4,6-10 �– retouched macroblades, 5 �– double end-scraper (according to I.Gatsov).

32

Fig. 10. Donja Branjevina (Voivodina, Serbia). 1-3 �– cores, 4 �– utilized flake, 5-11 �– blades,12, 13 �– retouched blades, 14 �– double truncation, 15-18 �– trapezes (according to S. Karmanski).

33

Fig. 11. Map of the most important FTN Macroblade industries in the eastern Balkans and in the MiddleDanube Basin.

PREHISTORIC BARCIN HÖYÜK:2007 EXCAVATIONS AND CHIPPED STONE ARTIFACT ANALYSIS

Ivan Gatsov*, Petranka Nedelcheva*, Rana Özbal** and Fokke Gerritsen***

Keywords: Anatolia; prehistory; chipped stone; obsidian; early farming societies.

I. INTRODUCTION: INITIAL RESULTS OF THE 2007 EXCAVATIONS

Rana Özbal and Fokke Gerritsen

The Netherlands Institute in Turkey (Istanbul) and the Netherlands Institute for the Near East(Leiden) have conducted excavations in northwest Anatolia since 1987. Two major themes thathave driven the archaeological research agenda, and continue to the present day, are the spreadof agriculture from the Near East to the Balkans, and the character and development of earlyfarming communities in the region. Following excavations at Ilpnar1 and Menteºe,2 in 2005 theresearch team selected the site of Barcn Höyük, located in the Yeniºehir Plain (Fig. 1), for a newstage of this long-term regional research project.

Although deposits dating to the Byzantine, Early Bronze Age and Chalcolithic Periods arepresent, the main attraction for selecting this mound lay in the fact that initial surface collectionsindicated that the Neolithic levels appeared to be as early as, if not earlier than, the oldest phasesexcavated at Mente e and Ilpnar. After two seasons (2005 and 2006) in which the Neolithiclevels were reached in a small deep sounding (along the eastern side of trench M10), the 2007excavations were able to reach the Neolithic levels in a larger area. The aim for the upcomingseasons is to increase the exposures of Neolithic deposits. Continued research in the deepsounding indicates the presence of a substantial deposit of Neolithic layers (more than 1.5 meter).Virgin soil has not yet been reached. If the deposits span a considerable length of time, this couldpotentially provide critical information on the earliest phases of settled life in the region.

Barcn Höyük (or Yeniºehir II as it is called in the older literature) lies 5 km west of Yeniºehiralong the road to Bursa. The main mound has a diameter of ca. 100 meters and rises about 4meters above the current level of the plain, accompanied by a smaller and lower mound to thewest (Fig. 2). It was discovered by James Mellaart in the early 1950s and described as being oneof the few Neolithic settlements in the area by David French in the 1960s.3 Since then the moundhas witnessed intense agricultural activity and has lost its uppermost levels.4

The 2005-2006 seasons at Barcn Höyük took place under the direction of J. J. Roodenberg.During this time, a total of eight 10 x 10 meter trenches were begun. Although intentions were toexplore the earliest levels of the Neolithic, given the thick occupational levels dating to the EarlyBronze Age and especially the Chalcolithic, much time was spent excavating these later phases.Excavations continued in 2007 under the direction of Fokke Gerritsen.

In 2007, investigations continued the earlier work on the central part of the main mound, withwork done in three previously opened trenches (M10, L11, L12) and one new trench (M11). Thisyielded promising results especially for Trench L11 and M10, where excavations were able toreach Neolithic levels some 2 meters and more below the mound surface. The following sectiondescribes the results of the excavations by trench.

* New Bulgarian University, Department of Archaeology, 1618 Sofia, Montevideo Str.21, Bulgaria. NAIM-BAS,Sofia 1000, Saborna Str. 2, Bulgaria, [email protected].** Bo aziçi University, 34342, Bebek, Istanbul, [email protected].*** Netherlands Institute in Turkey, PO Box 132, 34431 Beyo lu, Istanbul, Turkey, [email protected] Roodenberg 1995, 2000; Roodenberg-Thissen 2001; Roodenberg-Alpaslan-Roodenberg 2008.2 Roodenberg et alii 2003; Roodenberg-Alpaslan-Roodenberg 2008.3 Mellaart 1955; French 1967.4 Özdo an 1986, 13.


36

A. Trench L12Although not particularly rich in lithic artifacts, L12 is the trench with the latest deposits

excavated in 2007. 24 graves which yielded 27 burials dating to the Byzantine Period, probablyto the 9-11th centuries AD were excavated. The excavations yielded at least three phases ofburials, indicating that the cemetery was used over a stretch of time. Grave gifts were notplentiful but among the pieces found we can list a few metal crosses, beads and rings.

B. Trench L11Trench L11 yielded a possible architectural structure dating to the Neolithic Period. The walls

of this structure were made of compacted mud slabs and were poorly preserved. Understandingthe construction was further complicated by the large number of Chalcolithic pits that cut thestructure and the associated surfaces. The structure yielded four burials (one adult and threeinfants) although the exact relationship between the architecture and the burials remains unclear.

The northern part of the trench yielded a series of Chalcolithic pits cutting one another. Givenprocesses of bio-turbation and rodent activities, it has been difficult to make understand thenature of these deposits.

C. Trench M10Most of the deposits excavated in M10 in 2007 date to the Chalcolithic Period. The highest of

these deposits were cut by Early Bronze Age pits with well preserved pottery. Several phases ofthe Chalcolithic were excavated. The most notable of these yielded a ca. 3 meter wide ditch whichwould have been used either to contain water or as a boundary between two areas of the site, ina similar fashion to that documented in nearby and roughly contemporaneous Aktopraklýk.5 Afterthe ditch went out of use and was partly filled, a rectangular pit structure containing a small ovenwith a sherd-paved floor was dug into the side of the ditch. In the eastern half of this trench a deepsounding reaching Neolithic levels was begun in 2006. Over an area of 1.5 by 2 meters, thissounding was deepened in 2007, to reach a maximum depth of 4.5 meters below the surface level.Virgin soil has not yet been reached. The sounding yielded traces of various surfaces includingones that were white and red plastered, as well as an infant burial. Interestingly, the deepest levelsreached yielded few or no ceramics, but contained animal bone as well as awls, spatulas and otherworked bone tools.

D. Trench M11The great majority of the deposits excavated in Trench M11 in 2007 were Chalcolithic in date.

This trench was begun from the mound surface and taken down to a depth of over two meters. TheChalcolithic deposits excavated were cut by pits dating to the Early Bronze Age. At least threeChalcolithic use-phases were encountered. The uppermost level comprised of a large oven witha diameter of 2.25 meters. Like the oven described above in Trench M10, this oven too had asherd-paved base. The mouth of the oven was keyhole shaped. Possibly contemporaneous withthe oven is a mudbrick construction. Two walls forming the corner of a room were discoveredhere. The walls were preserved to a height of no more than 15 cm and it is difficult to commentabout the enclosed space although the interior of the room yielded fewer artifacts than the outersurfaces which were high in animal bone and refuse.

Beneath this phase excavations yielded an array of postholes. Although it is difficult to assesswhat types of buildings these posts would have supported, the great range of sizes andconstruction techniques indicate that post constructions were an important architectural methodin this phase. This is not surprising as posthole phases are also known from Ilpnar, althoughfrom earlier phases.6

5 Karul 2007.6 Roodenberg 1995.

37

II. CHIPPED STONE ARTIFACTS FROM BARCIN HÖYÜK 7

Ivan Gatsov and Petranka Nedelcheva

A collection of chipped stone artifacts from Barcn Höyük was processed during the 2007campaign. Given that excavations have only just begun in a limited part of the site, clearlyinterpreting the stratigraphic transition between the Neolithic, the Chalcolithic and the EarlyBronze Age levels has not yet been possible. Therefore research grouped lithic finds fromambiguous contexts into coarser categories of Neolithic/Chalcolithic and Chalcolithic/EarlyBronze Age.

The analysis conducted and described here has largely focused on the technical andtypological analysis of the chipped stone artifacts but the results obtained were correlated withtypochronological attributions obtained through the analysis of the pottery. To date, 652 lithicartifacts have been processed.

Graph 1. Distribution of artefacts by trenches

13,5%

20,71%

65,8%

M11M10L11

trenches

Graph 1 indicates which trenches they come from, while Table 1 shows how they aredistributed by raw material; flint vs. obsidian. A detailed shape-based distribution was conductedfor the former category.

Table1. Distribution of artefacts by periods

Obsidian Flint Total Neolithic period 32 311 343 Neolithic/Chalcolithic period 2 76 78 Chalcolithic period 12 181 193 Calcolithic/Early Bronze Age period 0 30 30 Early Bronze Age 0 8 8 Total 46 606 652

7 We would like to thank Dr. Fokke Gerritsen and Dr. Rana Özbal for the opportunity to work on this material and fortheir help and hospitality. Many thanks also go to Dr. Laurens Thissen for his database of pottery which helped us inour analyses.

38

There is an apparent decrease in the quantity of lithic artifacts through time. A great majority,or more than half of the artifacts, is Neolithic in date and comes from Trench L11, whereexcavations reached the earliest levels. This followed in number by Chalcolithic artifacts andthose that may be Chalcolithic/Neolithic in date; with only a very small percentage dating to theEarly Bronze Age. The possible architectural structure excavated in Trench L11 and theassociated use surfaces may account for the high quantities of lithic artifacts recovered from thistrench although some of these contexts also yielded mixed Chalcolithic and Neolithic deposits.This report focuses on the artifacts for which secure stratigraphic contexts could be established.It is still too early, given the sample sizes and stratigraphic issues to identify spatial patterns.

From a technical point of view analyses identified cores, cortical specimens, crestedspecimens, debris, flakes, blades and retouched tools.

Table 2. Distribution of technological groups by periods.

Neolithic

period Neolithic/Chalcolithic

period Chalcolithic

period

Calcolithic/ Early Bronze Age period

Early Bronze

Age Total Cores 3 0 0 0 0 3Cortical specimens 5 5 6 1 0 17 Crested specimens 6 3 11 0 0 20 Debris 118 27 52 5 1 203 Flakes 28 12 23 5 0 68 Blades 143 18 74 16 1 252 Retouched tools 42 12 28 1 6 89 Total 345 77 194 28 8 652

As indicated in Table 2 the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods were highest in unretouchedblades, debris and retouched tools, while the later phases appear to lack this repertoire of types.

A. THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD

Graph 2. Neolithic period. Distribution of flint artefacts.

Per

cent

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

Retouched tools

Blades

Flakes

Debris

Crested specimens

Cortical specimens

trenches M11

M10

Cores0%

L11

39

Flint ArtifactsAnalyses of the flint artifacts from the Neolithic Levels yielded three cores. One core fragment

(Fig. 3-1) from a single platform blade specimen is in the final stage of exploitation. This core canbe compared with those found in phases X and IX in Ilpnar.8 A second, small single platformpyramidal blade and bladelet core with a crested back in the final stage of reduction was alsodiscovered. This core shows similarities with specimens from Menteºe and Ilpnar X.9 The thirdis a single platform conical blade core in its final stage of reduction. Graph 2.

Retouched toolsA large quantity of the retouched specimens date to the Neolithic Period.

Table 3. Distribution of retouched tools.

End-scraper on blade 3 Semi-circular end-scraper 1 End-scraper on flake 2 High end-scraper 8 Perforator 4 Fragment of end-scraper 1 Retouched blade 7 Truncation 1 Retouched flake 6 Blade with polish 8 Macro end scraper 1Total 42

Among these tools one notes a collection of end-scrapers, perforators, retouched blades and

flakes as well as a single item of truncation. The similarities between some of the retouched toolsfrom Barcn Höyük and those from Ilpnar and Menteºe are remarkable. The most notableparallels are high-end scrapers (Fig. 5-4, 5; Fig. 4-1,4; Fig. 5-2-4,6) which include massive flakesranging between 15 to 24 mm and fronts with irregularly shaped semi-circular retouches (Fig 3-8; Fig. 4 �– 2,7), macro-end scrapers (Fig 5-1), end scrapers on flakes (Fig. 4-8) and someretouched flakes (Fig. 5-5) Table 3.

In addition to Ilpnar and Mente e, the chipped stone assemblages of Fikirtepe and Pendikalso show much overlap with that from Barcn Höyük. Most striking is the parallelism withsemicircular and circular flat flake-end scrapers with some traces of cortex on their dorsal sidesand ones that are totally covered by cortex. The correspondences between the high end scrapersfrom these sites with those from the Barcn Höyük Neolithic levels cannot be overlooked.10

The analyses from Barcn Höyük also include a few perforators, single drill or alternatedperforator (Fig. 5-7); a perforator with a well shaped working part (Fig. 4-5); a fragment of anatypical perforator (Fig. 4-3) and a fragment of a perforator with a notable marginal retouches onits working edge (Fig 3-7). The first three of the above mentioned tools show parallels with theIlpnar industry while the final one is known from the Fikirtepe assemblage.11

As with other categories, retouched blades, usually irregular blade specimens with partialmarginal retouches (Fig. 4-6) also show remarkable similarities with pieces from the earliestlevels of Ilpnar and Mente e.

The relatively high frequency of fragmentized unretouched blades with polishing silica glossat both Barcn and Ilpnar is striking. It is very likely that these blades without secondarymodification were used as elements of composite tools.

8 Gatsov, in press.9 Gatsov-Nedelcheva 2007, fig. 1-8; Gatsov, in press.10 Gatsov-Nedelcheva, 2007, 7-20.11 Gatsov, unpublished.

40

Overall, the main technological and typological features of the Neolithic artifacts from Barcin,especially in terms of core types, reduction techniques display strong similarities with those fromIlpnar, Mente e, Fikirtepe and Pendik. Most notable are the similar core types and reductiontechniques which show single platform blade cores with diligent preparation and blade/bladeletoriented core reduction.

These assemblages are also characterized by uniform typological structures dominated byend scrapers, retouched blades and perforators, and a relatively large number of retouched bladeswith visible traces of usage.

Obsidian ArtifactsParallels with Ilpnar, Mente e, Fikirtepe and Pendik are notable in the obsidian frequencies

as well which are predominantly found in the Neolithic levels at Barcn Höyük and Ilpnar levelsX and IX. Among the obsidian artifacts from Barcn, the small, extremely narrow and thin bladefragments are connected with an advanced stage of core reduction. To date, only one crestedspecimen has been found. The presence of two small retouched obsidian flakes (Fig. 3-2, 3) andan end scraper (Fig. 3-6) are worth noting.

While some obsidian artifacts from Barcin come from mixed Neolithic/Chalcolithic contexts,given the high concentrations of obsidian in Neolithic levels, it is very likely that these too belongto the Neolithic Phase. Unfortunately, it is difficult to use typo-technological divisions to clarifythis issue. Yet the lack of obsidian from Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age deposits may befurther evidence strengthening the claim that the obsidian at Barcn, for the most part dates to theNeolithic Phase.

B. THE CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD

Graph 3. Chalcolithic period. Distribution of technological groups by trenches.

Per

cent

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

Retouched tools

Blades

Flakes

Debris

Crested specimens

trenches M11

M10

Cortical specimens

0%

L11

41

Retouched pieces, unretouched blade fragments with silica gloss can be listed among theartifacts from this period. Very typical of the Chalcolithic Period is an example of the double end-scraper on blade with slightly convex profile and lateral cortex (Fig. 6-1), a blade end-scraperwith a rounded front (Fig. 6-3) and a fragment of a blade end-scraper (Fig. 6-4). Part of a bladewith partial marginal retouches has also been recorded (Fig. 6-5). Moreover, a single tablet wasfound among the artifacts form this period (Fig. 6-2). All of the above-mentioned artifacts aretypical of Chalcolithic assemblages. Graph 3

C. THE EARLY BRONZE AGE

Graph 4. Early Bronze Age period. Distribution of technological groups by trenches.

Per

cent

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

Retouched tools

Blades

trenches

Debris0%

M11

Only a few lithic artifacts dating to this period have been recovered. Most typically, among theartifacts one finds denticulated blades, usually with denticulated retouch on one or both edges(Fig. 7-1-6). As a rule the denticulated retouches are covered by traces of polishing. This type oftool type is very common for all chipped stone assemblages belonging to the Early Bronze Age.12

A single specimen of blade truncation with denticulated retouch on the edges and polishing cannotgo without mention (Fig. 7-7). Graph 4

12 Gatsov-Efe 2005.

42

Conclusions

Overall, the Neolithic collection presented above probably dates to the end of the seventh orthe very beginning of the sixth millennium BC and chronologically and culturally corresponds tothe Mente e, Ilpnar, Fikirtepe and Pendik techno-complex.

The assemblages for the other periods discussed are what one would typically expect fromthese phases, i.e. blade tools from the Chalcolithic and denticulated tools from the Bronze Age.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

French 1967,D. French, Prehistoric Sites in Northwest Anatolia: I. The Iznik Area. Anatolian Studies 17, (1967), 49-100.

Gatsov in print,I. Gatsov, Chipped Stone Assemblages from the Prehistoric Site at Illpinar, South Marmara Region, Turkey. Part

I ( in print).

Gatsov unpublished,I. Gatsov, Prehistorical chipped stone assemblages from Eastern Thrace and South Marmara region 7th and the

6th mill. B.C. (unpublished).

Gatsov-Efe 2005,I. Gatsov - T. Efe, Some Observations on the EBII Chipped Stone Artifacts from Küllüoba (near Eskiºehir) in

Inland Northwestern Anatolia. Anatolia Antiqua XIII, (2005), 111-118.

Gatsov-Nedelcheva 2007,I. Gatsov - P. Nedelcheva, Chipped Stone Assemblages from Menteºe and the Problem of Earliest Occupation of

South Marmara Region. (J. Kozlowski, M. Nowak), Mesolithic/Neolithic interactions in the Balkans and in theMiddle Danube Basin, Oxford, BAR International Series 1726, (2007), 7-20.

Karul 2007,N. Karul, The 2006 Excavations at Aktopraklýk (Paper presented at the 29th Annual Excavations Results

Symposium, Kocaeli), 28 May 2007.

Mellaart 1955,J. Mellaart, Some Prehistoric Sites in North-Western Anatolia. Istanbuler Mitteilungen 6, (1955), 53-88.

Özdoðan 1986,M. Özdoðan, 1984 Yýlý Trakya ve Doðu Marmara Araþtýrmalarý. Araþtýrmala Sonuçlarý Toplantýsý 3, (1986),

409-420.

Roodenberg 1995,J. J. Roodenberg (ed.), The Ilpnar Excavations I: Five Seasons of Fieldwork in NW Anatolia 1987-91. Leiden/

Istanbul, PIHANS 72, (1995).

Roodenberg 2000,J. J. Roodenberg, Ilpnar, an Early Farming Village in the Ýznik Lake Basin. (M. Özdoðan, N. Baºgelen), The

Neolithic of Turkey, Istanbul, (2000), 193-202.

Roodenberg-Alpaslan-Roodenberg 2008,J. J. Roodenberg - S. Alpaslan-Roodenberg (eds), Life and Death in a Prehistoric Settlement in Northwest

Anatolia. The Ilpnar Excavations III. With Contributions on Hacýlartepe and Mente e, Leiden/Istanbul, PIHANS110, (2008).

Roodenberg-Thissen 2001,J. J. Roodenberg - L. Thissen (eds), The Ilpnar Excavations II, Leiden/Istanbul, PIHANS 93, (2001).

Roodenberg et alii 2003,Roodenberg, J.J., A. van As, L. Jacobs and M.H. Wijnen 2003. Early Settlement in the Pain of Yeniºehir (NW

Anatolia): The Basal Occupational Layers at Menteºe. Anatolica 29, (2003), 17-59.

43

Fig. 1. Barcn Höyük in the Yeni ehir Plain of Northwest Anatolia.

Fig. 2. Plan of Barcn Höyük with the locations of trenches excavated in 2007.

44

Fig. 3. 1- core fragment; 2, 3 �– obsidian retouched flakes; 4, 5 high end-scrapers; 6- obsidian end scraper;7- perforator; 8- fragment of semicircular flat end scraper (1- L11, Loc.205, Lot 218; 2- L11- Loc.212, Lot242 obsidian; 3 - L11 - Loc.212, Lot 243 - obsidian; 4- L11 - Loc.205, Lot 231; 5 - L11 - Loc.208, Lot 226;

6 - L11 - Loc.215, Lot 246 -obsidian; 7 - L11 - Loc.212, Lot 240; 8 - L11 - Loc-212, Lot - 240).

45

Fig. 4. 1, 4 - high end scraper; 2, 7 - semicircular end scraper; 3 �– atypical perforator; 5-perforator;6 - retouched blade with silica gloss; 8-end scraper on flake. (1 -L11-Loc 205, Lot 218; 2, 4 - L11, Loc.205,

Lot 231; 3, 5 -L11, Loc.205, Lot 234 ; 6 - L11, Loc.205, Lot 202; 7, 8 - L11, Loc.201, Lot 202).

46

Fig. 5. 1- fragment of macro end scraper; 2 - 4, 6 - high end scrapers; 5 �– retouched flake; 7-alternatedperforator (or drill). ( 1 - M10, Loc 63, Lot 234; 2- M10, Loc 63, Lot 241; 3- M10, Loc. 64, Lot 235; 4 -

M10 Loc 64 Lot 248; 5 - L11- Loc.205, Lot 212; 6 - M11, Loc.8, Lot 63; 7 -M10, Loc 64, Lot 244).

47

Fig. 6. 1 - double end scraper; 2 - tablet; 3- end scraper on blade; 4-fragment of retouched tool- end-scraper; 5-retouched blade(1 - M10, Loc 64, Lot 235 ; 2 - M11, Loc 2, Lot 20; 3 - M10, Loc 56, Lot

223; 4- M11, Loc 2, Lot 22 ; 5 -L11, Loc 205, Lot 218 )

48

Fig. 7. 1-6- blade with denticulated retouches; 7- blade truncation (1, 2 - M11, Lot 28, Loc 5; 3 - M11,Loc 2, Lot 3; 4 - M10, Loc 64, Lot 244; 5 -M11, Loc 5, Lot 31; 6 - M11, Loc.2, Lot 22; 7 - M11, Loc 2,

Lot 20 ).

49

QUESTIONS ABOUT NEOLITHIC CHRONOLOGYIN EASTERN MACEDONIA AND THRACE, NORTHERN GREECE

Stratis Papadopoulos*

Keywords: Paleolithic, Neolithic, Northern Greece, Aegean, chronology, dating, 4th

millenium, pottery

I. ABSTRACT

The scope of this paper is twofold: to evaluate recent data concerning the dating of theNeolithic era in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, and to discuss the succession of the archaeologi-cal phases which are considered as being secure points of reference. Our knowledge of the�‘neolithisation�’ process is still an open issue in the early prehistory of Northern Greece. The coreof absolute values is estimated at the end of the MN, namely the middle of the 6th mill. BC. Thedates of the first phases in Sitagroi, Limenaria and Dikili Tash are earlier than those of the MNIII in Thessaly and Bulgaria. The notable variety of the painted wares of the Drama basin appearsto be a novelty equivalent to the phase Tsangli in Thessaly. Towards the end of the Neolithic erathe absence of absolute values of the 4th mill. BC has raised discussions attributing this fact to thestratigraphical �‘hiatuses�’. However, in Eastern Macedonia, the latest Neolithic layers inLimenaria have given calibrated dates between 3969 and 3800 BC, supporting the existence ofa Late Final Neolithic phase in the Northern Aegean. On the other hand, the excavation in AghiosIoannis brought in a series of dates between 3600 and 3000 BC, a period which until now has notbeen represented in absolute values anywhere south of Rhodope.

II. INTRODUCTION �– THE END OF THE PLEISTOCENE

Our knowledge of the Late Pleistocene and the �‘transition�’ to the Holocene is an open issuein the early prehistory of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, in Northern Greece. In the �’80s, whentwo survey projects - on Thassos Island and in the mountainous region of the prefectures ofDrama and Serres - provided the first information, the Paleolithic age was an obscure subject inthis area. Excavation in Tzines, on South Thassos, brought to light1 ochre mines where extrac-tion was conducted in horizontal underground tunnels, introducing a stage technologically moreadvanced than the vertical tunnelling practiced in Europe during the Middle Paleolithic Age.Typical species of Pre-Neolithic fauna, which are dated to a period when Thassos had not beenseparated yet from the continent2 , were traced in the site. The detection of �‘Saiga tatarica�’, aspecies that does not survive in Southern Europe after the end of the Pleistocene3 , has been con-sidered to indicate that the mines were used before 10000 BC. Collagen of a bone tool has offereda calibrated date ca 20300 BP. A second date, around the middle of the 7th mill. BC, will be dis-cussed later4 .

* Faculty of Classical Studies, Demokrition University of Thrace, 18th Ephoreia of Prehistoric and Classical Antiqui-ties, Erythrou Stavrou 17 - 65110 Kavala, Grecee. [email protected] Koukouli-Chrysanthaki et al. 1988, 241-244. Koukouli-Chryssanthaki and Weisgerber 1993, 541-558. Koukouli-Chrysanthaki and Weisgerber 1997, 129-144.2 Perissoratis et al. 1987, 209. Perissoratis and Mitropoulos 1989, 36. Perissoratis and Van Andel 1988, 53. Kraftet al. 1982, 11.3 Koukouli-Chryssanthaki and Weisgerber 1993, 550.4 Ibid. 549-550.


50

A small number of sites where possibly Pre-Neolithic chipped tool technology, based on ma-terials broadly distributed in the Neolithic settlements of Drama basin, were also used5 , havebeen recorded from the inland of Eastern Macedonia. Archaeozoological studies were conductedin the same area during the �’60s6 . The majority of these sites were located in the mountainousregion of Drama, in the basin of Volakas and in the areas of Chomatodexameni and Arkoudorema.Related material has been collected from the foothills of Northern Kerdylia7 . Nevertheless, dat-ing of these finds in the Late Pleistocene is not very reliable and is, to a great degree, based onSickenberg�’s timeworn observations about the faunal remains on the basin of Volakas8 .

The evidence which has been brought to light by the excavation at the Maara cave is evenmore important9 . It is the first Middle Paleolithic site that has been located in Eastern Macedonia.Although research was primarily focused on faunal remains, more secure information was yieldedconcerning the chipped tool industry of Mousterian typology close to that known from MiddlePaleolithic sites such as Asprochaliko in Epirus and Theopetra in Thessaly. The first absolutedates10 - dating the fossilized stratum from which the bone remains of mammals have derived -are estimated a little after 30000 BP and offer a much more valid clue than the fragile typologi-cal relations among sites located far away11 .

Paleolithic evidence from Western Thrace was not improved until 1990. Circumstantial refer-ences to the Paleolithic finds from Rizia, Pherae, and Keramos in the prefecture of Evros andAghios Georgios of Petrota in the prefecture of Rhodope had been made in the works ofTheocharis and Bakalakis without further discussion12 . Theocharis himself had reluctantly facedthe challenge to introduce a local Mesolithic era based on the microlithic tradition of Keramos.Higgs, on the other hand, had mentioned a group of sites in the area of Pherae, which share ablade type with a special retouch, a survey find that was never associated with pottery.Stratigraphical evidence for the existence of the Middle and Late Paleolithic Ages was indeedfound in Rizia. More sites of the Middle Paleolithic were added by the Survey Program in theregion of Krovyli-Petrota, in the �‘90s13 . The discovery of a flint quarry14 , from which originatedthe �‘Mousterian�’ tools which were collected from a number of sites near the river Makropotamos,is truly of special importance15 .

Excavation at two caves in North-West Turkey, at the site of Yarimburgaz16 , has given evi-dence of the presence of populations during the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. Recent re-search by the University of Constantinople, near the shore of Black Sea, in the sites of Agacli,Domali and Gumusdeve, has also significantly enriched our knowledge concerning the Epi-paleolithic material of the 9th and 8th mill.17 A stone industry of blades and conical cores waswidespread and dominated in the Crimea and neighboring sites during that period, although it wasabsent on the western shores of the Black Sea and Danube. The reason that Turkish archaeologistsprefer to call this stone industry Epi-paleolithic, instead of Pre-Neolithic, is that this phrasingstresses both its descent from the Latest Paleolithic assemblages and its distinction from anythingwe know concerning the stonework of the Early Neolithic phases in the area of Bosporus.

5 Kourtessi-Philippakis 1989a, 741.6 Sickenberg 1967, 314-330. Sickenberg 1968, 33-54. Koufos 1981, 129-148.7 Kourtessi-Philippakis 1989b, 55. Kourtessi-Philippakis 1990, 554.8 Sickenberg, ibid.9 Trandalidou 1989, 61-70. Trandalidou and Darlas 1992, 587-603. Trandalidou and Polydoropoulos 1998, 69-80.10 The samples are measured with the technique of phasmatoscopy (ESR)11 For dates from the Maara Cave see Trandalidou and Polydoropoulos 1998, 75.12 Theocharis 1971, 6-14. Bakalakis 1958.13 Efstratiou 1992, 643-654.14 Efstratiou 1998, 31-40.15 Efstratiou 1993, 40.16 Ozdogan and Koyunlu 1986, 15-17.17 Ozdogan 1989, 202. Gatsov and Ozdogan 1994, 97-120.

51

III. THE BEGINNING OF THE HOLOCENE - THE EARLIEST NEOLITHIC PHASES18

According to the evidence we have so far, the Neolithic economy with all its features alreadyin shape19 , appears to be well established in Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace in the 6thmill. BC. Pre-pottery and Early Neolithic phases had been absent till now. For this reason, thelocation of Pre-Neolithic deposits with a microlithic stone industry on the border of the settlementin Macri, in the prefecture of Evros, has rightly attracted much attention20 . The fact that Neolithiclayers are found in the same settlement under �‘virgin�’ deposits brings up the question of thepossible existence of Early Neolithic layers which are covered by alluvial deposits in NorthernGreece 21 .

On the other hand, the discovery of Pre-pottery Neolithic sites in Calca and Muslucesme, onthe southern shore of the Marmaras Sea22 adds an entirely new perspective to our understandingof the neolithisation process in the North-East Aegean. Early evidence shows various processesof adaptation in the Neolithic economy. In the sites of Pendik and Fikir Tepe23 , we can refer tothe continuity of local Epi-Paleolithic tradition with the incorporation of �‘Anatolian elements�’.In the case of Hoca Çeºme, even the idea of colonization does not seem to be improbable. Al-though these presumptions are mainly based on the changes in stone industries, differences inEarly Neolithic societies concerning subjects such as livestock24 and pottery25 have been alsodiscussed.

The Early Neolithic period, as it has been traced in phases IX and VI in Ilipinar26 , phase 5 atUpper Cave of Yarimburgaz27 and also in Hoca Çeºme and Asagininar layers28 , is consideredcontemporary to the Early Neolithic in the Balkans and Thessaly. This equivalence is, fortunately,not only supported by pottery typology but also by absolute dates in the second half of the 7th andthe first half of the 6th mill.29

A small number of potsherds with red and white decoration from Toumba, in the prefecture ofSerres30 , were till recently considered the only material which could be attributed to the earliestphases of the Neolithic. Reappraisal of this pottery ruled out the former attribution to an EarlyNeolithic phase31 . Pottery in red and white is also reported in Makri I, the only phase which isascertained in Western Greece that may be dated before the end of the MN. For the time being,it has as a �‘terminus antequem�’ the radiocarbon values of the layer that distinguishes Makri I fromMakri II32 , namely around 5500 BC33 .

In Eastern Macedonia, there are four dates from the second half of the 7th mill. BC. The earli-est, around 6400 BC, which was mentioned above, is recorded for the hematite mines in Tzines34 .This value is considered as evidence that the exploitation of the mines had not been interruptedby the end of Paleolithic. Besides, trenches near the entrance of a mine have produced plenty ofhandmade pottery, whose chronological attribution has not been elucidated35 . This find supportsthe diachronic presence of human activity on South-West Thassos concerned with a raw material,ochre, which was significant for the local population. The establishment of the MN settlement at

18 I ought to thank Dr. Y. Maniatis, Director of 14C Laboratory at N.C.S.R. Demokritos. In this article we use Cali-brated Dates based on the Table of Klein (67%, CRD 1c B.C., Half-life 5568 bp) in Ehrich 1992, 544-552. We in-corporate in this debate the available dates from Eastern Macedonia not existing in Ehrich 1992, 210-211 and 349.19 Treuil 1989, 129-144. Demoule 1993a, 1-5.20 Efstratiou and Kallintzi 1996, 886.21 Efstratiou and Kallintzi 1994, 17. Aslanis 1992, 226.22 Ozdogan and Gatsov 1998, 214.23 Ozdogan 1983, 409. Ozdogan 1995, 47.24 Buitenhuis 1994, 141-144.25 Ozdogan 1989, 203.26 Roodenberg et al. 1989-90, 76.27 Ozdogan and Koyunlu 1986, 15.28 Ozdogan et al. 1997, 10.29 Parzinger and Ozdogan 1996, 5-2930 Grammenos - Fotiadis 1980, 20-23. Fotiadis 1985, 210.31 Koukouli-Chryssanthaki 2007, 470.32 Ourem-Kotsos and fstratiou 1997, 620.33 Efstratiou and Kallintzi 1997, 886.34 Koukouli-Chryssanthaki and Weisgerber 1993, 549.35 Papadopoulos 2001, 157-194.

52

Limenaria in the same area is perhaps to be expected36 . Aspects such as the frequent occurrenceof mineral bulks in the archaeological deposits of the site are also explicable37 .

Two other absolute values calibrated to the end of the 7th mill., which are considered extremelyhigh, derive from Dimitra38 , and there are also some dates close to 6000 from Limenaria39 (Table1). These dates are attributed to a phase that is called in Eastern Macedonia �‘end of the MiddleNeolithic�’40 or �‘Middle Neolithic III�’41 . The above stage does not have common ground with theMN in Thessaly; on the contrary, it reveals cultural affinity with the �‘Larissa�’ phase, which is con-sidered to be the earliest of the Late Neolithic period in Thessaly. In the Northeastern Aegean,this phase, which is represented by Sitagri I, Dimitra I, Limenaria I and Makri I, seems to coverthe interval from 5600/500 to 5300/200 BC, that is the MN III in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace,and is nearly contemporary with the final stage of the MN in Thessaly. Therefore, some of the el-ements of the �‘Larissa culture�’ emerge at least two centuries earlier than we had formerly be-lieved. This fact reminds us that there is a discussion about the spread of these elements, as towhether this expansion should be attributed to migration or to local development42 .

Phase I in Sitagroi43 , in section A, seems to cover a time span of about three centuries. Thereare two values between 4315 75 bc44 and 4675170 bc, that could be ranged from 5700 to 5000BC45 , or between 5500 and 5200 BC, as has been suggested by the excavators46 . In Dimitra,phase I with two subphases, a and b, is considered to be equivalent chronologically to theSitagroi I phase and covers a span of 200 years47 . The �‘paradox�’ is that both dates (7470 60 BPand 7180 80 BP) come from Section II which is extended down to the natural soil and are cali-brated at the end of the 7th mill., and consequently are about half a millennium earlier than theconventional dates of Sitagroi I. One inappropriate value from the earliest phase of Sitagroi,around 7800 BP, has been also considered by the laboratory of Berlin as not worth further discus-sion, as the sample itself was particularly limited48 .

Some scholars recognize the earliness of Sitagroi I in relation to the �‘Larissa phase�’ and bringinto line the MN III in Eastern Macedonia with the phase Sesklo III in Thessaly49 . Apart from theexcluded values from Dimitra, some dates in Limenaria and Dikili Tash are surely earlier thanthese of the MN in Bulgaria; that is the phases Karanovo II-III in Azmak, Ezero, Kazanluk,Jasatepe and Karanovo itself50 . The dates from Eastern Macedonia appear to be compatible withthe calibrated ones of the Early Neolithic in Azmak and Starazagora, although later than some ofthe same period in Èavdar51 .

In Limenaria five subphases of the MN last from 5850 to 5350 BC.52 In Western Thrace, theradiocarbon dates from Makri represent the point of succession between the phases I and II. Thevalues that have been published up to now are identical and referred to an episode of destructionaround 5450 BC. There are no absolute dates from Paradimi53 and Lafrouda54 . On the other hand,the earliest phases in Mikro Vouni on the island of Samothrace seem to belong in the middle ofthe 6th mill. BC55 .

36 Papadopoulos 2005, 245.37 Papadopoulos 2008, 63.38 The material from Dimitra has been proven to be doubtful due to faulty sampling. The thermo-luminescence val-ues are also unreliable (3166±320 .C. and 1900±580 .C). See: Grammenos 1997, 61-61, 266.39 Maniatis and Fakorellis (forthcoming)40 Aslanis 1992, 129.41 Grammenos 1992, 91.42 Jovanovic 1993, 63-74. Ozdogan 1993, 173-193.43 Renfrew et al. 1986, 167.44 Before calibration45 Ehrich 1992, 210.46 Renfrew et al. 1986, 173.47 Grammenos 1997, 55.48 Renfrew et al. 1986, 173.49 Aslanis 1992, 265.50 Boyadziev 1995, 181.51 Ehrich 1992, vol. 2, 347.52 Maniatis and Fakorelis (forthcoming).53 Bakalakis and Sakkelariou 1981, 25.54 Romiopoulou 1968, 461.55 Matsas 1997.

53

The Ilipinar phase V and VI, equivalent to the MN from the Balkans, provides dates between6650 BP and 6610 BP56 , which are calibrated between 5650 and 5350 BC. It seems that the ex-cavators recommend a lower chronology for the MN layers, so long as four phases of EN arecompressed between 5900 and 5500 BC. In Yarimburgaze, phases 4 and 5 are considered to beearlier than the MN in Northern Greece, since they are dated to the end of the 7th mill. BC. Phase3 gives dates much closer to those from Limenaria that are in the first quarter of the 6th mill. BC57 .The excavation in Hoca Cesme58 provided dates of three phases earlier than the MN period, par-ticularly between 6500 and 5500 BC, while the MN phases follow. This rather low chronologi-cal framework is just as present in Ilipinar as it is in Hoca Cesme. Besides, it is consistent withthe values we recognize so far for phases 2 and 3 in Toptepe, which are considered to be equiva-lent to Vinca A-C and date from 5540 to 5000 BC59 .

IV. THE LATE AND FINAL NEOLITHIC AND THE EMBARRASSMENT OF THE 4TH MILL.

Sitagroi II sometimes diverges and sometimes converges with Sitagroi I, depending on theresearcher�’s preference. The notable variety of the painted pottery wares of phase II appears tobe a novelty60 equivalent to the Tsangli phase in Thessaly61 . This pottery is absent from the first1,5m of the deposit in Sitagroi, namely phase I62 , and from 2,5m of the deposit in the first phaseat Limenaria63 . It is also absent in sites of Western Thrace, such as Paradimi and Makri. Theadoption of these painted wares marks the beginning of the Late Neolithic I in EasternMacedonia64 .

This is another point where certain dating questions arise. In phase II in Sitagroi the absolutedates support a duration of 600 years that is from 5200 to 4700 BC.65 Phase I in Dikili Tash66

corresponds to a deposit of 3,50m in Section II but of 5m in Section I67 . For this phase the pro-posed span is about one millennium, from 6000 to 5000 BC, although the excavators suggest amuch shorter period, that is from 5450 to 5000 BC. The latter has been preferred as it is compat-ible with the values from Sitagroi and South Bulgaria68 , but recent measurement by the thermolu-minescence method has given early dates as well69 .

With the evidence of absolute dating, Dikili Tash I appears to be earlier than Sitagroi II, andthus contemporary with the end of the MN in Sitagroi and Limenaria. This probability wouldmean, therefore, that several painted pottery wares had already been produced in Dikili Tash afew centuries before they appeared in Sitagroi, and this is something that archeological percep-tion has difficulty in accepting without reservation. Consequently the idea of excluding thesedates is considered to be the most preferable. This �‘necessary equivalence�’ in the case of DikiliTash I, has to face up to two difficulties. The absolute dates which can be placed in the first halfof the 6th mill. are more than three, and derive from the layers Ib and Ic which are not from theearliest layers of the LN I. On the other hand, the end of this phase appears to derive from ear-lier than phase II in Sitagroi by about 300 years. In Promahonas/Topolnitsa, phases II and III canbe placed at the end of the 6th mill., since they have produced C14 dates between 5200 and 5000BC70 .

56 Roodenberg et al. 1989-90, 75.57 Ozdogan et al. 1991, 69-74.58 Ozdogan et al. 1991, 81. Ozdogan 1993, 183-186.59 Ozdogan and Dede 1990, 22-23. Ozdogan et al. 1991, 75-79.60 Koukouli-Chryssanthaki 1996, 112.61 Demoule et al. 1988, 50. Schneider et al. 1991, 26-32. Schneider et al. 1994, 67.62 Keighley 1986, 345-392.63 Papadopoulos and Malamidou 2008, 430.64 Papadopoulos 2002, 221. Tsirtsoni 2000, 1-55.65 Ehrich 1992, 210-211.66 Treuil 1992, 21.67 Koukouli-Chryssanthaki et al. 1996, 686.68 Treuil 1992, 34.69 R.Treuil : oral communication.70 Boyadziev 1993, 91-96.

54

Although the beginning of the LN period in Eastern Macedonia may be earlier than inThessaly, it is generally considered to be contemporary to the Larissa and Tsangli phases. Con-sequently the later phases of the LN are considered to be simultaneous to the phases Arapi andDimini I-II. Using strictly typological criteria, not only Dikili Tash I, but also the common hori-zon Sitagri I, Dimitra I, Limenaria I, Paradimi I-II and Makri I-II should have been incorporatedin the NN I according to the �‘Thessalian chronology�’; so that the term �‘Middle Neolithic�’ couldhave been excluded for both Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace.

At the beginning of the 5th mill., Sitagroi III, Dikili Tash II71 and Limenaria II succeed theprevious phases in Eastern Macedonia, and Late Dimini appears in Thessaly. In both areassignificant painted and incised pottery traditions prevail, while the dark undecorated potterycontinues in Thrace72 . Phase III in Sitagroi is considered to span more or less 1500 years, from4800 to 3300 BC, although Renfrew had tried to control this broad time period by initiating theLN II at 4600 BC - instead of 4800 - and the Early Bronze Age at 3500 instead of 3300 BC73 .

Phase II in Dikili Tash, being LN II as well, although being represented by much thicker de-posits than those in Sitagroi74 , covers a span of 700 years, namely from 4700 to 4000 BC75 . Theseradiocarbon dates seem to be confirmed by a series of thermoluminescence values, between 4500and 4000 BC. In section VI, excavation research in the �’90s has offered four LN buildings underthe layers of the EBA76 ; these structures also do not seem to survive after 4000 BC.

The �‘inconsistency�’ is the absence of Black-on-Red pottery in this cluster of buildings. Thispopular pottery ware is widespread in Eastern Macedonia during the 5th mill., keeping step withthe pottery decorated on graphite77 . The latter is well represented in the buildings mentionedabove. According to the excavators�’ view, the Black-on-Red pottery ends earlier than that of thegraphite. However, it would be rather excessive to exclude the Black-on-Red pottery from thesecond half of the 5th mill., since it is well represented in Sitagroi and Kryoneri during the sameperiod, even in its latest sub-phase78 . Facing the issue of the presence or absence of Black-on-Redpottery in Eastern Macedonia, as an index of inter-communal behavior and not only as a strictlychronological tool, might help to understand better its geographical distribution79 .

According to the approach of some archaeologists, reference to the �‘hiatuses�’ in stratigraphy,which is considered as evidence for the abandonment of the site, could solve these irregularitiesand restore certain typological sequences80 . However, this attitude is in fact weak in providingserious criteria in order to interpret a hiatus in the sequence of the layers of a settlement. On theother other hand it is not explicable why such a hiatus needs to be identified in destruction lay-ers which could be associated with various accidental or planned events in the process of a site.

The widely discussed hiatus between phases III and IV in Sitagroi is equivalent to a thin layerof carbonized material between horizons 32 and 31 in trench ZA. These layers are habitually ac-companied by dispersed construction material, which is typical of destruction deposit and mayrelate to one building, a complex of structures, or the entire settlement. Even in the last case, itis not easy to understand why such a layer should entail the abandonment of the site. In Sitagroi,Sherratt has proposed hiatuses as tools to clarify the absence of some pottery categories81 , whileRenfrew has not acceded to them as obstacles to the development of the site82 . In Makri excava-tion has revealed the presence of a destruction layer that seems to mark the end of the firstphase83 . Although this layer is located in many spots on the site, it is not considered as an evi-dence for the abandonment of the settlement.

71 Seferiades 1983, 635. Id. 1989, 277.72 Papadopoulos 2004, 25. Yiouni 2001, 1-25.73 Renfrew et al. 1986, 173.74 Treuil 1992, 26.75 The excavators propose a time span of just two centuries, from 4230 to 4043 BC.: Ch.Koukouli-Chryssanthaki1996a, 694.76 Koukouli-Chryssanthaki et al. 1996a, 690, 693.77 Malamidou 2005, Tsirtsoni et al. 2005.78 Evans 1986, 400.79 Papadopoulos 2002, 228.80 Aslanis 1989, 140. Todorova 1995, 90.81 Sherratt 1986, 441.82 Renfrew et al. 1986, 173.83 Efstratiou and Kallintzi 1996, 893.

55

Whereas the chronological issues above which are still in abeyance, do not appear to restrictthe constant discussions parcelling out the Neolithic era84 , the rarity of radiocarbon dates in the4th mill. has given rise to various discussions85 . This is a topic widely discussed not only in re-lation to Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace, but also to other parts of Northern Greece86 ,and even the broader Balkan areas87 .

The character of the F period and a Transitional phase which is intermediate between the FNand the Early Bronze Age has been discussed by Johnson, in an attempt to evaluate as a whole theavailable evidence from the Aegean and the Southern Balkans. The primary reference point of hisapproach is the chronological association of the Thessalian Chalcolithic era, particularly the�‘Rachmani�’ phase, with the FN and the beginning of the Early Helladic period in South Greek88 .The absolute dates from Pefkakia along with some dates from Tharrounia in Euvoia89 and ZasCave in Naxos90 have raised this chronological discussion again. Phelps has defined the FN inSouthern Greece based on the pottery wares91 in a largely different way than Renfrew had doneseveral years earlier. Crusted wares along with pattern-burnished pottery have been considered asthe typical feature of the early phases of this period; bowls of the Kum Tepe type have been con-sidered as the typical feature of the late phases. In the South-East Balkans, during the middle ofthe 5th mill., the widespread graphite pottery passes the torch to the crusted tradition, which seemsto prevail in the majority of the sites on the Greek mainland92 .

As the calibrated radiocarbon dates from Pefkakia fit in with the middle of the 5th mill. BC, thatis to say more than a millennium before the beginning of the EH I period, it has been suggested thatthe Pefkakia finds may represent only an early part of the Chalcolithic ages in Thessaly and that theRachmani period as a whole may correspond to the southern Greek FN, a view that had already beenmentioned by some scholars too93 . Phelps has also referred to possible errors in radiocarbon meth-ods94 , and has mentioned that long-lived samples represent earlier dates than the actual materialcontext, while short-lived samples may reflect more precisely the true dating.

Johnson turns our attention to the fact that absolute dates between 3800 and 3300 BP are veryrare in the Eastern Balkans and Greece, although this issue does not affect the North-WestBalkans, where layers of the Boleraz and Classic Baden phases have provided values of the 4th

mill. This fact makes him wonder whether this �‘radiocarbon hiatus�’ reflects problems of the C14technique or a real episode of depopulation of the Neolithic settlements. He concludes thus withevidence that the FN lasted from 4500 to 3700 BC, while a Transitional phase till the beginningof the EBA ranged from 3700 to 3300 BC95 .

Till recently, the only value from Eastern Macedonia, which had been estimated in the 4th

mill., had come from phase III in Sitagroi. It is dated between 3960 and 3780 BC, and does notactually derive from the latest Neolithic layers of the site. We could add to this seven radiocar-bon dates from phase IV in the same site, which may be calibrated a little after 3500 BC, onevalue from the phase IIIA in Dikili Tash96 , estimated between 3935 and 3660 BC, one from thesite of Promachonas/Topolnitsa, estimated between 3880 and 3670 BC97 , one from the site ofKryoneri98 , and two values from the site of Paradeisos99 ; the first is dated between 4100 and 3895BC and the second one between 3885 and 3760 BC.

84 Papadopoulos 1998, 255.85 Warren and Hankey 1989, 11, Boyadziev 1995, 173. Manning 1995, 94.86 Kotsakis et al. 1989, 679. Maniatis and Kromer 1990, 149. Kalogirou 1994, 179.87 Boyadziev 1995, 173.88 Johnson 1999, 319.89 Sampson 1993, 35.90 Zachos 1996, 86.91 Phelps, 1975.92 Johnson 1999, 321. Johnson himself makes the point that one needs to be extremely cautious when typologicalparallels are used between isolated regions as strong evidence for comparison. It is not valid to try to date typologi-cal characteristics within strict terms of absolute chronology.93 Andreou et al. 1996, 537-597.94 Manning 1995, 94.95 Johnson 1999, 330-333.96 Treuil 1992, 33. Ehrich 1992, 213.97 Boyadziev 1995, 182.98 Unpublished, maybe estimated in the first century of the 4th mill. See Malamidou 2007, 301.99 Hellstrom 1987, 135.

56

Recent excavation in the FN layers in Limenaria has given one more date calibrated to the firsthalf of the 4th mill., specifically between 3969 and 3800 BC.100 The latter derives from a storagepit and is accompanied by pottery which has been suggested as being dated, using typologicalcriteria as well, to the beginning of the 4th mill.101 : open biconical bowls having the lower partcovered with a purple coat and an upper one decorated with crusted whitish, yellow and pinkpaint or with plain straight graphite motifs (Fig. 1). Considering the dating evidence from the LNlayers of Sitagroi and Dikili Tash in connection with their pottery material, one should accept thatwe are rather ignorant of the pottery wares that were used during the first half of this millenniumin Eastern Macedonia. Final Neolithic pottery from Limenaria102 (Fig. 2), which has been exam-ined along with a group of FN sherds from the site of Kastri on the Thassos island103 , come tocover this lack, forcing us to accept the existence of a FN phase in Northern Greece104 . Recently,a small number of dates calibrated to the second half of the 4th mill., between 3340 and 3000 BC.,have been provided from a cave that has been excavated in the prefecture of Serres, at the site�‘Katarraktes Sidirokastrou�’.

The radiocarbon dates of the 4th mill. from Eastern Macedonia, though few, clarify that the�‘missing link�’ is not this millennium as a whole, but a shorter time span between 3700 and 3300BC. The rareness of C14 samples which are dated around 3500 BC is observed even in thebroader area of the Balkans and Western Anatolia, although dates of the 4th mill. are not lacking.A significant number of such dates, known from Bulgaria105 have been provided either from theTransition period or the first phases of the EBA. The earliest of them derive from Orcharovo,Hotnitsa, Yagodina and Haramijska Dupka, but in fact there are no values later than 3700 BC. Onthe other hand, over twenty dates of the EBA period in Ezero are calibrated between 3350 and3000 BC106 .

Radiocarbon dates of the first half of the 4th mill. from North-West Turkey and WesternAnatolia are also known. Some of them are estimated at the problematic time span between 3700and 3400 BC. Dates from Demirchoyuk are calibrated between 3750 and 3420 BC, and datesfrom the Late Chalcolithic layers in Ilipinar107 are estimated around 3700 BC just a little beforethe beginning of the EBA108 . These phases came to cover effectively the �‘hiatus�’ between thebeginning of the EBA, that is, Kumtepe Ib and Troia I, and the preceding Toptepe I/ Kumtepe Ia/Besiktepe group109 . In the broader area of Anatolia, dates which are calibrated in the 4th mill., areoffered from more than a few sites: Afrodisias, Beycesultan, Tepecik Kurucan, Arslantepe110 . Onthe other hand, South Greece as far as its chronological picture is concerned, differs significantlyfrom the Balkans and Anatolia. This area does not offer absolute dates apart from those fromKephala111 , Skoteini Cave112 , Eutresis, Pyrgos and Vouliagmeni113 .

During the last decade, the excavation project in Aghios Ioannis, on Southern Thassos114 , hasbrought to light an unexpected series of dates which have been estimated at the second half of the4th mill. BC115 . The dates have been derived from a coastal transitional settlement, probably ori-ented to fishing and hunting. The pottery of the site includes undecorated bowls, cooking pots andegg-shaped jars decorated in relief. Such vessels are spread out in a broad geographical area -ranging from Kephala and Athenian Agora to the �‘territory�’ of the Bodrogkeresztur, Cernavoda Iand Salcutsa III cultures - during the FN/Transitional phase. But another pottery tradition coex-ists. Its commonest ware is that of vases decorated with a series of cavities or impressions underthe rim or on the belly. Shallow channelling on the body, often combined with cavities, is present

100 Maniatis and Fakorelis (forthcoming)101 Malamidou and Papadopoulos 1997, 585. Maniatis and Fakorelis (forthcoming)102 Papadopoulos 2007, 320.103 Demoule, 1993b, 380.104 Johnson 1999, 319.105 Boyadziev 1995, 184 -185.106 Ibid, 186.107 Ozdogan 1989, 202.108 Roodenberg et al. 1989-90, 77.109 Ozdogan and Dede 1990, 22-23. Ozdogan et al. 1991, 75-79.110 Ehrich 1992, 176.111 Coleman 1977, 110112 Sampson 1993, 285.113 Sampson 1993, 212.

57

as well. Conical bowls have a well- burnished surface and are decorated with channelled patternsof groups of semicircles under the rim. These elements are dated to the earliest phases of the EBAin North Aegean and Northern Greece116 .

The absolute values from Aghios Ioannis date the site to the second half of the 4th mill. (Table2), specifically between 3600 and 3000 BC. What is worth noting however, in regard to the sig-nificant number of absolute values which are available now from Thassos, is that such dates cannow be expected. We also need to carry out cautiously any discussion of dramatic reduction ofpopulation or abandonment of settlements, reckoning on the likelihood of surprises that mayemerge from future archaeological research.

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Ammerrman et alii 1999,Ammerrman A.J., Efstratiou N. and Adam E., First evidence for the palaeolithic in Aegean Thrace. G.N.Bailey,

E.Adam, E.Panagopoulou, C.Perles and K.Zachos (eds) The palaeolithic archaeology of Greece and the adjacent ar-eas, Proceedings of the ICOPAG Conference, Ioannina, (1994). BSA Studies 3, 1999, 211-214.

Andreou et alii 1996,Andreou S., Fotiadis . and Kotsakis ., �‘Review of Aegean Prehistory V: The Neolithic and Bronze Age of

Northern Greece, AJA 100, (1996), 537-597.

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64

Table 2. Aghios Ioannis C14 Dates

Table 1. Limenaria C14 Dates

65

Fig. 1. Limenaria FN pottery 1

Fig. 2. Limenaria FN pottery 2

66

Fig. 4. Aghios Ioannis pottery

Fig. 3. Aghios Ioannis pottery

67

THE HOTNITSA TELL �– 50 YEARS LATER.EIGHT YEARS OF NEW EXCAVATIONS �– SOME RESULTS AND PERSPECTIVES

Alexander Chohadzhiev*

Keywords: Hotnitsa, North Bulgaria, Chalcolithic, Kodzhadermen�–Gumelniþa�–Karanovo VIculture.

This paper describes the Hotnitsa tell site, which has been studied for more than 50 years, butunfortunately is far less well-known than it deserves. As one of the first steps in this direction,just a few results will be presented here, while more detailed analyses will be left for the seriesof monographs we are preparing.

The village of Hotnitsa is situated in a small hollow some 14 km north-east from the city ofVeliko Tarnovo (Map 1). The neighbourhood of the village is a kind of archaeologicalphenomenon. Over 70 archaeological sites from prehistory, antiquity and the Middle Ages havebeen registered. The prehistoric settlements are also impressive in number �– 6 Neolithic, 1Chalcolithic tell, two thin layered Chalcolithic settlements and 12 sites from the Bronze and IronAges1 .

The Chalcolithic Hotnitsa tell is located at 1200 m and 40° northwards from the center of thevillage (Map 2). It is situated on the left bank of Bohot River �– one of the right tributaries ofRositsa River. Its altitude is 84.2 m. It has the shape of a truncated cone with a diameter at thebase of 110 m and at the top of approximately 50 m and a height of 5 m. The site was firstrecorded by Nikola Angelov in 1956 during his field surveys in the region.

Because of some agricultural activities the cultural layer had been penetrated and that had forcedarchaeological excavations. Angelov published some results in only three articles2 . Here the resultsfrom the old excavations will just be sketched; they are not well-known enough in the foreignliterature but in the last five years our team has been processing all of the pottery and the artifactsfrom the old excavations and they will soon be published in a separate volume �– Hotnitsa I.

Excavations were conducted between 1956 and 1959. During that time Angelov revealed 21houses �– all of them burnt and in some of them he reported skeletons. Unfortunately thedocumentation is not fully preserved so we do not have complete evidence.

The stratigraphic trench was 4x10 m in size and is situated in the southern periphery of thetell. There Angelov had established 14 building levels in three major layers he called Hotnitsa I,II and III. He refers them respectively to the Late Neolithic, Early and Late Chalcolithic (Fig.1).(Here it must be remembered that Nikola Angelov had excavated the Russe tell together withGeorgi Georgiev and was already acquainted with his Karanovo periodization). According toProfessor H. Todorova3 (Fig. 2) the artifacts indicate a 3.9 m layer of the late Chalcolithiccomplex Kodzhadermen�–Gumelniþa�–Karanovo VI, where only phases II and III are represented.The layer of 1.20 m she refers to the Early and Middle Chalcolithic culture Poljanitsa (phases II,III, and IV). Her observations were made only on the artifacts in the museum, so she had no directstratigraphic clues for such a periodization.

As has already been mentioned Angelov had unearthed 21 houses from the first (the upper)building level. All of them were burned in a devastating fire and some had skeletal remainsinside, which according to him is an indicator of a sudden assault on the settlement.

The disposition of the houses shows that they were certainly the subject of planning. Four�“strips or quarters�” can be very clearly distinguished. Houses 1 and 8 can be shown to beexceptions, as they had probably been built later because they were sticking out into the street.

* Regional Museum of History �– Veliko Tarnovo, Nikola Picolo 6 Str., Veliko Tarnovo, 5000, Bulgaria,[email protected] 2000, 17.2 1958; 1959; 1961.3 1986, 78; . 30


68

Over the total area the houses can be divided into four groups (Fig. 4) �– less than 18 sq.m (2houses - Fig. 4A); from 21 to 26.6 sq. m (7 houses- Fig. 4B); from 30 to 34 sq. m (5 houses- Fig.4C) and from 39 to 57 sq. m (7 houses- Fig. 4D). It is obvious that the houses in the northern halfof the settlement are bigger ones. And houses with more than one room are only established there.

House 4 can be pointed out as an exception which is comparatively small, with a differentorientation, almost square, and having an internal wall. No structures were discovered inside andit was there that the famous Hotnitsa treasure was revealed 4 (Fig. 5).

The new excavations started in the year 2000. They were planned as summer practice for thefirst grade archaeology students of the Veliko Tarnovo University �“St. Cyril and St. Methodius�”.The excavations were led by Stefan Chohadzhiev from the University and by Nedko Elenski fromthe Museum until 2003. After 2003 Alexander Chohadzhiev was appointed as the representativeof Veliko Tarnovo museum.

When we first arrived at the tell, it was a dense forest and it had been used for half a centuryas a junk-heap for the village. Our strategy was to clear trees from an area of 250 sq. m. and toexcavate there5 (Fig. 6).

Here it should be mentioned that the new excavations were done mainly with small tools andthe entire soil was screened before it was disposed of, and all of this made progress very slow.

After clearing the terrain we found that Angelov had excavated only the houses from the firstlevel, but not the spaces between so there were huge pits in the terrain, and their walls had fallen,forming great unevenness (Fig. 7). In the first three years we were able to follow our strategy toexcavate in the northern sector, having two major stratigraphic profiles (Fig. 8). But at thebeginning of the 2005 season we found some drastic interference by treasure hunters that haddestroyed our profiles and forced us to change our strategy.

During our excavations we documented three more definite building levels.The second building level is very poorly preserved. It is neither burned nor partially fired, and

was almost destroyed by the Level I settlers. No intact structures were discovered. Only somewall portions and levels of pottery were in situ (Fig. 9). The second building level is very poorin artifacts, and most of them are severely broken. Unfortunately we do not have clearstratigraphic distinction between the remains of first and second levels because, as alreadymentioned, Angelov had excavated all of the houses from horizon I, but not the space between.There are some clues that lead to the supposition that there is a direct continuity between II andI building levels.

During the eight years of the new excavations we were able to excavate parts of 7 houses andto establish the position and sizes of three more houses belonging to the third horizon (Fig. 10).Our initial plans were disrupted by the treasure hunters, but their activities had some positiveresults because we were able to excavate in the squares 85-84-95-94-105, which were outside theprimary sector.

The destruction layers of the houses are from 60 cm to 1 m thick. The fire was fierce anddevastating. Most of the houses from the third building level are orientated on the cardinal points,with the long side North-South. The orientation of the houses had changed in the first buildinglevel �– the deviation is obvious when we compare both plans (Fig. 3 and Fig. 10).

We were able to study some wooden parts of the roof construction in house 1. Muchinformation on the building techniques was acquired. The walls were comparatively thick at 30-40-60 cm, built not in the classic wattle and daub technique, but in some sort of mixedconstruction. There were posts but they do not form straight lines. The foundations of the wallswere built mostly of clay, and wood is used mainly for support. The walls had their both facessmoothly plastered (Fig. 11). Possibly the ceiling areas of the houses were constructed only ofwood. We have enough evidence to assume that wooden planks were used for the floor covering.

In house 4 we were fortunate to reveal a sort of building sacrifice6 : the bones of 25individuals (Fig. 12) �– 16 cattle, 2 sheep/goat, 3 swine, 1 deer and 1 aurochs, and two deer horns(Fig. 13) were put in a 10 cm shallow pit and then plastered for the floor.

4 1959.5 , 20026 Chokhadzhiev, Chokhadzhiev 2005, 11, fig. 6.

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After we had removed the level III building destruction in squares 87 and 97, we were able tostudy some very interesting remains from the building level IV. It was not burnt, but in this placemuch is better preserved than in level II. There is a �“carpet�” of pottery �– full of restorable vessels,artifacts, stones and bones (Fig. 14). What is very interesting in this situation are the preservedwood remains (Fig. 15). In one place even a fine woven wattle is preserved (Fig. 16). Up to thepresent we have established that this wattle covers more than 5 sq. meters. On the periphery ofthe house we were able to unearth some remains of wooden beams and planks. It seems that thishouse was abandoned by its inhabitants suddenly and left to be destroyed by time. The alternativepossibility of flooding as the reason for its destruction must not be excluded.

In 2003 and 2004 we made some efforts to clean the stratigraphic trench. It was almost filledwith garbage and soil and densely covered with trees and bushes. What we revealed in the northprofile is that there are no more burned levels after III and none until the Early Chalcolithic layer.Clearly there are more than 14 building horizons in the entire tell. There are just a few lateNeolithic fragments but these may result from the nearby site of Orlovka, because the tell is onthe closest route from this settlement to the river. The excavations of the lowest levels were mademore difficult by subterranean water.

In the eastern profile of the stratigraphic trench we excavated one stone structure and duringthe two years of excavations there we established that it is probably a part of a defensive wall -perhaps a sort of �“tower�” or a �“gate�” that belongs to the Late Chalcolithic levels (Fig. 17). For thenext campaigns we plan to reveal more of the defensive system on the southern periphery of thetell and to establish the connection between the houses and the fence.

Of course the artifacts discovered recently cannot be discussed in detail here �– over the 8 yearsthere were 6727 excluding the pottery. All of them are prepared for publication in a separatevolume. So just a few will be mentioned here.

Probably the most attractive and interesting are the golden artifacts discovered recently. Theyare five of them �– 3 pendants and 2 spirals (Fig. 18). The three pendants (a, b, c) and one spiral(d) were discovered in the first two years and do not have any specific context7 . They may belongto the Hotnica treasure from the first building level but this cannot be claimed with certainty. Theother spiral (Fig. 18 e, Fig. 19) was discovered in 2006 and we are sure it belongs to horizon IV.Unlike all the known golden spirals, this one is made not by stretching the golden wire, but byforging. The chemical analysis (fig. 20) shows that the quantity of silver is too small incomparison with the other golden objects from Hotnitsa and those from Varna (9-14%). What isinteresting is that this spiral was deliberately pierced with a sharp instrument when the gold washot. The stratigraphic position, the rough fabric and the comparatively heavy weight point to anearlier stage in gold metallurgy.

Frequent discovery was made recently of clay grain models (Fig. 21), mostly discovered indeposits of real grain. This probably has some sort of ritual meaning.

One lower half of a marble figurine is surprising with its typical �“Gumelniþa�” iconography(Fig. 22), but it is made of very fine-grained white marble. Such marble is not typical of theinterior parts of the Balkans, but of the islands in the Aegean.

One plate with red and white decoration (Fig. 23) is very interesting and rare. The red paintfilling fills the motifs and is very thin. In contrast �– the white paint, which is very thick, looks likerelief decoration. But the most interesting are the two figures applied inside the bottom (Fig. 23a).Unfortunately the upper parts are broken, but it seems they represent a mother, sitting in a chairor �“throne�” and holding a child in her lap. Both of the figurines are also painted in red and whitein the same technique as the entire plate.

Our attempts to find the necropolis of the settlement were unsuccessful. In the future effortswill be made in this direction.

In speaking of Hotnitsa tell it is very important to note that it is one of the most western tell-type settlements in Northern Bulgaria. I hope that this paper will be the first link in a chain offuture publications about Hotnitsa tell that will make this site a marker for the Kodzhadermen�–Gumelniþa�–Karanovo VI culture.

7 , 2002, 30-32, . 5: 1, 2, 3; Chokhadzhiev, Chokhadzhiev 2005, 11, 11-12, fig. 8, 9.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

1958,. . . . . . , (1958), 389

�– 403

1959,. . . �– ,(1959), 1-2, 38 �– 46.

1961,. . . , . �–

,(1961), 2, 34-38.

2000,. . . , .

1. ( . ). , (2000),93-100.

1986,. . - ( , , (1986).

, 2002,. , . . . ,

2000 . ( ). . ( . .). , (2002), 27-32

Chokhadzhiev, Chokhadzhiev 2005,St. Chokhadzhiev, Al. Chokhadzhiev 2005. Some Results of the Investigations of Hotnitsa Tell in 2001. Prehistoric

Archaeology & anthropological Theory and Education. RPRP 6-7. Salt Lake City, (2005), 9-12.

71

Map. 1. The place of the Hotnitsa tell �– in the Balkans and in the region of Veliko Tarnovo.

Map. 2. Topographic map of the vicinity of the tell site.

72

Fig. 1. Profile of the stratigraphic trench of Angelov�’s excavations - from the personal archive of N.Angelov.

73

Fig. 2. Stratigraphic table according to Professor Henrieta Todorova �– after 1986, . 30.

74

Fig. 3. Plan of the houses from the first building level of Angelov�’s excavations �– adapted plan from thepersonal archive of N. Angelov.

75

Fig. 4. Distribution of the houses from the first building level according to their surface area.

Fig. 5. The golden Hotnitsa �“treasure�”.

76

Fig. 6. Present appearance of the tell �– view from the East.

Fig. 7. The terrain after cleaning the vegetation before the start of the new excavations.

77

Fig. 8. The original sector of the new excavations, before the treasure-hunters�’ interventions and theenlargement of the excavated area �– view from the North.

Fig. 9. Example of pottery in situ in the second building level.

78

Fig. 10. Plan of the houses from the third building level.

Fig. 11. Northern parts of houses 1 and 6 from the third building level and the narrow �“passage�” between,Hotnitsa 2004 �– view from the South.

79

Fig. 12. A �“building sacrifice�” �– house 4 from the third building level �– bones in situ.

Fig. 13. The bones from the �“building sacrifice�”

80

Fig. 14. Plan of the ruins of house 12 from the fourth building level (Hotnitsa 2006-2007).

Fig. 15. Wooden plank of the floor covering �– house 12, building level IV.

81

Fig. 17. Stone structure and post holes from a defensive structure in the eastern profile of the stratigraphictrench �– view from the South and above.

82

Fig. 18. Golden objects from the new excavations.

Fig. 19. The golden spiral from building level IV (Fig. 19e).

83

Fig. 20. The chemical composition of the golden spiral from building level IV (Fig. 20)

Chem. element Fe Cu Zn As Ag Sn Sb Au Pb Hg weight % 0,28 1,09 <0,01 <0,01 3,21 <0,01 <0,01 95,42 <0,01 <0,01

Fig. 21. Different types of clay grain models.

Fig. 22. Lower half of marble figurine �– building level IV, house 12.

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Fig. 23a. The sculptural group from the plate �– big figurine, sitting on a chair and holding the small oneacross in the lap.

Fig. 23. Plate with white and red painted decoration and the sculptural group on the bottom �–buildinglevel III.

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BAPSKA, A LATE NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT IN EASTERN CROATIA �– A NEWPROJECT

Marcel Buriæ and Tihomila Te�žak-Gregl *

Keywords: Bapska, Late Neolithic, Vinèa culture, Sopot culture.

Prompted by new rescue excavations and only partially published material from precedingexcavations at Bapska, this paper provides a history of the research, published materials, andinsight into the vertical stratigraphy and chronology of the site. When possible, data from newexcavations will be presented in order to present the current state of knowledge about Bapska andits position in the Balkan Late Neolithic.

The Bapska site has been present in the literature to a greater or lesser degree for many years,but relatively little data about it has actually been published. Many archaeologists know about thedetails of the site from �“oral tradition�”, i.e. from personal contacts with S. Dimitrijeviæ (severalof them said so themselves: N. Kalicz, G. Lazarovici, J. Chapman, B. Brukner, J. Maran), so greatdeal of knowledge on the materials, results, interpretations and dating fall into the pers. comm.category. V. Milojèiæ (1949) and S. Dimitrijeviæ (1968) have written the most about the site, butboth only wrote preliminary reports on a select portion of the materials. As ill fate would have it,this preliminary level cannot be improved by re-examining the old finds, as this area was besetby the whirlwind of war in the Balkans, during which most of the artefacts discovered duringDimitrijeviæ�’s research were lost or destroyed. What remains is not sufficient for quality analysis,and since the site is threatened by farming activities, new rescue excavations commenced recentlyto shed new light on this problem. The primary intent is to present the relevant data gathered bySchmidt, Milojèiæ and Dimitrijeviæ to the greatest possible degree, and to highlight the similaritiesand differences in their stratigraphy and interpretations. As much as possible, this knowledge willbe supplemented with data from new excavations that have only just commenced.

The prehistoric settlement, situated slightly more than a kilometre from the present-day villageof Bapska, is actually called Gradac, like hundreds of other topographical sites in Croatia, butalso throughout the Central and Western Balkans (another widely-known Gradac in the immediatevicinity is at Vuèedol). In Croatian (as in Serbian, Slovenia, Bosnian, etc.), Gradac, Gradec,Gradina, Gradi�šæe, Grad and similar names denote an elevated settlement, or hillfort in the widersense of its meaning. In 99 percent of cases it is an archaeological site, usually prehistoric. Thesame situation holds in Gradac at Bapska �– it is a late Neolithic tell situated on the initial westernslopes of Fru�ška Gora Mountain in the area of Srijem (Eastern Croatia and Western Serbia).1

Gradac at Bapska, as an archaeological point in documents (archives in AMZ), has beenknown since the 1870s. At that time, Eastern Croatia was populated with a high number of ethnicGerman families (the so-called �“Volksdeutscher�”), who were settled there in the eighteenthcentury to raise the quality of local craftsmanship. Among these local ethnic Germans was MatoEpner, a teacher in a village school who collected a certain number of archaeological artefactsfrom the topsoil at Gradac. Just as it is today, at the time the site was covered with vineyards,where constant cultivation kept producing �“fresh�” discoveries. Epner reported these finds to theNational Museum in Zagreb (today the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb), and became themuseum�’s official collaborator (Ljubiæ 1880, 25). Epner continued to collect surface artefactswith his pupils until 1872, when he decided to open a small trench to see what lay below thesurface. After these �“excavations�”, the material was sent to the Museum (Ljubiæ 1880, 25).Naturally, there is no documentation and the notes have no scientific significance with referenceto modern archaeology. Epner�’s work triggered �“extensive surveys�” at Gradac, which are visible

* Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, Ivana Luèiæa 3, HR �– 10000.1 GPS position: N45 11 06.4 E19 15 38.3 (WGS 84 datum).


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in today�’s AMZ archives of letters from various villagers who offered what they had found toMuseum director J. Brun�šmid (Schmidt 1945, 121). When it become apparent that Gradac was animportant archaeological site, the Museum took action and conducted the first scientificexcavations in 1911. The report stated that �“although the settlement dates mostly to the StoneAge, I have found some items from later prehistoric periods�” (Hoffiller 1928, 252), and nothingmore about this excavation was published. The third excavation at Gradac was conducted by aGerman scholar R. R. Schmidt, better known for his work excavating another Gradac mentionedin this text, the one at Vuèedol. During the Vuèedol excavation in 1939, he made a test trench inBapska, 10 x 6 metres wide. He was surprised by its depth of five metres, so he finished it thefollowing year (Schmidt 1945, 121). A small part of the material from Schmidt�’s excavation inBapska is published in his monograph about Vuèedol, but the quality and quantity of thepublished material is inadequate, since the monograph was dedicated to Vuèedol. The firststratigraphic interpretation of cultural deposits in Bapska was made in reference to the 1939excavations.

Schmidt mentions Starèevo culture potsherds (Schmidt 1945, 121). An eye-witness andexcavation team member in Bapska was the young V. Milojèiæ, who later explained that thecultural debris in Bapska was 5 metres, but just below the fourth metre point they noticed theappearance of the Starèevo culture pottery. However, excavations never reached virgin soil(Milojèiæ 1949, 83), a vital point that bears emphasis here. Based on descriptions by Schmidt andMilojèiæ, the vertical stratigraphy of Gradac was specified as follows:

0-2 m: Baden and subsequent layers2-3 m: Sopot III and Baden3-4 m: Sopot II and Vinèa C4-5 m: Sopot I and StarèevoDimitrijeviæ harshly criticized this rough breakdown into metres as unacceptable and entirely

superficial, and he explicitly stated that he personally did not see any Baden and Vinèa potteryolder than Vinèa C, as well as painted pottery2 (Dimitrijeviæ 1969: 14).

In the summer of 1964, as a part of his many years of research at a considerable number ofsites in Slavonia, Dimitrijeviæ came to Bapska, where he opened a test trench covering a surfaceof 12 x 6 metres3 . During this excavation, virgin soil was reached at a depth of 4.5 metres. Theentire test trench was divided into several horizons (A-H), wherein Dimitrijeviæ divided the entirestratigraphy of the settlement into two principal cultural horizons:

A-D = Sopot cultureE-H = Vinèa culture,out of which the C2 and D horizons of life in Gradac show an intermingling with materials

from the Vinèa phase C, i.e. imports from the Vinèa cultural sphere. These data show thatDimitrijeviæ did not mention the Starèevo finds, certainly for the simple reason that he did notdiscover any, therefore bringing into question the stratigraphy established by Schmidt(Dimitrijeviæ 1968: 13). It is worthwhile mentioning that Dimitrijeviæ�’s excavation lasted for amonth and that during this time a rather large test trench was excavated, so there is some questionas to how thoroughly the research was conducted. In any case, we have a situation in which twodifferent researchers (Dimitrijeviæ and Milojèiæ), digging at a relatively small distance from each

2 In this paper, Milojèiæ�’s division of the Vinèa culture into phases A through D will be used, modified according toDimitrijeviæ in his publication of the closed units from Bapska. The modification of stages pertains to the transitionalstage toward the late developmental phase of the culture, i.e. C2 or C/D, as Milojèiæ indicated, into D1 and D2 basedon the finds made at Bapska. Namely, according to Milojèiæ the C2 period corresponds to a depth of 4.5 metres atVinèa, when light grey pottery appeared, but the typical dark coloured pottery was still present, while lineardecorations began to disappear, very often in the Vinèa C phase. In a later phase, grey pottery was particularlydominant over dark pottery, so that Dimitrijeviæ �“moved�” the appearance of grey pottery out of stage C, anddistinguished D1 (appearance of grey pottery) from D2 (predominance of grey pottery). Recent research in Bapskastill cannot confirm nor refute Dimitrijeviæ�’s assertion, because the necessary depth of excavation has not yet beenattained, but so far the shallowest layers indeed indicate a predominance of grey pottery. The answer to this questionis one of the priorities for new research in Bapska.3 Due to technical difficulties pertaining to removal of soil caused by the considerable depth of the test trench, afterthe second meter Dimitrijeviæ narrowed it to 6 x 6 meters.

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other,4 interpreted the initial layers of life in Bapska differently: Milojèiæ with Starèevocomponents, and Dimitrijeviæ without. The material from Schmidt�’s excavations can be found inthe Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, while Dimitrijeviæ�’s material was also held in the CityMuseum in Vukovar, where most of it was destroyed during Croatia�’s recent Homeland War.What was left of this material was rescued such that it was transferred to a museum in Novi Sad(Serbia). It is today being processed at the University of Zagreb.

Based on research conducted in 1964, Dimitrijeviæ drafted a stratigraphic sketch different fromthat of Milojèiæ:

0-0.5 m: Vinèa D2, Sopot III, coarse Baden and some medieval pottery0.5-0.7 m: Vinèa D2, Sopot III (one potsherd)0.7-0.75 m: transition from Vinèa D2 to D1, Sopot III0.75-0.9 m: Vinèa D1 and D2, Sopot III, Lengyel import0.9-1.25 m: Vinèa D1 and Sopot III1.25-1.95 m: Vinèa D1 and some Sopot III finds1.95-2.05 m: final Sopot II and one Vinèa C potsherd2.05-2.4 m: Sopot II, Vinèa C and D12.4-2.5 m: Sopot II and one Vinèa C potsherd2.5-2.75 m: Sopot II2.75-3.0 m: Sopot II and a few Vinèa C finds3.0-3.75 m: Sopot I and Vinèa B23.75-4.1 m: prehistoric humus and Sopot I4.1-4.3 m: mixed humus and sterile loess4.3 m �– loess(Dimitrijeviæ 1968)Within these depths, he also distinguished several closed units in the form of dwelling

floors:

designation depth (m) cultural sphere Dwelling 1A 0.5-0.7 Vin a D2

Sopot III Dwelling 1B 0.75-0.9 Vin a D1/D2

Lengyel Sopot III

Dwelling 1C 1.1-1.25 late Vin a D1 Dwelling 2A 1.45-1.55 Vin a D1 Dwellings 2B and 2C 1.60-1.95 Vin a D1 Dwelling 3A 2.05-2.3 late Sopot II

late Vin a C, D1 Dwelling 3B 2.40-2.5 Sopot II

Vin a C (one find) Dwellings 4A, 4B, 4C 2.75-3.0 Sopot II

Vin a C (few finds) (Dimitrijeviæ 1968)

The dwellings and their renewed floors, filled in with pottery finds, served Dimitrijeviæ as theprincipal relative-chronological foundation for determining the stratigraphic picture of Bapska,5

so they will be described below and illustrated with drawings of his excavations.

4 The distance between Schmidt�’s and Dimitrijeviæ�’s test trenches was roughly 70 meters, but both trenches arelocated in today�’s �“pate�” of the settlement.5 The numbers designate the number of the dwelling (appearing from the excavation�’s zero point �– the surface), whilethe letters indicate the sequence of their renewal, which means that, e.g. Dwelling 4 underwent three restorations ofits floor (A, B, C).

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The first dwelling (1 A, B, C), with its floor 1A, appeared at approximately 50 cm beneath therecent humus. It contained materials of the Vinèa D and Sopot III horizons. Floor A was destroyedin a fire, and its finds belong to the final (D-2) sector of the Vinèa culture, a very few Sopot IIIimports, and the appearance of red crusted painting (Dimitrijeviæ 1968, 19). An identical pictureof finds is offered by dwelling 1/06 from recent research in Bapska (test trench B-G 06). Althoughthis dwelling appears at a somewhat shallower level due to erosion caused by land cultivation(which corresponds to the difference caused by 40 years of ploughing between these two researchprojects), the fragmented finds show pottery forms identical to those from floor 1A from theprevious research, Fig. 1 and Fig. 26 (Dimitrijeviæ�’s research), and those from Dwelling 1/06, Fig.13 from the recent research. It should be noted here that this type of literally and absolutelyidentical pottery in terms of manufacture, colour, cross-section, form, rendering and decorationmotifs was discovered at Vinèa itself in new research being conducted by the University ofBelgrade,7 so it would not be excessive to hypothesize that this was a case of direct importationof goods, meaning direct communication between the settlements in Bapska and Vinèa, at leastduring the time of Vinèa D8 (Buriæ 2007, 34). The congruity of finds from both dwellings (from1964 and 2006) is also apparent in the discovery of red crusted painting, fire damage, and theremains of vessels with a footed bowl, which places them in parallel to the last sector of life ofthe Vinèa and Sopot cultures at Gradac. Dwelling 1 from the new test trench (B-G/06), althoughcompletely destroyed down to its floor by land cultivation, reflects certain constructionindicators. It extends in a north-south direction for a minimum length of ten metres,9 while itswidth was roughly four metres. There were almost no pottery finds in front of the eastern section,but a �“concentration�” of fishing gear was observed: several ceramic weights and one boneharpoon. The dwelling�’s floor is burnt, as are several charred accumulations on the opposite(western) side, which indicate that during the fire the dwelling collapsed toward the west andburned out there. As of the writing of this text, research into the floor of Dwelling 1 has not beencompleted (floor A; research is scheduled to continue in the summer of 2008), so it is not yetknown whether the dwelling will show signs of renewal of the floor, as was the case in theprevious research in 1964. Behind the house, at the level of its partially renewed floor, in aseparate context, carbonized wheat grains10 were found, with traces of burnt wooden frameworkaround them. Based on the current status of research into the dwelling, it can be assumed that theframework was a part of the dwelling, perhaps a food storage room, and that it belongs in thesame chronological horizon as the dwelling itself, but since the research campaign has beenconcluded, it is uncertain as to whether this is a case of burial of provisions in a pit or the wheatwas simply placed on the ground in a wicker basket or something similar. What is important isthat this sample of wheat was forwarded for 14C analysis, which generated the following date:

Beta-241657 5690 +/-40 BP -23.6 0/0 5710 +/- 40 BP, cal. BC 4680 to 4460 (Cal BP 6630 to6410). Although there is an absolute date, in this situation it is currently impossible to sayanything more. The annual campaign came to a close before the key mutual relationship betweenthe pit with grains, the surrounding charred accumulations and the layer in which the pit wasburied could be examined in detail or, stated simply, it is impossible to say here which itemintersected which. Without these data the date is worthless, except, of course, that it absolutelypinpoints the horizon from which it originates and corresponds to the dates of sites with Vinèa Dfinds, as seen in the table below (graphic portrayal in chart 1):

6 The scales for old excavations drawings provided when available.7 I would like to take this opportunity to once more thank Nenad N. Tasiæ and his research team for unselfishlyproviding their most recent and unpublished materials for review, and for the limitless advice given during the mostrecent research in Bapska.8 The distance in a straight line between Vinèa and Bapska is 114 kilometres.9 The northern extension enters the trench�’s profile so its precise length is not known.10 At the time of this writing, the wheat find was being analysed at Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece.

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Site Lab ID BP BC cal11 Grivac-Barice Bln-868 6070±100 5286-4727 (95,4%) Grivac-Barice Z-1507 5600±140 4786-4071 (95,4%) Vala Bln-436 5895±80 4958-4550 (95,4%) Vin a Hd-17374 5855±27 4795-4619 (95,4%) Vin a GrN-1537 5845±160 5205-4356 (95,4%) Bapska12 Bln-348 5820±80 4881-4488 (95,4%) Bapska Beta-241657 5690±40 4680-4460 (95,4%) Banjica GrN-1542 5710±90 4767-4358 (95,4%) Banjica GrN-1536 5670±120 4793-4270 (95,4%) (based on Tasiæ, N. N. 1988; Lazarovici, C-M 2007: 292, Fig. 15, calibrated by Buriæ)

Floor 1B ( 0.75 m) contained an inventory of Vinèa D1/D2 (Fig. 3), Sopot III (Fig. 4, 5, 6,713 ), and with such diverse cultural components it is one of the most important closed,chronological units from the research conducted in 1964 (Dimitrijeviæ 1968, 19).

Floor 1C ( 1.1 m) is attributed to the end of Vinèa phase D1, and there are no more detailson it (Dimitrijeviæ 1968: 18).

The next dwelling, no. 2, also contained three floor renewals (A, B, C). The finds from 1Awere dated to Vinèa phase D1, which contained the most finds, and one fragment each of a Sopotfooted bowl and one Vinèa C vessel (Dimitrijeviæ 1968: 18). Dwelling 2 had the shape of amegaron, templum in antis type, and it only remains recorded in a photograph from Dimitrijeviæ�’sresearch (Fig. 8). It has two rooms with pylons in front of the entrance (Te�žak-Gregl 1998, 81).Floors B and C contained six fragments of fine pottery, of which one belongs to Vinèa C, threeto Vinèa D1 and one to a Sopot vessel with a hole on its foot (Dimitrijeviæ 1968: 18).

Dwelling 3 consisted of two floors, A and B. This dwelling, according to Dimitrijeviæ, belongsto the settlement�’s Sopot phase, i.e. the phase of the Vinèa import.

Floor 3A at a depth of 2.05 metres provided the bulk of the materials that are typologically andculturally indeterminate, but which still show a high number of Vinèa finds from the late phaseC (Fig. 9). Here a particularly interesting find is a fragment of a small ceramic sacrificial table,and a damaged, very crudely rendered idol, with what are possibly signs of wear as an apparelitem (Fig. 9 A, B). Floor B from Dwelling 3 ( 2.4 m) contained seven fragments of fine pottery,of which one belongs to Vinèa C, and the rest to Sopot II (Dimitrijeviæ 1968, 18).

Dwelling 4 (A, B, C), in its older (B) floor, generated finds of phase II of the Sopot culture. Atypical Vinèa-Sopot linear decoration filled with punctures is present on one fragment, whichtogether with a cup on an oval pierced foot is a typical Sopot phase II category. Particularlyimportant in this dwelling is the apsidal-ended architecture, and an exquisitely preserved hearth(Fig. 10) (Dimitrijeviæ 1968, 17).

Briefly, this is everything that is worthwhile emphasizing from the older research withreference to stratigraphy and relative chronology of the closed units.

Besides the dwellings, Dimitrijeviæ�’s test trench also provided another closed context in theform of pit no. 305.14 Pit 305, or rather the items found in it, are all that remain of the excavationsconducted in 1964. Thus, all aforementioned finds and the framework of the dwellings are todaylost, as already noted, and the only data on them can be found in the monograph Sopotsko-lenðelska kultura (The Sopot-Lengyel Culture) already cited in this paper. As seen today in thedrawing of the �“northern�” profile, the pit was a little less than one metre deep. The oldest floorof Dwelling 4 ended five centimetres above it, and this dwelling�’s layout partially covered the pit(Fig. 11). The elliptical form measured 2.4 and 4.2 metres. It contained a total of 115 fragments

11 Calibrated with OxCal v 4.012 Excavation in 1964.13 Fig. 7 characterized by Dimitrijeviæ as import from Langyel, is in fact the Late Sopot shape from by influencesfrom classical Lengyel cultural sphere (Dimitrijeviæ 1968, 78, fig. 15/4.14 The designation of the pit denotes the relative elevation at which it was found and not the number of pits at the site.

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of fine pottery, of which only four belong to the Vinèa culture (Vinèa B2/C), while the rest areindeterminate or finds of Sopot phase I/II (Fig. 12) (Dimitrijeviæ 1968, 13). Intermingling ofSopot and Vinèa materials in this closed context point to the accuracy of Dimitrijeviæ�’sinterpretation of the mingling of Sopot and Vinèa pottery in the layers as well, which is thegreatest importance of pit 305.

Finally, based on the older research, this simplified stratigraphy for the site in Bapskafollows:

Star evo culture?

Sopot culture

Vin a culture verified: Miloj i , Dimitrijevi

hypothetical: Miloj i

Assuming that there truly is a Starèevo layer, by all indications it should belong to the lateStarèevo culture, as is the case with both Starèevo sites in Srijem for which there are five absolutedates, all dated to the very end of the Starèevo culture. The dates at the sites �– of which one is inthe immediate vicinity of Bapska (Viziæ, just under 16 km directly east) �– are as follows:

Kudo�š-�Ša�šinci, OxA-85586770 ± 60 BP (5773-5561 cal BC)15

6520 ± 50 BP (5610-5372 cal BC)(Whittle et al. 2002: 45).Golokut, OxA-8505; (fragment of human bone in the layer, test trench 25a),6550 BP (5620BC-5464BC (88.3%)If this is truly the case, an early developmental phase of the Sopot culture may be seen at

Bapska which emerged precisely in Srijem as a border area between the late Starèevo and earlyVinèa cultures, which would be of great importance to the beginning of the Late Neolithic in thisregion. However, at the moment this remains the subject of speculation and conjecture.Furthermore, the majority of the layers in Bapska consist of phases IB to III of the Sopot culture,meaning almost the entire sequence of this culture. In this cultural layer there are sporadic Vinèamaterials, but up to the late Sopot phase, the settlement belonged to the bearers of Sopot culture.The last layer of life in Bapska belongs to the late Vinèa culture, throughout its entire final phase(Vinèa D). Thus, at the very end of life in the Bapska settlement, it came into the possession of aVinèa population which was pushed westward from Banat and Vojvodina by the same mechanismwhich led to the disappearance of Vinèa C in northern Banat (Draºovean 1996, 195). When thecultural diversity of the Bapska layers are viewed in their entirety, it is apparent (if one ignoresthe Starèevo layer on account of the ambiguous reports and differences in opinion betweenMilojèiæ and Dimitrijeviæ) that the situation is slightly absurd: the Sopot culture which emergedunder the influence of the Vinèa culture is located beneath the Vinèa in the stratigraphy. However,this is only the late Vinèa, which under the onslaught of the Bubanj-Salkuþa group, i.e. �“metal-age�” groups, retreated westward and settled an area which it only bordered in preceding phases.The advancement of metallurgy increased production but also entailed the more rapidconsumption of ore resources. Groups making metal products thus once more became mobile intheir search for new resources, prompting the aforementioned migration. Evidence of theexistence of these Eneolithic components at Bapska is generally present only in traces and inchance surface discoveries. It is certain that the Eneolithic horizon was at the very leastminimally present in Bapska, but only in sporadic finds, although the intense ploughing

15 Calibrated by OxCal v 4.0

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conducted at the site and its upper layers must not be forgotten, for this means that theopportunity to acquire certain knowledge of the genuine share of Eneolithic components inGradac has been lost forever.

This situation is just another in a series of illustrations of the instability of this region at theend of the Late Neolithic.

New research being conducted by the Archaeology Department of the University of Zagreb isonly in its initial stages, so the data on Dwelling 1/06 must be deemed preliminary, all the moreso since �– as noted previously in the text �– it has not been fully analyzed. What can be said is thatthis closed context, with the pottery materials found there so far, corresponds to what Dimitrijeviædiscovered in his research at depths of 0 to 2 metres. Unfortunately, his documentation containsno data on absolute elevations, so it is impossible to know the relevant depth layer. Given themost modern agricultural technology, in recent years Gradac has been ploughed deeper than everbefore, and almost a half-century has passed between Dimitrijeviæ�’s research and the most recentresearch work, so without absolute points it is impossible to know how far the present initialexcavation point is below the 1964 level due to erosion caused by land cultivation. Since the newresearch has only just begun (2006), there are still no closed units that could be used as analogiesto those from 1964, but we hope that even this will be possible soon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buriæ 2007M. Buriæ, Bapska �– Gradac. Hrvatski arheolo�ški godi�šnjak (2007), 33 �– 34.

Dimitrijeviæ 1969S. Dimitrijeviæ, Sopotsko-lenðelska kultura. Arheolo�ške monografije I. Zagreb (1969).

Draºovean 1996F. Draºovean, Cultura Vinèa Târzie (Faza C) în Banat. Timiºoara (1996).

Hoffiller 1928V. Hoffiller, Idol od ilovaèe iz Dalja. VHAD XV, (1928), 249 �– 255.

Lazarovici 2006C. �– M. Lazarovici, Absolute Chronology of the Late Vinèa Culture in Romania and its Role in the Development

of the Early Copper Age. In: (N. Tasiæ & C. Grozdanov), Homage to Milutin Gara�šanin. Belgrade (2006), 277 �– 273.

Ljubiæ 1880�Š. Ljubiæ, Odkriæe iz predhistorièke dobe. VHAD II, (1880).

Schmidt 1945R.R. Schmidt, Die Burg Vuèedol, Zagreb (1945).

Te�žak �– Gregl 1998T. Te�žak �– Gregl, Vinèanska kultura, Prapovijest. (Dimitrijeviæ S; Te�žak �– Gregl T; Majnariæ �– Pand�žiæ N.),

Zagreb (1998).

Whittle et alii 2002A. Whittle, D. Boriæ, L. Bartosziewicz, P. Pettitt, M. Richards, In the beginning: new radiocarbon dates for the

Early Neolithic in northern Serbia and south-east Hungary. Antaeus 25. Budapest, (2002), 1-51.

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Fig. 1. The Late Vinèa Culture potsherd with politurmüster decoration.

Fig. 2. The Late Vinèa Culture potsherd with politurmüster decoration.

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Fig. 3. The Late Vinèa Culture shape.

Fig. 4. The Late Sopot Culture shape. Fig. 5. The Late Sopot Culture shape.

Fig. 6. The Late Sopot Culture shape.Fig. 7. The Late Sopot Culture shape,influenced by classical Lengyel type.

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Fig. 8. Excavations in Bapska in 1964. Dwelling 1.

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Fig. 9. The Late Vinèa phase, Dwelling 3.

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Fig. 10. Drawing of preserved hearth in dwelling 4.

Fig. 11. Drawing of position of pit 305 on stratigraphical sketch.

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Fig. 12. Sopot I/II inventory in the pit 305.

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Fig. 13. The Late Vinèa potsherds from Dwelling 1/06 (new excavations).

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Fig. 14. Graph of the C14 dates for the Late Vinèa period (Vinèa D phase).

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA ON SPACE USE AT A TELL-LIKE SETTLEMENT OFTHE TISZA CULTURE

(New results from Öcsöd�–Kováshalom, Hungary)

Pál Raczky*

Keywords: Hungary, Great Hungarian Plain, Neolithic, settlement structure, Tisza culture,burials

The site of Öcsöd�–Kováshalom is located on the northern bank of a former meander of theKörös river in the Tiszazug region. This settlement of the Tisza culture occupies a transitionalposition between the tell-type sites characteristic of the southern section of the Great HungarianPlain and the region of single-layer settlements located in its northern section (Fig. 1)1 . Duringfield walks carried out in the 1980s, the surface distribution of archaeological finds could beobserved over an area of approximately 21 hectares (206,000 m2) (Fig. 2).2 The actual habitationarea and general stratigraphic characteristics of the neolithic settlement under the modern surfacewere clarified by taking 188 bore samples.

On the basis of soil boring and the analysis of new data it became clear that this late Neolithicsite consisted of three major and five smaller settlement units. Previously, only three smaller unitscould be reconstructed in addition to the three major settlement spots.3 The digital analysis ofspatial data has been of help in outlining additional details, thus five small units could bedifferentiated within the site. The sizes of the thus reconstructed settlement clusters were 7,756m2, 8,683 m2, 7,619 m2, as well as 4,695 m2, 4,949 m2, 3,292 m2, 3,466 m2 and 5,108 m2,respectively. The total area of these modules adds up to 45,568 m2. These discoveries do notfundamentally influence our first estimate of the overall settlement size: the total area of thespatial units reconstructed thus could be estimated as 3 to 5 hectares. Considering the probabilityof these estimates, it must be noted that the low resolution of soil-boring is not always sufficientlysensitive for picking up thin, single settlement layers in addition to strata often exceeding 20 cmin thickness. All these observations will evidently have a bearing on the more precise estimationof the settlement�’s extent.

This means that data gained by modern-day field surveys must be treated cautiously in theGreat Hungarian Plain, because recent conditions visible on the surface depend to a great extenton the type and intensity of agricultural cultivation. Based on the results of soil boring, one mayhypothesize that the settlement units found on the three major elevations at Öcsöd�–Kováshalomeach formed a relatively permanent habitation, separated from the others by periodicallyinundated, shallow depressions of the marshy floodplain. The five settlement spots characterizedby less intensive habitation consisted of houses or groups of houses located in-between andaround the three major units. Bore samples showed that the thickness of habitation layers variedfrom 40 to 160 cm on the top of the three elevations, while it reached only 30-50 cm in spots ofperipheral position. The signs of greatest settlement activity were observed on an elevation nearthe waterfront (Fig. 3). The strata formed a 160 cm thick deposit here. Therefore this tell-likemound may well be considered the central portion of the Neolithic settlement. These observationsreveal an entirely new perspective on the evaluation of Tisza culture settlement structure.Namely, at the site of Öcsöd�–Kováshalom one is neither dealing with large and contiguoussettlement, nor a single, farmstead-like structure. This site is rather a loose cluster of distinctsettlement units.4 On the basis of summarized excavation reports, several authors assumed the

* ELTE Institute of Archaeological Sciences , H-1088 Budapest, Múzeum körút 4/B, [email protected] Raczky et al. 1985; Raczky 1986; Raczky 1987; Raczky 1995, 80-84.2 Raczky 1987, 63.3 Raczky l987, 63.4 Raczky 1987, 67-69.


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existence of a similar settlement structure at the site of Hódmezõvásárhely�–Kökénydomb.5 Inaddition, stratigraphic data from Öcsöd indicate that the tell-like and single layer settlement unitsco-existed and even represent structures complementary to each other. On the basis of the latestresearch summaries, a similar duality in settlement structure may be observed at the site ofSzegvár�–Tûzköves.6 In addition, a horizontal settlement of 2-3 hectares in size, could beidentified around the tell at Berettyóújfalu�–Herpály,7 surrounded by a circular ditch. In a broadercontext it may be said that there is an increasing number of tell sites in South-Eastern Europe,where evidence for an external settlement turns up8 as has also been illustrated by the examplesof Sesklo,9 Podgorica,10 Pietrele11 and Uivár12 , to name just a few.

In our interpretation, the �“symbiosis�” between the multi-layer and horizontal habitation areasshows a transitional example of settlement integration at the beginning of the Late Neolithic inthe Great Hungarian Plain, a process that was studied during the 1980s by J. Makkay, A. Sherratt,N. Kalicz, P. Raczky and J. Chapman in great detail.13 When seen in a single plane, the smallerand larger groups of habitations apparently did not form a united, comprehensive system withinthe settlement. In this case, they rather seem to represent small and loose sets of households, apattern characteristic of the preceding middle Neolithic tradition. The Öcsöd settlement may alsobe considered a transitional structure from another point of view: its vertical stratigraphic unitsare complemented by horizontal habitation surfaces. It is suggested here that these settlementcharacteristics represent an early synthesis between the unified horizontal settlement pattern anda vertical perception of space. These would develop into a complex, more sophisticated attitudeto space and time.14 This possibility falls in line with the views of �“landscape archaeology�”developed on the basis of numerous examples in Europe.15

The most intensively inhabited area in Öcsöd �– the tell-like elevation located on the southernwaterfront of the settlement complex �– was excavated between 1980 and 1985 (Fig. 3). Theculture-bearing deposit was 130-160 cm thick at the centre and formed 50-120 cm thick strataeven in the periphery. The excavations helped identifying this slight elevation covering less thana hectare as the former centre of the Öcsöd settlement. Six major levels could be distinguishedwithin this small unit, down to the ancient humus. Some of these were present only in the formof vague spots, others had been obliterated by heavy erosion. The lower, 6-4th levels of the Öcsödstratigraphy were labelled Phase �“A�” of the settlement, while the upper 3rd-1st strata were assignedto Phase �“B�”. In essence, Phases �“A�” and �“B�” were represented by two main building horizons16

(Fig. 4-5), established during the life of the central settlement of Öcsöd. Buildings in the upperlayers were either completely rebuilt upon the ruins of the layers below or the floors wererenewed by plastering with fresh layers of clay, without essential changes in the superstructureof the original house. That is, from an architectural point of view, a distinct continuity may beobserved between the houses of the earlier and later phases. This stratigraphic position wasevident in the case of Houses 1 and 4, found in a superposition at the southern edge of thesettlement. In fact, this meant the two superimposed floor levels of the same building. In othercases houses of the upper �“B�” layer were reconstructed in such a way that by slightly shiftingtheir ground plans a place was made for a fourth, new building. Changing the arrangement ofhouses by such uniform patterns may be seen as evidence for comprehensive principles of spaceuse, beyond the level of individual household units.

5 Banner 1940, 34-35; Korek 1972; Korek 1984, 136, Fig. 6; Kalicz 1986, 129; Link 2006, 116-117.6 Csalog 1959, 10; Kalicz 1986, 129-130; Korek 1987, 49-50; Kalicz/Raczky 1987a, 16; Raczky 1995, 82; Kalicz2001, 154.7 Kalicz/Raczky 1984, 91; Kalicz/Raczky 1987b, 105-106; Raczky/Anders in press.8 Whittle 1996, 49-59; Chapman 1997, 146-163; Chapman 1998, 117-118; Bailey 2000, 173-177; Nanoglou 2001,310-312; Schier 2005, 12-13; Link 2006, 56-62; Hansen et al. 2007, 44-46.9 Kotsakis 1999, 66-70.10 Bailey et al. 1998; Bailey 2000, 156-164.11 Hansen et al. 2005, 341-346; Hansen et al. 2006, 1-8; Hansen et al. 2007, 46-47; Reingruber 2006, 84-88.12 Schier/Draºovean 2004, 148-154; Gerling et al. 2005, 35-40; Schier 2005, 13; 2006, 325.13 Makkay 1982, 104-163; Sherrat 1982, 15-19; Sherrat 1983, 193; Kalicz 1986; Raczky 1987, 68-70; Chapman 1989,38-39.14 Whittle 1996, 107-112; Chapman 1989, 38-39; Chapman 1994, 86-87; Chapman 1997, 140-163; Bailey 2000, 173-174; Schier 2005, 12.15 Roberts 1996; Darvill 1997; Chapman 1997; Zvelebil/Bene�š 1997; Bailey 1997.16 Raczky 1986, 105-107, Raczky 1987, 64-67.

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Parallel with this phenomenon the vessel forms and decorative motifs observed in Phase �“A�”have completely changed by Phase �“B�”. While ceramics in the earlier phase were dominated bystylistic features of the Szakálhát type,17 (Fig. 13), classic features of the Tisza culture gaineddecisive importance in the pottery style of the later period18 (Fig. 16). Consequently, potteryassemblages representing the two phases are indicative of a clear stylistic change �– that is, adiscontinuity of forms �– within the time span defined by two floor renewals during the �“life�” ofthe same house (House 1, 4). It was this phenomenon that allowed the distinction between twodevelopmental phases (Tisza I and II) within the Tisza culture.19 Meanwhile it became alsopossible to outline a new chronological definition for this culture. Twenty-one 14C measurements,representing the joint time-span of the two phases in Öcsöd, outlined a time interval of 5110 and4830 BC (1 sigma). This means that the life of the settlement (Phase A and B together)encompassed approximately 280 years. These old data unfortunately were gained from charcoalthat tends to present broad error margins.20 Since then, the critical analysis of archaeologicalcontexts has reduced the number of previously available dates from 21 to 16. Consequently, itbecame clear that these dates are not suitable for the high-resolution distinction betweensettlement phases (Fig. 6), since they would date the Tisza I period to between 5210 and 5020 BC(Fig. 7), while the Tisza II period would fall between 4990 and 4850 BC (Fig. 8). These timeintervals would be far too broad considering that they represent two tightly connectedconstruction phases. The pooled calibration of the remaining 16 14C dates would result in absolutedates between 5210 and 4850 BC, estimating the settlement�’s life to 360 years (Fig. 9). Using thecombined calibration, however, the resulting dates will range between 5050 and 5000 BC (1sigma), which also seems to be unrealistic (Fig. 10). Interestingly, the combined calibration of thesame data (2 sigma) resulted in a 5200 to 4980 BC time interval (Fig. 10). This corresponds to arather likely 220 years life span for the Öcsöd settlement. This would mean a rather early date forthe initial phase of the Tisza culture. Nevertheless a joint 200 years time interval applicable to thetwo superposed building horizons offers a relatively acceptable estimate for the individualconstruction phases, that is 100 years calculated for each. This seems a rather long time intervalin comparison with previous estimations of Neolithic house use. Previously 50-60, then 25-30years were calculated and a 15-25 years time span was estimated for the neolithic dwellings.21

Recent investigations in the Rhine region, however, have come up with a 75-100 years long timeinterval on the basis of dendrochronological dating and investigating architectural history.22

These data are congruent with the framework of absolute chronology obtained for the houses atÖcsöd. As is shown by ethnographic parallels buildings constructed on a comparable technicallevel are known to last 100-120 and 150-200 years respectively.23 A similar continuity inarchitecture combined with discontinuity in pottery style was observed during the Neolithic ofSouthern Germany by J. Lüning on the basis of a house excavated at Schernau during the late1970s.24 That example also necessitated the re-thinking of previous definitions of culture, as alsobecame necessary in the case of Tisza culture during the 1980s.25

On the basis of radiocarbon dating, the 220 years time interval calculated for Phases I and IIof the Tisza culture at the site of Öcsöd offers guidance in the analysis of approximately parallelVinèa B2 and Vinèa C1 periods as well.26

Excavations carried out in the central part of the Öcsöd settlement also provided a moderatelyclear picture of the internal sub-division of the core habitation in a tell-like settlement. This mainhabitation unit of oblong shape measured 35 x 42 m and was surrounded by a plank fencing setin a foundation ditch in Phase �“A�” (Fig. 3 and 4, Fig. 11. 1). This ditch was 30-40 cm wide and

17 Raczky 1987, 74-76; Raczky 1992, 164, 171-172 and Fig. 1; Lichardus/Lichardus-Itten 1997, Abb. 7, Link 2006,Abb. 15.18 Raczky 1987, 76-77; Raczky 1992, 165, 172 and Fig. 2-4, Fig. 6-7. Lichardus/Lichardus-Itten 1997, Abb. 8; Link2006, Abb. 16.19 Raczky 1986, 104-107, Raczky 1987, 72-77; Kalicz 1989, 104-107.20 Hertelendi et al. 1998.21 Startin 1978, 145; Lüning 1997, 92; Schlichterle 1997, 92.22 Schmidt et al. 2005,167.23 Juhász 1997, 192.24 Lüning 1979, 108-113.25 Makkay 1982, 60; Raczky 1986, 106; Kalicz/Raczky 1987a, 25.26 Kalicz/Raczky 1987a, 25-27, Chronological chart on page 30.

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20-35 cm deep in relation to the virgin soil. Its bottom was flat, broadening into a tub-like cross-section in some places. The entrance was oriented South-West. To date, no parallel to this fencingof a rectangular outline has been recovered in the Tisza region, although numerous examples ofround enclosures are known in the area.27 It is perhaps the so-called Langweiler, a single ditchtype of trapezoid shape typical of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in central Europe, that isclosest in form to the Öcsöd feature.28 Rather distant, but suitable parallels may be found inBulgaria in the form of rectangular palisade-and-ditch systems.29 Examples in that area also showthat rectangular ditch, timber and earth fortifications were rebuilt into a round fortification in thelater phase of the same settlement as is illustrated by the site of Poljanitza.

During the early phase of Öcsöd, the area within the rectangular timber structure was sub-divided by another fence of arched ground-plan. This separated the northwestern section of the�“settlement square�” from the block of houses (Fig. 4). No additional data are available to aid theinterpretation of this phenomenon. It may be said, however, that this new fencing probably meansyet another sub-division of the living space, adding to the complexity of two- dimensionalsettlement layout. The double fencing of Period A was evidently given up during Phase B at theÖcsöd site (Fig.5). This may be best explained by the horizontal expansion of the settlement.Traces of a ditch were detected in a test trench opened north of the site, suggesting that perhapsa ditch corresponding to that of Phase A was also dug around the site in Phase B.

Houses of oblong ground plans were built tightly within the 1470 m2 area defined by the fencesystem. These houses formed a uniform habitation block thereby showing the integration ofprevious middle Neolithic units. Specifically, only narrow alleys were left between the houseswithout the longitudinal pits that typically accompany Linear Pottery culture houses.30 Accordingto the observations, probably ca. 3 later 6 houses stood within this area at a time, eachrepresenting an approximately four-generation time interval. Using an estimated 5-7 people perhouse in each period, a population of 15-21 souls in the early phase and 30-42 souls in theyounger phase is obtained for this study area calculated for each generation interval. Therefore,the combined three larger and five smaller habitation areas of the Öcsöd settlement may representat most 24 houses and a total population of 120-168 in the Tisza I phase. The estimated numberof houses increased to 48 by the Tisza II phase that may correspond to 240-336 inhabitants. Theseresults are of help in fine-tuning earlier estimates, although their orders of magnitude remaincomparable.31

These results, however, are still radically different from the population of 1177 soulscalculated for the Szegvár�–Tûzköves settlement.32 Meanwhile it corresponds well to recentestimates of 300-360 people obtained at sites representing the heyday of Linear Pottery culturein Central Europe.33 Nevertheless it is clear that population estimates are prone to a host ofbiasing factors, therefore such information must always be treated with a healthy sense ofscepticism.34

Traces of both profane and sacred activities could be detected in the houses excavated. Forexample, the skull of an aurochs was found on the floor of House 4, the southernmost buildingin Phase A (Fig. 11. 3). A special pit was dug inside the same house, that contained periodicdeposits of vessels and animal remains (Fig. 12 and 13). This pit must have stood open during theearly period of the house, as was also the case with the sacrificial pit found in one of thedwellings at the site of Gorzsa.35

27 Among others Polgár�–Csõszhalom, Hajdúböszörmény�–Pródi-halom, Polgár�–Bosnyákdomb, Berettyóújfalu�–Herpály, Hódmezõvásárhely�–Gorzsa, Hódmezõvásárhely�–Kökénydomb, Tápé�–Lebõ A, Berettyóújfalu-Szilhalom,Szentpéterszeg�–Kovadomb. For a summary see: Raczky-Anders in press.28 Kaufmann 1997, 67, Abb. 6. Naturally, we are aware of the differences in the internal arrangement and essentialdifferences in the shape of the surrounding ditch system.29 These include: Tell Goljamo Delcevo, Tell Ovcarovo, Tell Poljanitza, Tell Radingrad, Tell Targoviste. For asummary see: Todorova 1982, Abb. 114-115, Abb. 134-145, Abb. 159-174, Abb. 175-184, Abb. 185-188.30 For example: Domboróczki 1997, 26 and Fig. 3, Domboróczki 2001, 73-78, Pl. 3-4, Domboróczki 2006, 476-479.31 Raczky 1987, 68-69.32 Makkay 1982, 132-133; Makkay 1991, 323.33 Zimmermann 2003; Schmidt et al. 2005, 167.34 Kalicz 2001.35 Horváth 1987, 44-45.

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The set of buildings was surrounded by an open activity zone where, in addition to fireplaces,traces of everyday life (evidence of stone and bone manufacturing) could be observed.Meanwhile, peculiar find assemblages from the same zone are indicative of the physicalconcurrence of profane and sacred actions within the same space. Among others, the shards of alarge, face-decorated vessel and a square-shaped vessel came to light in the well-definedsurroundings of House 5 in Phase A36 (Fig. 14).

The majority of the 49 burials, containing 47 contracted skeletons and 2 cremation graves,were also recovered within this zone of daily activity that surrounded the block of houses (Fig.15). Some of these graves, however, were directly dug into the houses. The longitudinal axis ofthe houses and the orientation of graves show a unified pattern: the SE-NW direction seems toassociate the burials to the houses. In the case of contracted burials, there is a regular distinctionbetween placing the deceased on their left versus right sides. As with the example of Polgár�–Csõszhalom there was a gender difference in this regard at the beginning of the Late NeolithicTisza culture.37 Nevertheless the graves rather seem to follow the periphery of the unifiedhabitation area, thereby looking slightly separated from the area covered by the houses. It isevident, however, that the relatively modest inventory of grave goods found in these burials maybe explained by their close relationship to the utilitarian objects and pieces of attire known fromthe living area. It is also clearly visible that the 49 graves recovered represent only a fraction ofthe dead left behind by the population that once inhabited this area for an estimated time span of200 years. Within this almost 4-4 generations for each phase (Phase �“A�” and �“B�”) a totalpopulation of 180-252 people may have lived on the tell-like settlement unit at Öcsöd, while thegraves excavated represent only 26-19% of this number. It may therefore be concluded that thoseburied around the houses were placed there by some special criteria. This also reflects aconscious use of space, i. e. �“restricted access�” that followed certain rules. The same hypothesishas been supported by osteological investigations carried out by Zs. Kovács and E. Gál, whofound quantities of human bone (approximately 160 pieces) among the animal remains recoveredfrom various features of the Öcsöd settlement. This seems to indicate that at least two rules hadbeen followed in disposing of the deceased. Some were accorded burials around the houses, whileothers may have been treated differently, resulting in the disarticulation of their skeleton.Sporadically occurring human bone formed part of the settlement�’s general cultural context alongwith pot shards and animal remains that may have been of symbolic significance.38

Large clay extraction pits (Fig. 11. 1) �– that originally had provided raw material for theconstruction of houses �– were found around the outer periphery of the working area.Subsequently they served as refuse pits that were occasionally used for burial as well (Fig. 11. 4).At the same time in the middle Neolithic very characteristic long ditches, which demarcated thespace of the house entities, are missing in the case of the houses in Öcsöd. On the basis of thesecomplex sets of structures it became clear that the space divided into three distinct areas byfencing corresponded to three functional units: the houses, the working zone and the ring ofrefuse pits. This spatial sub-division represents a certain level of settlement integration at Öcsöd.Moreover, constructing the tightly-placed houses must have also required a considerably highlevel of co-operation and consent among the inhabitants involved. At the end of Phase �“A�”, twohouses were rebuilt in a co-ordinated fashion by opening some space for a third house betweenthem. This resulted in the new settlement structure during Phase �“B�” (Fig. 5). Such relativelylarge-scale reconstructions bear witness to a well-defined concept in settlement construction. Thefact that such action could be carried out suggests that it was possible to mobilize the settlement�’sbroader population to perform such tasks. The ground plan of the Öcsöd settlement shows theplanned formation of space, which must have exceeded the working capacity of a singlehousehold or family. One may presume that planned, co-operative action mobilized the major partof this community at the site.

A structural division similar to the phenomenon observed at Öcsöd could also be detected onthe ground plan of the Tisza culture settlement at Kisköre�–Gát in the northern section of the Great

36 Raczky 1987, Fig. 21; Raczky 2000, Fig. 1-3.37 Raczky/Anders 2006, 27; Anders/Nagy 2007, 90-93; Raczky/Anders 2008, 48-49.38 Chapman/Gaydarska 2007.

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Hungarian Plain.39 The same type of integrated spatial sub-division was apparent within the tellsettlement at Berettyóújfalu�–Herpály.40 On the basis of these observations one may say that theplanned functional organization of habitation areas was a general phenomenon at late Neolithicsettlements in the Tisza region. Spatial principles manifest in late Neolithic space division showessential changes relative to settlement structures of the middle Neolithic Linear Pottery culture.Among others, the settlement of Füzesabony�–Gubakút represents a clear pattern within whichseparate houses, as well as adjacent pits and graves can be unambiguously recognized.41 Thisform of space division, called �“Haus und Hof�”, was an important recognition in relation to thesettlements of the central European Linear Pottery culture as well. Studying the space/timerelationships by �“house and household clusters�” as elementary settlement and social units hasalso been fundamental in discussions of the dimensions of social organization in later periods ofthe European Neolithic.42 At the same time all these trends are indicative of a generaldevelopment in the attitude toward space-time during the Neolithic in Europe,43 probably as areflection of the emergence of increasingly complex levels of social organization in thebackground. This concept was also supported on the base of several Neolithic, Eneolithicexamples of the Balkans.44 Evidently, the settlement of Polgár�–Csõszhalom represents the finalstage of this process during the Late Neolithic of the Tisza region. At that site, the central tellmound, separated by a system of circular ditches and palisades, and the surrounding horizontalsingle layer settlement, represent the manifestation of two radically different perceptions of timeand space.45 Altogether, the settlement of Öcsöd�–Kováshalom shows a multi-layer picture of thelate Neolithic settlement integration process in the Körös river region.46 It represents an organicfusion between the horizontal and vertical concepts of space-time use. These features fall in linewith the known developmental tendencies at the sites of coeval tell cultures in South-EasternEurope as well as the structural and immanent rules of the �“early Balkan village�”.47

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Fig. 1. The geographical location of Öcsöd�–Kováshalom and the settlement on a hydrographic map ofthe Öcsöd area in the 18th century.

113

Fig. 3. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Settlement features on the main excavated surface.

Fig. 2. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. The topography of the Late Neolithic settlement with the eight settlementloci and the investigated areas. The reconstruction is based on a combination of field surveys and test

borings.

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Fig. 4. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Settlement features of the Tisza I phase.

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Fig. 5. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Settlement features of the Tisza II phase.

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Fig. 6. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Sequence calibration of 16 radiocarbon dates

117

Fig. 7. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Combined calibration of 10 radiocarbon dates for the Tisza I phase.

Fig. 8. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Combined calibration of 6 radiocarbon dates for the Tisza II phase.

118

Fig. 10. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Combined calibration of 16 radiocarbon dates for the Tisza I and Tisza IIphases together.

Fig. 9. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Calibration of 16 pooled radiocarbon dates for the Tisza I and Tisza II phases.

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Fig. 11. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1: Excavation photograph with settlement features of the Tisza I phase, 2:Ground plan of the features of the Tisza I phase, 3: The skull of an aurochs found on the floor of house

4, 4: Contracted skeleton grave in a pit of the Tisza I phase.

120

Fig. 12. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-4: Sacrifical pit in house 4 of the Tisza I phase.

121

Fig. 13. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Vessels from the sacrificial pit in house 4 of the Tisza I phase.

122

Fig. 14. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-2: In situ finds from a special area in house 5 of the Tisza I phase,3: Face pot with symbolic decoration reconstructed from the finds in the special area at house 5 of theTisza I phase, 4: Quadrangular vessel reconstructed from the finds in the special area at house 5 of the

Tisza I phase.

123

Fig. 15. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Spatial distribution of the 49 graves found in the main excavation area.

124

Fig. 16. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Decorated vessels of the Tisza II phase from pit 157.

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LITHIC INDUSTRIES FROM THE ÖCSÖD�–KOVÁSHALOM TELL-LIKE SETTLE-MENT IN HUNGARY

Ma³gorzata Kaczanowska*, Janusz K. Koz³owski* and Pál Sümegi**

Keywords: Hungary, Great Hungarian Plain, Neolithic, Tisza Culture, chipped stone indus-try, flakes, blades, tools, raw material distribution, ground and polished stone implements.

This work is a preliminary report on the analysis of lithic industries from the tell-like settle-ment Öcsöd�–Kováshalom.1 The report deals only with the series of artefacts assigned to twophases of the functioning of the tell. The phases were distinguished on the basis of stratigraphy.The two phases together yielded a series of 2 298 chipped and 178 ground stone artefacts. Theentire analyzed material from Öcsöd numbered more than 6 000 artefacts and will be dealt within a separate monograph. The objective of this report is, first of all, to document multi-direc-tional, inter-regional contacts of the inhabitants of the tell, to show the dynamics of technologi-cal, typological and functional changes in lithic production in the two phases of the functioningof the site (radiometric chronology restricted this period to about two centuries), and to define theplace of Öcsöd industry in the differentiation of Middle and Late Neolithic culture complexes.The relation of this industry to the Tisza complex in the Hungarian Plain, to the Lengyel complexin the west (Transdanubia) and in the north (Slovakia, Moravia), to the Vinèa Culture in theSouth and South-East (Voivodina, Serbia, Banat, Transylvania), possibly also to Lumea Noua andPrecucuteni further east, is discussed. The existence of syncretic groups (Polgár-Csõszhalom,Èièarovce and others) at the outskirts of the Tisza complex further complicates these relations.

I. CHIPPED STONE INDUSTRY

1. Raw materials structureA distinctive feature of lithic inventories from Öcsöd is a great variety of lithic raw materials.

They represent 14 petrographical categories viz.: limnoquartzites/hydroquartzites (14 types),opals (17 types), jasper (7 types), quartzites (6 types), radiolarites (4�–5 types), rhyolites (4 types),meniliths (2 types), chalcedony (2 types), flint (at least 4 types), silicified diatomites (2 types)and individual types of such raw materials as: geiserite, obsidian, and fossil wood. This differ-entiation of raw materials, identified by Dr. P. Sümegi, is, thus, even greater than that proposedby K. T. Biró2 (1998). In a sample of 999 artefacts from Öcsöd K. T. Biró identifies in her work27 raw materials. The key to 18 other raw materials listed by K. T. Biró3 (denoted by symbolsfrom 901 to 999) could not be found in her work.

The raw materials that occur with highest frequency are limnoquartzites/hydroquartzites (57.5%�– early phase and 53.62% �– late phase), opals (20.4% �– early phase, 14.2% �– late phase) and jasper(4.1% �– early phase, 5.4% �– late phase). As can be seen the two occupational phases do not showimportant differences in respect of petrographic characteristics. Nearly all the enumerated raw ma-terials are represented by all major technological categories (including unworked chunks).

Limnoquartzites represented in complete reduction sequences come, first of all, from the re-gion of the Tokaj and the Mátra Mountains (e.g. types 1, 1a, 2, XX, XXV), possibly also from theSzerencs Mountains (type 1b). However, types originating from Banat and southern Transylvaniaalso occur (e.g. from the Iosãºel region). Most opals, too, come from the region of the Tokaj andthe Mátra Mts. (types X, XLI, XLIV), the Szerencs Mts. (type XL), the Erdõbénye region (typeXXXV), less often from the region of southern Transylvania (type XXXIV). Jaspers, worked in

* Jagellonian University, Institute of Archaeology, Kraków, Poland** University of Szeged, Department of Geology and Paleontology, Hungary1 Raczky 1986; Raczky et al. 1985; Raczky 1987.2 T. Biró 1998.3 T. Biró 1998.


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the full reduction sequence come from the region of Monok, Legyesbénye, Komlóska, Szerencs,possibly from the Tokaj and Szerencs Mts. regions. Andesites originate from the Mátra Mts.Other raw materials may also have north-east-Hungarian origins [such as geiserite (possibly fromthe Botkõ/Sárospatak region), rhyolites (from the Tokaj Mts., from Barabás in the region of theKaszonyi Mts.) and silicified diatomites (from Erdõbénye�–Ligetmajor)]. Deposit areas ofradiolarites, on the other hand, are located in Transdanubia [the proportion of Úrkút�–Eplényradiolarite �— emphasized by K. T. Biró4 �— is, however, smaller in our analysis, which may becaused by the fact that P. Sümegi and K. T. Biró used different criteria to identify this raw mate-rial], and also in the Mecsek Mountains.

Besides the raw materials represented in the full reduction cycle there were raw materialsimported as final products of reduction namely: blades and retouched tools. Among them belong,in the early settlement phase, limnoquartzites type XX (opaque, yellow-beige, rough- probablyfrom the Legyesbénye region) represented by individual tools; in the late phase types 11 and 14(weathered hydroquartzites of unknown origin) and type XX �— mentioned above �— representedby only blades and retouched tools. In the early phase there are opals type XVIa (yellowishopalite) and XVIII (violet hydrothermic opals/jasper) and type XXI (brownish, transluscenthydrothermic opalite) represented by blades and tools only; their provenance is unknown. In thelate phase there are opals type 2a/IV (yellowish, from the Mecsek or the Tokaj regions), typeXXXVI (grey-beige opalite from the Mátra or the Tokaj Mts), type VII (weathered hydrothermicrock of unknown provenance) and the above-mentioned type XVIa, all represented by only bladesand tools. The same situation i.e. import of, exclusively, blades and/or tools, can be seen in thecase of other raw materials. These are: some quartzites (types XXXVIII and E1 �— probably fromthe Mecsek Mts., in the early phase, and types XXXVIII and XLIV in the late phase) and flints[from the Dnester basin, �“chocolate�” and Jurassic flint from southern Poland, �“Banat�” yellowishflint, flints type 11a and 16 of unknown origin �– all occur in the early phase; in the late phase �–�“chocolate�” flint and flint types of unknown provenance (beige flints varieties 18/19)].

The main deposit area of lithic raw materials, worked in full reduction sequence was north-eastern Hungary. From this region unworked concretions were imported mainly oflimnoquartzites/hydroquartzites and opals. Concretions were, as a rule, non-decorticated andwere used for on-site production of flake and blade blanks. It is noteworthy that various qualityraw materials were collected in many different areas, probably randomly. Thus, the method ofraw materials procurement was not systematic but, rather, accidental; it is likely that raw mate-rials procurement was embedded in other economic activities.

The raw materials that come from Transdanubia, Banat and southern Transylvania, mainlyradiolarites, were more carefully selected. This may be the consequence of the fact that they wereimported by barter or as gifts. Individual finds of blades or tools that come from both the �“clas-sic�” procurement zone (the Mátra, the Tokaj Mts., possibly also the Mecsek Mts.), from innerCarpathian zone (�“Banat�” flint), and from Transcarpathian territories (Senonian flint from theDnester basin, southern Polish flints: �“chocolate�” and Jurassic types) were also bartered or gifts.

2. The structure of major technological groups (Fig. 1)From the early phase a series of 1815 artefacts was analyzed including 13.5% �– cores, splin-

tered pieces �– 5.4%, flakes and chips �– 54.8%, retouched tools �– 11.3% and functional tools(macroscopically identifiable) �– 1.3%. This structure is typical of sites where mesolocal rawmaterials were worked on-site whereas blanks and tools, made from meso- and extralocal rawmaterials, were made off-site and imported. In the late phase the number of artefacts drops con-siderably (483). The proportion of cores increases significantly (26.1%), whereas that of flakesand chips (41.8%) and splintered pieces is smaller (0.3%). The frequency of blades (14.9%), re-touched tools (14.2%) and functional tools (2.3%) remains similar.

The exceptionally high proportion of cores in the late phase can be accounted for by the factthat also unworked pieces (chunks and nodules with single scars) were assigned to cores. Theseunworked pieces are more than 16% of cores and fragments. The fact that the imported noduleswere of low quality, randomly collected and not tested on collection could also influence the coreindex. Another factor is the fact that reduction of some cores is weakly advanced.

4 T. Biró 1998.

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We are inclined to explain the drastic drop in the proportion of splintered pieces (from 5.4 to0.3%) by the change in technological tradition rather than by greater availability of raw materi-als and less thrifty economy.

3. Debitage techniqueCores and fragments constitute 13.5% of artefacts in the early phase, whereas in the late phase

their proportion increases to 26.1%. The high percentage of cores indicates that unworked con-cretions (1.8% of the inventory �– early phase, 4.4% �– late phase) and a large quantity of partiallydecorticated concretions or even cores in various stages of reduction were brought to the site.

Most cores were made from limnoquartzites (67.4% of all cores and fragments �– early phase,30.5% �– late phase). Among artefacts from limnoquartzites alone the number of cores is compa-rable to the frequency of all cores in the two assemblages (early phase �– 15.9%, late phase �–30.5%). Next in number are cores from opals, jasper, andesite, and meniliths followed by stillfewer specimens from quartzite, radiolarite, geiserite, rhyolite, fossil wood, diatomite and others.It is noteworthy that no cores from obsidian were found; this raw material is represented by onlyflakes and blades and tools.

In the chipped stone industry from Öcsöd several, different operational chains can be distin-guished. The first group are sequences of blade reduction on single-platform cores (A). Thesesequences are evidenced by the following core types:

A1. Cores with the flaking surface on the narrow face of a tabular concretion. Reductionstarted by shaping the platform and consecutive detachment of blades; the flaking surface did notextend beyond the narrow face; it was fairly flat or weakly convex (Pl. I 1,2).

A.2. Cores with a flat and broad flaking surface. Blades were detached from an unpreparedsurface after the platform had been shaped (Pl. I 3�–9). In the advanced phase cores of this typebecame smaller while the flaking surface gradually rounded until subdiscoidal (Pl. I 10,11) orcarenoidal (Pl. I 12) forms were obtained.

A3. Cuboid cores with a convex flaking surface which was shaped on the unprepared surfaceof a concretion (Pl. I 13, II 1�–7).

A4. Besides blades some single-platform cores were used to detach some flakes. Such coresshow, sometimes, traces of preparation of the flaking surface which suggests a pre-core phase (Pl.II 8�–10). In the advanced phase these cores could have had flat flaking surfaces, convex or evenaround the entire circumference.

A separate, more advanced, reduction sequence is evidenced by blade cores with changed ori-entation (90o cores �– type B). Some of these cores may, in fact, be more exhausted stage of coresfrom type A. Among change-of-orientation cores belong:

B1. Cores with the second flaking surface shaped on the platform of the previous core (Pl. II11, III 1.2).

B2. Cores whose second flaking surface was installed on the opposite face of a core; at thesame time the direction of blade removals on this flaking face was perpendicular to the previousflaking surface (Pl. III 4�–6).

B3. Cores whose flaking surface was installed in the distal part (Pl. II 3).A further stage of reduction of these cores was to install the third flaking surface (Pl. III 7)

and, then, to modify them into multi-platform shapes that, however, are very rare.Typical double-platform cores, more often blade-flake ones, are rare (Pl. IV 1). Also cores on

flakes, for blade and flakes or for bladelets, occur sporadically.The technique of centripetal reduction was rarely used, more often in the residual phase.The cores described here evidence the use of the soft-hammer or the punch techniques, only

exceptionally the use of a hard hammer.It is only among the finds from the early phase that single-platform blade cores sporadically

occur �– very regular, sub-discoidal or sub-cylindrical, with abraded platform edges indicating theuse of pressure technique (Pl. IV 2�–4). Four such cores were discovered in the early phase; in thelate phase they are absent.

In general, cores in initial phases of reduction are predominantly from limnoquartzites (type1, 1a, 1f, 1h), whereas among strongly exhausted cores specimens made from opals (type 11, IV)and from limnoquartzite type 18 are most frequent. Cores exploited using pressure technique arealso made from limnoquartzites (type 1 and 1 m) and geiserite (raw material type 9). These four

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cores (Pl. IV 2�–4) demonstrate that their reduction did not take place on-site but that they wereimported to the site from a territory with a different technological tradition: the nearest such ter-ritory is the Bükk Culture territory. This is in agreement with raw materials (limnoquartzite alsothe Boldogkõváralja type, geiserite) whose deposits were exploited by the Bükk Culture groupsin north-eastern Hungary.

The differences between the two phases of the site can be seen in core reduction methods. Inthe early phase there are group A1 cores, blade-flake cores (group A4) with rounded flaking sur-faces, and cores with three platforms. As we have mentioned earlier, in the early phase there alsooccur sub-cylindrical and subdiscoidal cores used for the production of very regular blades splitby pressure off technique.

A characteristic feature of the late phase is, first of all, the occurrence of type A3 cores �–single-platform, polyhedral, blade specimens. Other core categories are recorded both in the earlyand in the late phase. Pressure technique was not registered in the late phase.

In both phases the pre-core stage is evidenced in the reduction of some cores (3 cores in theearly phase and 2 in the late phase), although the component of debitage products from prelimi-nary core preparation (crested flakes and blades etc) is relatively small and limited, principally,to the early phase.

4. Debitage products: flakesFlakes and chips together are 54.8% in the early phase and 41.8% in the late phase. Only a

small percentage of flakes were without or with/partial cortex (in the early phase �– 11.4%, in latephase �– 11.7% cortical flakes or with > 60% of cortex). The dorsal pattern of flakes points to fre-quent changes of orientation on cores in various phases of reduction (about a third of all flakes,in both phases, have perpendicular scars). Flake butts (Fig. 2) are predominantly single-blow(45.2% �– early phase, 39.7% �– late phase), less often unprepared (24.1% �– early phase, 33.8% �–late phase). Sporadically butts are facetted or linear (up to 11%).

Butt edges were not straight; they are as a rule unprepared, slightly denticulated (nearly halfof the specimens in each phase). Regularization (25.5% �– early phase, 35.2% �– late phase) ismore frequent than butt edge abrasion (6.1% �– early phase, 5.8% �– late phase).

The nature of bulbs shows that the hard hammer technique was used when flakes were de-tached namely: the presence of cones of percussion (23.4% �– early phase, 25% �– late phase),sometimes double; often on conspicuous bulbs.

The characteristic features that point to the use of a soft hammer and/or punch (e.g. the lip) arerare, and even less frequent are the features indicating the use of pressure technique (e.g. the bulbis demarcated by a fine semicircular line).

Most flakes were not detached in the advanced phase of blade core reduction, but come fromthe preparation of such cores or from specific cores meant for flake (or blade-flake) production.This is confirmed by the presence of flake scars on the dorsal side of majority of flakes (65.1%�– early phase, 73.5% �– late phase).

Flake length oscillates in the interval from 12 to 92 mm in the early phase and from 13 to 70mm in the late phase; the main mode is, however, between 21�–35/40 mm. Flake width is in theinterval from 11 to 90 mm in the early phase and from 14 to 69 mm in the late phase, althoughmost specimens are in the mode from 16 to 30 mm (in the late phase there are two maxima: 21�–26 and 31�–40 mm). We can, therefore, distinguish two flake groups: slender and broader ones.The latter occur primarily in the late phase when flakes are thicker. Flake thickness is in the in-terval from 2 to 23/25 mm.

5. Debitage products: bladesBlades are 13.5% of all artefacts in the early phase and 14.9% in the late phase. The majority

of specimens are fairly short, with the length in the range between 19 and 55 mm, although speci-mens between 19 �– 35 mm occur most frequently. Blade width is in the interval from 6 to 24 mm(the main mode is from 9 to 11 mm), and thickness is from 1 to 10 mm. There are no major mor-phometric differences between blades in the two phases.

In the early phase blades without cortex are 75% of all blades, and 55.5% in the late phase.The remaining specimens have lateral or distal cortex which indicates that flaking surfaces were,as a rule, unprepared, cortical and extended onto cortical surfaces.

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Blades were detached from single-platform cores or change-of-orientation specimens; only afew blades have opposite scars on the dorsal side.

Blades butts (Fig. 2) were, predominantly, single-blow (45.0% �– early phase, 50.0% �– latephase), less often facetted (16.9% and 16.6% respectively); in the late phase punctiform butts aremore frequent (11.1%).

Blade bulbs are greatly varied; however, specimens with weakly distinguished (flat) bulbs,with striations, or with a lip are most numerous. This evidences the use of the soft hammer and/or punch technique, whereas specimens that would exhibit distinct features of pressure techniqueare absent.

The lateral sides of blades are parallel (65.4% �– early phase, 69.4% �– late phase), althoughsome blades are fairly irregular (5.6% �– early phase, 19.4% �– late phase). Triangular and trapezoi-dal cross-sections are equal in number. Profiles are straight or convex. Specimens with one ridgeand those with two ridges �– both straight and sinusoidal �– are, also, equal in number.

A conclusion can be drawn that flakes come mainly from early reduction phase and from spe-cific flake �– oriented chaînes operatoires. Most flakes were detached by means of a hard hammer.Blades, on the other hand, are the product of blade-aimed reduction sequences where a soft ham-mer and/or a punch were used. Correlation between the various techniques of blade productionand particular raw materials was not registered. Similarly, no such correlation occurs in the caseof the raw materials that are represented by only blades or tools.

6. The problem of splintered techniqueThe interpretation of splintered technique hesitates �– as always invariably �– between tech-

nique of production of microlithic blanks (splinters) and the use of splintered pieces as tools(chisel-like tools). Splintered pieces are present mainly in the early phase (5.4% of all artefacts),whereas in the late phase their proportion is minimal (0.6%). It is noteworthy that in the earlyphase most splintered pieces were discovered in pit 11 (out of a total of 99 splintered pieces 92come from pit 11). It should be added that most splintered pieces from the early phase were madefrom opals (41.4% of all splintered pieces in that phase). That splintered pieces functioned ascores is evidenced by the presence of flakes resembling pseudo-burin spalls that were detachedfrom lateral sides of splintered pieces (59 specimens in the early phase). Moreover, a large quan-tity of chips occurs in the early phase, but in the late phase their proportion drops drastically.

7. Tools7.1. Retouched tools (Fig. 3)Retouched tools account for 11.3% of artefacts in the early phase (206 specimens) and 14.2%

in the late phase (60 specimens). In the early phase a little more than 50% of retouched tools weremade on flakes, whereas in the late phase tools made on blades are slightly more numerous. In thetwo phases very few tools were made on chunks or cores, or on technical waste (overpassedblades, crested blades, subcrested blades).

In the early phase slightly broader blades were selected for tool production, although theirtechnical parameters (butts, edges) did not differ from those of an average blank. In the late phasetoo, broader blades were selected, sometimes also longer than average, but, in addition, theseblades often had facetted butts. We can, thus, assume that tools were more often made on blanksimported to the site. The presence of tools from raw materials that do not occur as cores ordebitage products confirms this supposition.

In both phases the structure of retouched tools is dominated by end-scrapers (Fig. 3): 62.1%�– early phase, 57.9% �– late phase. Also in both phases flakes were used as blanks to produce end-scrapers; the ratio of blade end-scrapers to flake specimens is 1:3.

In the group of blade end-scrapers short (Pl. IV 5�–8, 19), sometimes double specimens (Pl. IV9�–12), are more numerous than large items (Pl. IV 13, 14, 16). In all likelihood, front-rejuvena-tion during use results in size reduction. This is confirmed by comparison of measurable at-tributes of blade end-scrapers with the attributes of unmodified blades.

Flake end-scrapers, too, are predominantly microlithic (Pl. IV 19, V 1,2) or hypermicrolithic(Pl. V 3�–5). This is partially the effect of front rejuvenation, and partially the consequence ofintentional selection of small blanks. Some flake end-scrapers are double (Pl. V 6, 7); just asamong blade end-scrapers (Pl. IV 15), among flake specimens lateral retouch is rare (Pl. V 8). In

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both phases discoidal end-scrapers were recorded (Pl. V 10�–12). There were single examples ofcore-like carenoidal end-scrapers (Pl. V 13).

End-scrapers also occur in combination with retouched truncations, sporadically with burinsand perforators. Some end-scrapers, just like retouched truncations, functioned as sickle insertsand were hafted obliquely (Pl. V 14�–16). The majority of end-scrapers show use-wear suggest-ing hide working. There is occasional linear use-wear of lateral sides of end-scrapers, probablyfrom working wood.

The next group �– although much less frequent �– are retouched truncations: in the early phase�– 12.1%, in the late phase �– 14.5%. These are blade truncations with oblique (Pl. V 17�–23), con-vex (Pl. V 24), straight (Pl. V 26�–28) or concave (Pl. VI 1) retouched edges. Double truncationsare rare (Pl. VI 2,3). Most specimens exhibit use-wear from functioning as sickle inserts. Someare without such wear but on the retouched edge show use-wear that indicate the use as tools forhide treatment (Pl. V 22,23,25).

A further place belongs to: retouched flakes (together with notched-denticulated tools they are6.3% �– in the early phase; in the late phase they are absent), perforators (early phase �– 5.3%, latephase �– 4.3% �– Pl. VI 4�–9), blades with lateral retouch (1.9% �– early phase, 5.7% �– late phase �–Pl. VI 10). Individual examples of macrotools (macroside-scrapers �– Pl. VI 11�–13; Pl. VII 1) andburins were recorded. In both phases there occur microlithis such as trapezes (Pl. VI 14,15; VII2�–5) and rhombs (3 specimens �– early phase, 4 specimens �– late phase), whereas backed blades(4 specimens) with a convex, arched (Pl. VII 6�–8) and angulated blunted back (Pl. VII 9) areknown only in the early phase. Use-wear analysis did not reveal wear on microliths.

7.2. Functional toolsWe have assigned to the group of functional tools, first of all, all the specimens with sickle

gloss. Regretfully, as a high-power microscope was unavailable and our time limited, we wereunable to perform use-wear analyses and examine all the debitage products of which some werecertainly utilized. On individual blades and flakes wear was macroscopically observable or atsmall magnifications: this was, primarily, microscars and edge rounding and smoothing that evi-denced the use for working wood.

In the early phase unretouched sickle inserts accounted for 1.3% of all artefacts (23 specimensas compared to 206 retouched tools) whereas in the late phase they are 2.2% of all artefacts (11specimens as compared to 69 retouched tools). In most cases, these inserts were obliquely hafted(Pl. VII 10�–15). Sometimes, the inserts were turned in the hafts and turned two or three times (Pl.VII 16); when the specimens have longitudinal working edges the insert was hafted straight (Pl.VII 17,18).

8. Chipped stone industry from Öcsöd in comparison to other Middle/Late Neolithic in-dustries of the Middle Danube Basin

The knowledge of the chipped stone industry of the Tisza Culture is still incomplete. We can,principally, refer to the results published by K. T. Biró5 of analyses of part of the materials fromthe Öcsöd tell and several other tells from the Tisza basin: the Szegvár�–Tûzköves tell south of theKörös mouth and the Szolnok�–Tûzköves tell north of the Körös mouth. K. T. Biró discusses, be-sides sites further south, in between the Körös mouth and the Maros mouth such as theHódmezõvásárhely�–Gorzsa and the Tápé�–Lebõ tells.

In terms of raw materials structure the Öcsöd tell industry resembles most closely �– accord-ing to K. Biró6 �– the Szegvár-Tûzköves tell; this can be seen in the domination of limnoquartzites,followed by transdanubian radiolarites; radiolarites from the Mecsek Mts are still fewer and thereare small quantities of obsidian. Further north the site of Szolnok-Tûzköves yielded even greaterquantity of limnoquartzites, mainly from the Mátra Mts., and small proportions of Transdanubianradiolarites and obsidians.

Tisza Culture sites that are situated further to the south from the Szegvár-Tûzköves tell showdifferent raw materials structure. At the site of Gorzsa the proportion of limnoquartzites dropssharply; they are replaced by obsidian (from 3.7% to20.4% according the phase), radiolarites

5 T. Biró 1998.6 T. Biró 1998.

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from the Mecsek Mts. (respectively from 13.1% to 34.0%) and flint from Banat (40.6% in earlyphase and 25.0% in late phase); Transcarpathian flints are also recorded (Starnini et al. 2007).The data from the Tápé-Lebõ tell is based on a small series of 52 artefacts: Transdanubianradiolarites predominate, also obsidian and Mecsek type radiolarite.7

The differences in the raw materials structure of assemblages of the Tisza Culture could reflectthe fact that the various sites represented various socio-political units which formed �“alliances�”and maintained contacts with other populations groups. On the other hand, these dissimilaritiescould express diachronic changeability of interregional relations. There is evidence to show thatthe early phase from Öcsöd corresponds to the early phase of the Tisza Culture (i.e. Vinèa B2),whereas the late phase from the Öcsöd tell corresponds to the classic phase of the Tisza Culture(still Vinèa B2 and the beginning of Vinèa C horizon)8 . The Szegvár�–Tûzköves tell is synchro-nous with the period from the Szakálhát/Tisza transition until the end of the classic Tisza phase(synchronous with Vinèa C).9 Occupation of the Gorzsa tell, too, started at the beginning of theTisza Culture and lasted until the late phase of the Tisza Culture i.e. it spans the period fromVinèa C.10 In this light we can assume that the differences in the raw materials composition storebetween the various Tisza Culture tells are not the effect of diachronic differences but werecaused by the hypothetical boundary between two inter-regional and inter-cultural �“orientations�”that ran in the interfluve of the Körös and the Maros rivers. This interpretation disqualifies thehypothesis put forward by J. Makkay11 which claimed that the Szegvár-Tûzköves tell was a cen-tral settlement in a hierarchical settlement system of the Tisza Culture.

The structure of major technological groups at Öcsöd, also the considerable variety of rawmaterials at other sites of the Tisza Culture situated beyond deposit areas (with the exception ofGorzsa tell and of the small series from Tápé�–Lebõ, the number of types of raw materials at othersites is as many as 20 to 45) point to a fairly random selection of raw materials. Consequently,this suggests absence or low level of specialization in lithic production. Moreover, it is possiblethat raw materials procurement �– first of all mesolocal �– was not a specialized activity but wasembedded in other economic activities. Some exceptions from these rules may suggest that socio-economic organization was different in some population groups.

Such an interpretation calls into question frequent claims of advanced specialization as theeffect of concentration of population who set up large villages, building tells. We can assume thatconcentration of population was the consequence of economic specialization, especially of cattlebreeding. The consequences in the sphere of lithic production are seen mostly at the end of theNeolithic and in the Eneolithic, but this process of emerging specialization was not synchronousin different villages.

The localization of lithic production in the settlement at Öcsöd is evidence that almost all thedomestic units (households) were in some degree involved in the manufacture of lithics. In theearly phase the number of artefacts inside dwellings is smaller than in the pits around them. Thesituation in the early phase is given below:

a) Dwelling 7: 80 artefacts including 20 retouched tools. This is the biggest number ofartefacts; we should also bear in mind that this dwelling was only partially excavated. The pro-portion of tools (25%) is twice as high as in the entire early phase (12.6%). Because only one,larger pit next to dwelling 7 was explored (pit 106 �– no chipped stone artefacts were recorded)we do not know whether other pits around dwelling 7 contained artefacts.

b) Dwelling 5: 64 artefacts including only 5 tools. The dwelling is surrounded by numerouspits: on the east side (pits 72 and 77 that yielded 149 artefacts together), and on the north (pit 72�– 144 artefacts), and a complex of 11 pits (979 artefacts together). This situation suggests that indwelling 5 itself chipped stone artefacts were manufactured; debitage products and worn toolswere removed to clay extraction pits next to the dwelling; partially these artefacts have beenwashed into the pits.

7 T. Biró 1998.8 Raczky 1987.9 Korek/Trogmayer 1991.10 Horváth 1987.11 Makkay 1982, 140-142.

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c) Dwelling 4: 32 artefacts including 6 tools. Pit 67 is situated directly at the entrance to thedwelling. Inside the pit there were 88 artefacts including 29 tools. Just as in the case of dwelling5, this situation can be interpreted as the effect of intentional discard and action of post-deposi-tional agents.

The scatter pattern data provided above demonstrates that in the early phase zones where spe-cialized lithic production took place did not exist. Lithic implements in the early phase weremanufactured within households; the waste from production was discarded on the floor and re-moved to clay pits outside dwellings.

In the late phase, too, dwellings yielded debitage products and tools: dwelling 1 (45 artefactsincluding 5 tools), dwelling 2 (172 artefacts, including 10 tools), dwelling 3 (51 artefacts includ-ing 10 tools), and dwelling 6 (17 artefacts including 5 tools). The organization of production was,thus, similar to that in the early phase. The only difference is that the filling of pits containedfewer artefacts (22 �– 38 artefacts in pits 73, 79, 80, 81, and 109). The clearing of floors in thedwelling was, thus, less careful (dwellings were quickly abandoned?) than in the early phase, andthe role of post-depositional agents was, probably, smaller.

It is difficult to compare technological features of lithic industries from Öcsöd with other as-semblages of the Tisza Culture because they have not been analysed in terms of technology. Onthe other hand, we can compare the Öcsöd industry with industries of other cultures in the samehorizon of the Middle Neolithic, i.e. with the Bükk Culture partially corresponding to the phaseTisza I, to phase B2/C of the Vinèa Culture (contemporaneous with Tisza I/II phase), to LengyelI (contemporaneous with the Tisza I/II and Tisza II phases), possibly also to the Stroke-Orna-mented Pottery Culture (its beginning is synchronous with Tisza I). The chronological horizon inquestion departs from the Early Neolithic model (FTN) in three respects:

a) the preference for one, usually extralocal, raw material vanished, replaced by the exploi-tation of a variety of local raw materials (possibly mesolocal when local rocks are not available);as a consequence specialized knappers disappear, and are replaced by local production on thelevel of household clusters,

b) very small on-site discard of cores and debitage products was replaced by large on-siteprocessing and discard,

c) large blades cease to be produced and transition takes place to the production of�“mediolithic�” (3�– 4/5 cm) blades,

d) the end of the ascendancy of tools with lateral retouch, which are replaced by, predomi-nantly, tools with transversal retouch (end-scrapers, retouched truncations).

The departure from the Early Neolithic model is most apparent in the Linear Complex hori-zon, both in the eastern groups (ALP, Szakálhát, possibly the Bükk Culture) as well as in thewestern groups (LBK). The tendencies enumerated above are continued in Tisza I and II horizon,in Lengyel I and in SBK.

In respect of structure of major typological groups the industry from Öcsöd differs from theVinèa Culture where the proportion of cores is small (at Vinèa Level 8�–9 m �– 2.9%, at Gomolava,phase B2 �– 4.6%)12 whereas the proportion of blades is much higher than at Öcsöd (Vinèa:63.3%, Gomolava: 46.2%). The structure of major groups at Öcsöd suggests a smaller componentof on-site production in favour of import of ready blanks.

The increase in the blade frequency at Öcsöd results in a drop in the debitage frequency(debitage at Öcsöd is 40�–50% of all assemblages, at Vinèa it is only 21.4%, and at Gomolava:28.2%). The frequency of tools at Vinèa oscillates, but is comparable with the frequency at Öcsöd(Vinèa: 12.3%, Gomolava: 21.5%).

It is important that the structure of major typological groups (Fig. 4) in the Vinèa Culture isunstable. It is dominated by end-scrapers (at Vinèa: 51.4%, at Gomolava: 54.1%); followed byretouched truncations (Vinèa: 8.5%, Gomolava: 18.8%). Between Vinèa and Gomolava the dif-ference can be seen in a higher component of blades with lateral retouch in Vinèa (35.4%), whileit is small at Gomolava (4.7%), and a higher proportion of burins at Gomolava (9.4%). In thisaspect quantitative tool structure in Öcsöd late phase is closer to Vinèa B2 phase.

12 Radovanoviæ et al. 1984; Koz³owski/Kaczanowska 1986.

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When we compare major technological groups from Öcsöd with Lengyel I Culture, an inter-esting analogy with the site of Svodin is revealed13 where the index of cores is very high (31.4%),even higher than in the late phase at Öcsöd (26.1%). However, the cause of such a high propor-tion of cores at Svodin may be different than at Öcsöd: not so much the poor quality of raw ma-terial, untested at extraction points, but rather the storage of only partially exhausted cores for thepurposes of barter. The proportion of flakes at Svodin (also 31.4%) is lower than at Öcsöd (40�–50%), whereas the proportion of blades and tools is higher and comparable with the same valuesfrom Öcsöd.

When frequency of major typological groups is considered the sites of the Lengyel Culture arecharacterized by the domination of end-scrapers among retouched tools, followed �— just like inthe Tisza Culture �— by retouched truncations (Fig. 4).

In the late phase of the Eastern Linear Culture (Bükk Culture) the frequency of major techno-logical groups differs from that at Öcsöd in that the frequency of cores is lower (e.g. at Humenne:3.04%14 ), although at �Šari�šskie Michalany15 the frequency of cores is comparable to that from theearly phase at Öcsöd (14.1%). The ratio of blades to flakes in the Bükk Culture is different to thatat Öcsöd (e.g. at Humenne flakes are 46.5% and blades 40.0%, at �Šari�šskie Michalany: 26.2%and 39% respectively). These proportions are related to a more specialized blade production (par-tially by pressure technique) in the Bükk Culture that exploited high quality raw material (mainlyobsidian) from constant sources. This resulted in a larger average length of blades (more than5.1 cm as compared to 3�–4 cm in the Tisza Culture and 4�–5 cm in Lengyel I Culture). In the BükkCulture blade and core depots appear that are not known in the Tisza and Lengyel.

The typological structure of assemblages of the Bükk Culture (Fig. 4) differs from the remain-ing units of the Middle Neolithic horizon in that the proportion of end-scrapers is smaller (e.g. 16%at Sari�šskie Michalany), while retouched truncations are in ascendancy (29.9%), and the proportionof blades with lateral retouch is fairly high (13.4%) �– which is typical of the entire Eastern Lineartradition.16 The characteristic features common for this entire chronological horizon are a stable,though small, component of microliths (trapezes), sporadic occurrence of burins, and the occurrenceof perforators (somewhat more frequent at some sites of the Late Vinèa culture).17

To show the specific character of chipped stone industries of the Late Neolithic horizon, no-tably of the Tisza Culture, requires the publication of monographs of sites in the Tisza basin. Inthe present state of knowledge, however, we can say that the Vinèa-Tisza-Lengyel chronologicalhorizon shows common taxonomic features. Some post-LBK units show close similarity to unitsof this horizon, while post-Eastern Linear Pottery units, first of all the Bükk Culture, reveal moredifferences.

II. GROUND AND POLISHED STONE IMPLEMENTS

The early phase from Öcsöd provided 141 artefacts of this type (including 106 that can beassigned to a specific type, others are fragments of such implements), and the late phase 61 speci-mens. To the group of ground stone implements belong:

a) lower grinding stones (Pl. VIII 3)b) upper grinding stones (Pl. VIII 4)c) hammerstones/grinders (Pl. VIII 1)d) basin querns/mortars �– Pl. VIII 2)e) elongated polishers.The second group are polished stone tools such as:a) axes (Pl. IX 3�–5)b) shoe last adzes (perforated and unperforated �– Pl. Pl. IX 6,7)c) perforated axes (Pl. IX 9)d) chisel-like tools (Pl. IX 1,2).

13 Koz³owski/Kaczanowska 1991.14 Koz³owski/Kaczanowska 1997.15 Kaczanowska et al. 1993.16 Koz³owski 1997.17 Koz³owski/Kaczanowska 1990.

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The early phase yielded 85 ground stone implements; the most numerous are small fragmentsof lower or upper grinding stones (32); there were 10 lower grinding stones and 10 typical uppergrinding stones (plano-convex, with a slightly concave active lower surface), all damaged, prob-ably intentionally. Hammerstones/grinders are mainly spherical or ovaloid (17). Besides, therewere numerous thin stone plaquettes with polished surfaces (6), basin querns (mortars �– 3), andelongated polishers (Schleifwanne �– 7).

These artefacts were most often made from sandstone (38 specimens), pyroxene/andesite (18),micaschist (12), rhyolithic tuff (4), pyroxene/gabbro (1), amphibolite (2), quartzite (3), quartz (1),dolomitized limestone (1). Outcrops of these rocks demarcate, basically, a similar territory to thatof rocks worked by chipping technique. Rocks originating from Transdanubia are best repre-sented (acc. to P. Sümegi: micaschist with garnets, some sandstones), and rocks from north-east-ern Hungary igneous rocks, mainly andesites/pyroxene, rhyolithic tuff, some sandstones (fromthe Mátra Mts.). Less frequent are rocks from, probably, Transylvania (micaschist with quartzite,ultrabasic/pyroxene/gabbro type rocks, possibly also wherlite/peridotite).

The late phase yielded only 37 ground stone implements including: lower grinding stones andfragments (18 specimens), upper grinding stones (also plano-convex �– 5 specimens),hammerstones/grinders (8), thin plaquettes with polished surfaces (1), elongated stone polishers(Schleifwanne �– 2). In the late phase there were, besides, pieces of mineral dyes, and pebbles thatwere used for crushing mineral dyes (7).

In the late phase sandstones (19 specimens) have dominance over other rocks (micaschist �– 8,pyroxene/andesite �– 3, quartzites �– 2). Quartz pebbles were also used for grinders (4). The rawmaterials procurement zone narrows, in the late phase, to Transdanubia and northern Hungary.

In the group of polished stone tool perforated shoe-last adzes (10) or unperforated specimens(2) are most frequent in the early phase. In addition, 6 axes and 2 perforated axes were discov-ered. Some of these tools were used as hammerstones, especially for crushing mineral dyes,sometimes after prior intentional (?) breaking.

In the late phase there were simple axes (4), shoe-last adzes (3), and chisel-like implements(3).

In the early phase numerous ground and polished stone implements occurred in pits: pit 11 �–as many as 29 specimens, pit 72 �– 10 specimens, pit 77 �– 23 specimens. A high frequency of thesetools was also registered inside dwellings (dwelling 5 �– 16 specimens, dwelling 7 �– 19 speci-mens). In the late phase such artefacts were registered within dwellings only (dwelling 2 �– 26specimens, dwelling 3 �– 12 specimens).

It is noteworthy that all the ground stone implements and a large part of the polished stoneimplements have been preserved as fragments, which seems to point to their intentional destruc-tion.18 The fact that fragments of damaged grinding stones and axe-like implements were foundin the interior of dwellings of the late phase exclusively, indicates that the inhabitants of thesedwellings curated the broken fragments; some of the fragments functioned as hammerstones oranvils. The presence of numerous fragments of ground and polished stone tools in the pits of theearly phase may mean that some of them got into the filling of pits after the dwellings of the earlyphase had been abandoned, but before the dwellings of the late phase were built. This hypothesismay also account for the presence of much more numerous ground and polished stone implementsdiscovered on the slopes of the Öcsöd tell within the sediments re-worked by postdeposition.Artefacts from these sediments could not be assigned to specific phases.

III. CONCLUSIONS

The lithic assemblages from the Öcsöd tell represents a local variant of the Tisza Culture in-dustry. This industry evolved over a time span of about 360 or 220 radiocarbon years. In the con-sequence no major differences have been registered between two occupational levels of this site:either in technology or in the morphology of retouched tools.

The system of lithic raw materials procurement was highly specific: the occurrence of about70 different rock types, macroscopically distinguished, has no parallel at other Tisza Culture

18 Chapman 2001, 376.

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sites, nor at sites of other units of the Middle/Late Neolithic. These raw materials come from ter-ritory extending along parallels of latitude, from the Alpine foreland (the region of Sopron) andthe Bakony Mts. as far as southern Transylvania. In the longitudinal direction deposit areas of rawmaterials concentrate in the Mátra and Tokaj Mts. From these regions, along the Tisza River, themajority of mesolocal raw materials, principally most varieties of limnoquartzites/hydroquartzites, were supplied (Fig. 5).

The unique variability of raw materials and their comparatively low quality suggest that theywere collected at random and were not obtained from workshops in the vicinity of deposit areas.Such raw materials procurement was embedded probably in other activities related to the subsis-tence economy. Individual items of raw materials that were imported as blades and/or tools, inturn, could have been gifts exchanged on the occasion of meetings between groups, possibly re-lated to the socio-symbolic sphere, rather than obtained in systematic exchange.

When the system of procurement of lithic raw materials is interpreted the most puzzling ques-tion is the low proportion of obsidian in Öcsöd. It would be simple to explain this phenomenonby the fact that an ethno-cultural boundary separated the Tisza basin from Slovakian deposits ofobsidian in the Zemplén upland. This obsidian (Carpathian II) was better suited for the produc-tion of �“mediolithic�” blanks than very small concretions of Tokaj obsidian. However, an argumentagainst this explanation is the fact that at the Gorzsa tell, situated further south in the Tisza val-ley, the proportion of Slovakian obsidian is higher.19 The same situation can be seen in the caseof the �“Banat�” flint (most probably from the region of Reºiþa20 ), whose proportion at Gorzsa ismuch higher than in Öcsöd. We can, thus, consider a possibility that the organization of the pro-duction of chipped stone implements at Gorzsa was, perhaps, a responsibility of specializedcraftsmen who ensured systematic supply of selected rocks of better quality. This assumptionwould, in turn, suggest differences in the social structure between various tell settlements of theTisza Culture. The publication of the monograph of the Gorzsa tell will help to verify this hypoth-esis.

In terms of technology/typology the industry from Öcsöd is consistent with the parameters ofthe entire chronological Middle/Late Neolithic horizon. It exhibits most similarities to some VinèaCulture and Lengyel assemblages, whereas dissimilarities are seen in comparison with the indus-try of post-Eastern Linear units. The latter comparison refers mainly to the Bükk Culture. Becausewe do not know the chipped stone industries of the Szakálhát group �— which undoubtedly playedan important role in the origin of the Tisza Culture �— we cannot estimate the significance of thisvariant of Eastern Linear (AVK) industry in the formation of lithic traditions of the Tisza Culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

T. Biró 1998K. T. Biró, Lithic implements and the circulation of raw materials in the Great Hungarian Plain during the Late

Neolithic Period (Budapest 1998).

Cârciumaru et al. 2007M. Cârciumaru/M. Anghelinu/A. C. Nitu/M. Cosac/G. Muratoreanu, Geo-archéologie du Paléolithique moyen,

Paléolithique supérieur, Epipaléolithique et Mésolithique en Roumanie (Tirgoviste 2007).

Chapman 2001J. Chapman, Fragmentation analysis and social relations in later Balkan prehistory. In: B. Ginter et al. (eds.) Prob-

lems of the Stone Age in the Old World (Kraków 2001) 369-388.

Horváth 1987F. Horváth, Hódmezõvásárhely-Gorzsa. A settlement of the Tisza culture. In: L. Tálas/P. Raczky (eds.), The Late

Neolithic of the Tisza Region. A survey of recent excavations and their findings: Hódmezõvásárhely-Gorzsa, Szegvár-Tûzköves, Öcsöd-Kováshalom, Vésztõ-Mágor, Berettyóújfalu-Herpály (Budapest�–Szolnok 1987) 31-46.

Kaczanowska/Koz³owski 1986M. Kaczanowska/J. K. Koz³owski, Gomolava �– chipped stone industries of Vinèa Culture (Kraków 1986).

19 Starnini et al. 2007.20 Carciumaru et al. 2007.

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Kaczanowska/Koz³owski 1991M. Kaczanowska/J. K. Koz³owski, Spaltindustrie der Lengyel Kultur aus Svodin (Kraków1991).

Kaczanowska et al. 1997.M. Kaczanowska/J. K. Koz³owski/S. Si�ška,. Neolithic and Eneolithic chipped stone industries from Sari�šske

Michalany, Eastern Slovakia (Kraków 1993).

Korek/Trogmayer 1991J. Korek/O. Trogmayer, Szegvár-Tûzköves. In: M. Jannet-Vallat/J.-P. Thevenot, (eds.), Les Agriculteurs de la

Grande Plaine Hongroise (4000-3500 av. J.-C.). Fouilles de Hódmezõvásárhely-Gorzsa, Szegvár-Tûzköves, Öcsöd-Kováshalom, Vésztõ-Mágor, Berettyóújfalu-Herpály et trouvailles (Dijon 1991), 51-67.

Koz³owski 1997J. K. Koz³owski (ed.), Early Linear Pottery Culture in Eastern Slovakia (Kraków1997).

Makkay 1982J. Makkay, A magyarországi neolitikum kutatásának új eredményei. Az idõrend és a népi azonosítás kérdései

(Budapest 1982).

Raczky 1986P. Raczky, The cultural and chronological relations of the Tisza Region during the Middle and the Late Neolithic,

as reflected by the excavations at Öcsöd-Kováshalom. Béri Balogh Ádám Múzeum Évkönyve 13, 1986, 103-125.

Raczky 1987P. Raczky, Öcsöd-Kováshalom. A settlement of the Tisza culture. In: L. Tálas/P. Raczky (eds.), The Late Neolithic

of the Tisza Region. A survey of recent excavations and their findings: Hódmezõvásárhely-Gorzsa, Szegvár-Tûzköves,Öcsöd-Kováshalom, Vésztõ-Mágor, Berettyóújfalu-Herpály (Budapest, Szolnok 1987), 61-83.

Raczky et al. 1985P. Raczky/M. Seleanu/G. Rózsa/Cs. Siklódi/G. Kalla/B. Csornay/H. Oravecz/M. Vicze/E. Bánffy/S. Bökönyi/P.

Somogyi, Öcsöd-Kováshalom. The intensive topographical and archaeological investigation of a Late Neolithic site.Preliminary report. Mitteilungen des Archaologischen Instituts der Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 14,1985, 251-278.

Radovanoviæ et al.I. Radovanovic/M. Kaczanowska/J. K. Koz³owski/M. Pawlikowski/B. Voytek, The chipped stone industry from

Vinèa (Beograd 1984).

Starnini et al.E. Starnini/B. Voytek/F. Horváth, Preliminary results of the multidisciplinary study of the chipped stone

assemblage from the Tisza Culture site of Tell Gorzsa (Hunagry) In: J. K. Koz³owski/P. Raczky (eds.), TheLengyel, Polgár and related cultures in the Middle/Late Neolithic in Central Europe (Kraków 2007), 276-284.

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Fig. 1. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Major tool categories(C: cores, F: flakes and chips, B: blades, T: tools, SP: splintered pieces)

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Fig. 2. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Butts of flakes and blades(C: cortical, SB: formed by single blow, D: dihedral, F: facetted, L: linear and punctiform)

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Fig. 3. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Major tool categories.

Fig. 4. Major tool categories in selected sites of other Middle/Late Neolithic units.

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Fig. 5. Geographical distribution of the stone raw materials found at the site of Öcsöd-Kováshalom.1: Barabás, Kaszonyi hill, 2: Sárospatak, Botkõ hill, 3: Erdõbénye �– Ligetmajor, 4: Boldogkõváralja, 5:

Rátka �– Mád, Koldu hill, 6: Legyesbénye �– Szerencs �– Monok, Szerencs Mts. within Ingvár hill, 7:Gyöngyösoroszi, Mátra Mts., 8: Mecsek Mts., 9: Eplény, 10: Úrkút, 11: Banat, 12: Sopron Mts.,

13: Prut, 14: Kraków/Poland Mid-Mountain Region

Key:Limno- and hydroquartzite, quarzite Rhyolithe, andeziteOpal FlintJasper, Calcedony X GneissRadiolarite white X Silicated diatomites, menilith =

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Pl. I. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-13: cores.

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Pl. II. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-11: cores.

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Pl. III. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-7: cores.

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Pl. IV. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-4: cores, 5-20: end-scrapers.

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Pl. V. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-16: end scrapers, 17-28: retouched truncations.

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Pl. VI. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-3: retouched truncations, 4-9: perforators and becs, 10: laterally re-touched blade, 11-13: macro-side-scrapers, 14-15: trapezes.

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Pl. VII. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1: macrotool, 2-5: trapezes, 6-9: backed implements, 10-18: unretouchedsickle inserts.

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Pl. VIII. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. Ground stone implements �— 1: hammerstone/pestle, 2: basin quern, 3:lower grinding stone, 4: upper grinding stone.

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Pl. IX. Öcsöd�–Kováshalom. 1-8: polished stone implements.

ANIMAL REMAINS FROM THE SITE ÖCSÖD�–KOVÁSHALOM

Zsófia E. Kovács* and Erika Gál**

Keywords: Archaeozoology, Neolithic animal exploitation, Hungary /Great Hungarian Plain,wild fauna, disposal patterns.

I. INTRODUCTION

The Tisza culture animal bone assemblage from Öcsöd�–Kováshalom represents the most abun-dant zoological collection from this part of the Great Hungarian Plain (South-eastern Hungary).

Altogether 21,094 hand-collected bone fragments were recovered from the central part of thesettlement. Approximately 10,000 fragments were studied by the late Sándor Bökönyi, while therest were identified by the authors of this paper.

In addition to counting the number of identified specimens (NISP), ageing domesticates (bytooth-eruption and epiphyseal fusion) were performed. It shows how people handled livestockand may indicate secondary exploitation. The spatial distribution of different taxa and body-partswere also analyzed to see whether animals were butchered in different parts of the settlement.

ResultsTwenty-seven percent of bones originate from pits, 6% from inside the houses, and 10% from

under and in between the houses. The rest (57%) were not directly associated with features.The material mostly consisted of mammalian bones (n=19,116). In addition, 1,349 fish-, two

amphibian-, 109 reptile- and 99 bird remains were found (Table 1). The bones were highly frag-mented, the average size falling within the 75 mm interval. This pointed to a typical settlementsample, mostly consisting of food refuse. Therefore, the identification of 5,569 fragments to spe-cies level was impossible, only size classification could be provided.

II. LIVESTOCK COMPOSITION

Remains of domestic mammals dominated (NISP=10,592, 78%), in contrast to hunted animals(NISP=2,955, 22%). Generally, domesticates dominate in the Tisza culture, showing well-devel-oped animal husbandry.1 However, the ratio of hunted animals became higher as hunting becamemore important by the Late Neolithic compared with the Middle Neolithic times,2 as is expressedwell in this material.

The most frequent domestic species was cattle with 62% of the remains. Pig was the secondmost frequent species with 24% of the bones, preceding sheep and goat (caprines) that yielded12% of the bones. Dog was rather under-represented by only 2% of the bones (Fig. 1). This dis-tribution is similar to other samples of Tisza culture settlements from this region. The great domi-nance of caprines in the early Neolithic has changed to keeping cattle and pig by the LateNeolithic. Since the marshy floodplains offered a more favorable environment to pigs than tosmall ruminants, the ratio of pigs became higher by the end of the Neolithic.3

Age estimates for cattle and caprines showed a clear dominance of adult individuals (Fig. 2).This kill-off pattern raises the possibility of secondary exploitation. Animals of secondary usagehad to reach breeding age, while meat-purpose animals were slaughtered young.4 This means that

* Zsófia E. Kovács, Aquincum Museum, Budapest 1031, Szentendrei út 139, Hungary, [email protected]** Erika Gál, Archaeological Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest 1014, Úri u., 49,[email protected] Vörös 2005.2 Bartosiewicz 2005.3 Bartosiewicz 2005.4 Bökönyi 1984.


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milk production may have been an important part of animal exploitation in this settlement. As ithas been recently demonstrated by detecting milk residues in ceramic vessels,5 milking was es-tablished already during the early Neolithic. In contrast to cattle and caprines, young animalsclearly dominated among the pigs slaughtered, indicative of meat production as the objective ofpig husbandry.

III. HUNTED ANIMALS

Large game dominated in contrast to smaller, fur-bearing mammals; the main purpose of hunt-ing must have been meat provisioning. The most frequent species was roe deer, followed by wildboar, red deer, and aurochs. This frequency pattern differs from the samples of other Tisza cul-ture settlements in the region, where �– except for the Early Tisza culture settlement of Battonya�–Gödrösök6 �– the main hunted animal was the aurochs.7 Since environmental conditions musthave been similar in this region, the low frequency of aurochs could be the result of differenthunting practices. Inhabitants of Öcsöd�–Kováshalom probably preferred hunting of roe deerwhich is smaller in size, but easier to kill than the aurochs. Although fur hunting seems to havebeen less important, this site shows a very rich variety of fur-bearing animals �–not typical at otherTisza settlements. Rare species such as brown bear and lynx were identified. This high speciesrichness may result from the relatively great importance of hunting even relative to the unusuallylarge sample size (see Fig. 4). The most frequent small game was brown hare, which also pro-vided meat, supporting the assumption that complementary meat provisioning was the main pur-pose of hunting.

IV. SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION

A comparison was made of main feature types (houses, �“streets�” and pits on the periphery)from the viewpoint of the ratio between the small and large sized domesticates. The distributionof domestic taxa between these features showed heterogeneity ( ²=28.98; df=4; p<0.0001): inperipheral pits the proportion of caprine remains was higher than the expected value, as shownby the percentage distribution of these species (Fig. 3). Pits served as refuse deposits, and theseanimals were probably butchered on the periphery of the settlement.

The distribution of hunted animals also showed heterogeneity ( ²=57.38; df=8; p<0.0001).The proportion of brown hare was significantly high, while wild boar was under-represented in-side the houses. This probably means that both the processing and consumption of hares tookplace inside the houses, while large game such as wild boar were processed outside.

The body part distribution of main domesticates was analyzed by body regions as follows8 : head,trunk, meaty limbs, dry limbs and terminal bones. These represent different nutritive values. Thedistribution of cattle body parts showed heterogeneity between the three feature types ( ²=53.54;df=8; p<0.0001). Bones from the trunk (with high nutritive values) were over-represented in thesamples found in houses, while the low- and medium utility elements were much more abundant inpits. These patterns indicate that primary butchering and cooking-eating activities took place in dif-ferent parts of the settlement. Cattle were butchered around the pits and further food preparation wascarried out in the houses. Unlike the cattle, the body part distribution of bones from smaller-bodiedpigs and caprines showed homogeneity in all three types of features.

V. BIRD HUNTING

The 99 avian remains (0,5% of the assemblage) found at Öcsöd�–Kováshalom represent themost abundant late Neolithic, and one of the most abundant Neolithic bird bone assemblages fromthe Great Hungarian Plain.9 A quarter of the remains were found in houses, while another quarter

5 Craig et al. 2005.6 Bökönyi 1984.7 Vörös 2005.8 Kretzoi 1968.9 Gál 2007.

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were recovered from pits. Half the material could not be connected to archaeological features.Contrary to the mammalian assemblage, no patterns could be observed in the spatial distributionof bird bones.

In spite of the poor representation of avian remains the taxonomic richness is noteworthy.Twenty-one species could be identified (Table 1), representing two main ecotypes. Most of thesespecies live in or near a reedy-swampy environment making their nest either on the ground inthick vegetation or on shrubs and trees. Crane and great bustard represent the humid and drysteppe environment, respectively. The latter two species were the most frequent in the avianassemblage. The calculated minimum number of individuals, however, pointed to only two andthree individuals, respectively. It is likely, therefore, that the apparent over-representation of largecrane and great bustard is due to sampling bias resulting from hand-collection.

Since nothing indicates that any of the identified species would have been especially targeted,we may conclude that birds were equally exploited for their meat, eggs and plumage. Moreover,a straight cut-mark observed on the shaft of the ulna from a large (but unidentifiable) speciessuggests that even bird bones were utilized by the inhabitants of the site.

The majority of identified birds are summer visitors in Hungary, spending only the breedingperiod here, while a few are residents. White-fronted goose and goosander are typical wintervisitors in Hungary from October to March.10 Importantly, these seasonal characteristics wouldindicate year-round activity at the settlement.

The habitat preferences of species confirm that the settlement was located in a flood-plainenvironment with smaller or larger water surfaces and forests. Periodically, however, wet and dryopen grasslands were also exploited by hunting, as was also demonstrated by certain huntedmammals. According to the great number of species linked to rather few individuals,opportunistic fowling was practiced throughout the year. This is typical of the Neolithic periodin the Carpathian Basin,11 contrary to the scarcity of ducks at Öcsöd, and generally in the GreatHungarian Plain during the Late Neolithic.12 Changes in the environment (e.g. less open surfaces)as well as in hunting habits (e.g. the increasing exploitation of forests) may have equally led tothis result.

VI. CONCLUSIONS

The species composition and ranking of domestic animals at this settlement is similar to thoseof other Tisza culture settlements in the region. The main domestic species were cattle and pig.According to the age distribution of domestic ruminants, milk production was established at thesettlement. As for the composition of wild mammals, it differs from other Tisza culture settle-ments and looks similar to earlier sites. The main game was roe deer while the aurochs took onlyfourth place �– in contrast other Tisza culture materials in which aurochs remains dominatedamong game.

The spatial distribution of domestic taxa was heterogeneous, showing that butchering, pro-cessing and garbage disposal for these species differed at this settlement. The remains of caprinesas well as body parts of less meat value from cattle were deposited in the periphery. On the otherhand, among the hunted animals, bones of brown hare were mostly found in houses indicatingthat this species was prepared inside in contrast to large game.

There was an outstandingly high diversity of hunted animals (both mammals and birds), nottypical at other Tisza culture settlements. Figure 4 illustrates one of the main characteristic fea-tures of prehistoric vertebrate assemblages, namely that the number of identified species in birdsincreases more intensively with the number of identified specimens than in mammals.13 Evi-dently, the uniquely large assemblage from Öcsöd�–Kováshalom yielded a greater number of spe-cies than it would have been expected according to the observed trends.

10 Peterson et al. 1977.11 Gál 2004.12 Gál 2007 63.13 Bartosiewicz/Gál 2007.

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BIBILIOGRAPHY

Bartosiewicz 2005Bartosiewicz, L., Plain talk: animals, environment and culture in the Neolithic of the Carpathian Basin and adja-

cent areas. In: Bailey, D., Whittle, A., and Cummings, V. (eds), (un)settling the Neolithic. Oxford, (2005), 51-63.

Bartosiewicz-Gál 2007Bartosiewicz, L. and Gál, E., Sample size and taxonomic richness in mammalian and bird bone assemblages from

archaeological sites. Archeometriai Mûhely 2007/1, 37-44.

Bökönyi 1984Bökönyi, S., Battonya-Gödrösök neolithikus gerinces faunája. In: Goldman, Gy. (eds), Battonya-Gödrösök eine

neolitische Siedlung in Südost-Ungarn. Békéscsaba, (1984), 119-169.

Craig et alii 2005Craig, O. E., J. Chapman, C. Heron, L. H. Willis, L. Bartosiewicz, G. Taylor, A. Whittle and M. Collins, Did the

first farmers of central and eastern Europe produce dairy foods? Antiquity 79 (2005), 882-894.

Gál 2004Gál, E., The Neolithic avifauna of Hungary within the context of the Carpathian Basin. Antaeus 27 (2004), 273-

286.

Gál 2007Gál, E., Fowling in lowlands. Neolithic and Copper Age bird bone remains from the Great Hungarian Plain and

South-East Romania. Archaeolingua (Series Minor). Vol. 24 (2007), Budapest.

Kretzoi 1968Kretzoi, M., La répartition anatomique du matériel ostéologique selon les espéces et les amas de déchets. In:V.

Gábori-Csánk - M. Kretzoi: Zoologie archéologique. In: V. Gábori- Csánk, La Station du paléolithique moyen d�’ Érd-Hongrie. Monumenta Historica Budapestinensia III. Budapest 1968, 230-244.

Peterson et alii 1977Peterson, R. T., Mountfort, G. and Hollom, P. A. D., Európa madarai, Budapest, Gondolat (1977).

Vörös 2005Vörös, I., Neolitikus állattartás és vadászat a Dél-Alföldön. In: Bende. L.-Lõrinczy G., Hétköznapok Vénuszai,

Hódmezõvásárhely (2005), 203-243.

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Table 1. Summary of the species and remains from vertebrates (the additional values by roe deer and reddeer indicate the number of antler fragments)

Common name Latin name NISPCattle Bos taurus 6557Caprines Ovis/Capra 1108Sheep Ovis aries 78Goat Capra hircus 68Domestic pig Sus domesticus 2577Domestic dog Canis familiaris 204Domestic mammals 10,592

Aurochs Bos primigenius 310Red deer Cervus elaphus 480+105Roe deer Capreolus capreolus 1,149+81Wild boar Sus scrofa 637Wild ass Asinus hydruntinus 48Equuidae indet. Equuidae indet. 26Brown hare Lepus europaeus 157Beaver Castor fiber 18Brown bear Ursus arctos 1Lynx Lynx lynx 1Wolf Canis lupus 6Fox Vulpes vulpes 66Wild cat Felis sylvestris 7Badger Meles meles 7Martes sp. Martes sp. 2Mustelidae indet. Mustelidae indet. 1Hedhog Erinaceus concolor 2Hamster Cricetus cricetus 23Mole rat Nannospalax leucodon 1unident. rodents Rodentia indet. 10unindent. carnivores Carnivora indet. 3Hunted mammals 2,955

White pelican Pelecanus onocrotalus 2Little egret Egretta garzetta 2White egret Egretta alba 3Night heron Nycticorax nycticorax 2Purple heron Ardea purpurea 2Grey heron Ardea cinerea 2White stork Ciconia ciconia 1Spoonbill Platalea leucorodia 2Unidentifiable swan Cygnus sp. 2White-fronted goose Anser albifrons 4Grey-lag goose Anser anser 9Unidentifiable goose Anser sp. 1Goosander Mergus merganser 2Mallard Anas platyrhynchos 10White-tailed eagle Haliaaetus albicilla 2Lesser spotted eagle Aquila pomarina 1Black grouse Tetrao tetrix 6Coot Fulica atra 1Great bustard Otis tarda 15Crane Grus grus 14Woodpigeon Columba palumbus 2Crow Corvus corone 1Unidentifiable birds Aves indet. 13

unident. frogs Anura indet. 2Pike Esox lucius 10Catfish Silurus glanis 4Carp Cyprinus carpio 2Cyprinidae indet. Cyprinidae indet. 3unident. fish Pisces indet. 1,331European pond turtle Emys orbicularis 109

Human Homo sapiens sapiens 232

large mammal Bos/Equus size group 3,262medium-large mammal Sus/Cervus size group 87medium mammal Sus/Ovis/Capra group 2,160dog size mammal Canis/Castor group 21hare size mammal Lepus size group 7unidentified fragments Indeterminent frag 32

Total animal bones 21,094

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Fig. 1. Species composition of domestic mammals (NISP=10,592)

Fig. 2. Relative age distribution of the main domestic animals (cattle N:339, caprines N:367, pig N:971)

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

Cattle Caprines Pig Dog

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

cattle

pig

caprines

juvenilissubadultusadultus

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Fig. 3. Distribution of the main domestic taxa between feature types (cattle N:1984, caprines N:492, pigN:884)

Fig. 4. Differences between prehistoric mammalian (continuous trend line; y = 0,1736x + 0,5684;R2 = 0,691) and avian assemblages (dotted trend line; y = 0,5714x + 0,0198; R2 = 0,7501) from the

Carpathian Basin.

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Cattl

e

Pig

Caprines

houses

pits

"streets"

0,0

0,5

1,0

1,5

2,0

2,5

3,0

0,0 1,0 2,0 3,0 4,0 5,0

log10NISP

log1

0n

BirdsMammalsÖcsöd birdsÖcsöd mammals

COMMENTS ON THE TELLS IN THE CARPATHIAN BASIN:TERMINOLOGY, CLASSIFICATION AND FORMATION

Ferenc Horváth *

Keywords: tells, Carpathian Basin, Bronze Age, terminology.

Similarities and relationships between the stratified sites in the Carpathian Basin and theNorthern Balkans with Near Eastern and Eastern Balkanic tells were first recognized around the�’20s of the last century.

Florin Gogâltan and Thomas Link have reviewed most of the theories born in connection withthe terminology, formation, classification and abandonment of this settlement phenomenon in theCarpathian Basin in the near past. Both of them pose several questions that have remained open.Let me quote Thomas Link:

�“Entscheidender ist die Frage worin sich Siedlungshügel von einschichtigen Siedlungen (undSiedlungen mit �“zufälliger�“ Stratifizierung) unterscheiden, welche gemeinsamen Merkmale siebesitzen und was dies über ihre rolle innerhalb des Siedlungsgefüges aussagt. Angesichts des breitenSpektrums von Siedlungen gänzlich verschiedener Charakteristika, denen einige tellartigeStratifizierung gemeinsam ist, muss auch die Frage gestellt werden, ob mit dem Begriff �“Tell�” eineeigenständige Siedlungsform oder lediglich eine Spezielle Befundgattung erfasst wird, ob er alsokulturhistorischen oder lediglich archäologisch-descriptiven Wert hat.�” (Link, 2006, 8)

I. TERMINOLOGY

In their previous work both of the authors have concluded that using the concepts and termsof �‘tell�’ or �‘tell cultures�’ is misleading in Carpathian Basin archaeology. They note at the sametime that in spite of this consideration, since these terms have been in use for decades, theirrevision would scarcely be feasible. Gogâltan regards the term �“tell�” unreservedly as an �“Arabicand archaeological neologism�”, causing more confusion than advantage for archaeologicalresearch (Gogâltan 2002, 23; Link 2006, 8). Their arguments, however, contain elements whichare at the least debatable.

To begin with it may be noted that as regards �‘Arabic neologism�’, the word �‘tell�’evidently only in word form was identical with the Arabic word in the archaeological literatureeven in the 1960s. Since it was a simple adaptation of the word it could have been chosen fromany one of several languages, if archaeology had needed a word for specifying precisely theconcept of �‘mound�’ i.e. simply the form of site. But instead, archaeology needed a word whichexpressed precisely the concept of a Near Eastern type of settlement formation in prehistory. Sothe loan word became an archaeological term by a common consent among prehistorians and hasbeen reserved strictly for a certain settlement-historical process. It is another question how it isused by the authors.

It goes without saying that toponymic use of the Arabic word form itself can hardly beavoided. When it is used as an archaeological term it serves to specify both a form of site and aform of settlement, however. Definitions used up to now only refer mainly to the former (Lloyd1963, 10; Bray�–Trump 1970, 228; Demoule 1988, 1033; Renfrew�–Bahn 1998, 546; Gogâltan2003, 224, etc). The problem is further complicated by the fact that definitions do not clearlydistinguish between the two categories. From this viewpoint, an explanation that does notdifferentiate cannot be really satisfactory.

The definitions mentioned above contain etymology in each of the cases, and mainly external,formal and physical criteria (conic shape, threshold of height in metres and centimetres and/orin number of layers, inorganic remains of disintegrated houses, etc). All these categories are


* Móra Ferenc Museum, Szeget 6720, Roosevelt nr 1-3, Hungary, [email protected]

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merely the features that serve to realize, identify, and describe the tell phenomenon byexperimental approach. Secondary characteristics are needed to describe external conditions ofthe concept. So these components are features referring to the physical sense of the term tell whenit is used as a form of site.

When using the term in this sense, stratification, and physical continuity of the multiplesuperimposed layers are primary criteria. All these mean a mere vertical accumulation continuum.In this respect intermediate or superimposed - so called �‘accidental�’ layers left by a short-termsedentary population (Link 2006, 7) - can be neglected in classifying a site as a tell. The culturalcomponents are of secondary importance as well, since the tell as form of site is not dependenton the fact that its deep stratification was produced by one or more successive communities. Fromthis viewpoint height is not a determinant requirement when the site is a visible mound and afterexploration is proved to be deeply stratified and its layers, in one or more sections of thesequence, form an identical phase of settlement by superpositional relationship between them. Atell, as form of site, as Andrew Sherratt noted very aptly and expressively, is nothing else but an�“accidental by-product of a sedentary community�” (Sherratt 1994, 172).

During the past few decades, however, attention has been gradually turning towards theclimatic, environmental, ecological, socio-economical and cultural factors that led to theemergence of tell settlements.

These components of the definitions refer to more profound essentials, conditions offormation of this phenomenon, such as their areal distribution, settlement continuity i.e. long-term full sedentism, the ratio of built to unbuilt space, the concentration of houses, the role oftradition and cult, etc. (Sherratt 1983, 192�–193; Chapman 1989, 35; Tringham 1992, 142�–143;Parzinger 1992, 221�–228). These components, however, are already connected to the primary,substantial, internal determinants of the abstract sense of the term tell when it is used as form ofsettlement that means a theoretical approach.

Another problem is bound to recur: why do not we name as tells those deeply stratified sitesestablished following the Bronze Age in Europe? The explanation appears to be very simple. Aswe have seen in the above paragraphs, archaeology needed a word to express precisely theconcept of a Near Eastern type of settlement formation in prehistory. But history is interested inthis question only until the appearance of the first pre-urban and early urban settlements. Inprehistoric Europe this process took a different pathway in the Early Copper Age and for a secondtime in the Late Bronze Age. As concerns the Ages following the abandonment of European tells,the historical processes leading to the formation of early villages and towns have been clarifiedalready on the basis of the Near Eastern examples. Anyway, due to the gradually increasingnumber of written sources, questions of the formation of later villages, towns and states, arebeyond the principal horizon of theoretical archaeology. Tell has remained a concept strictlyreserved for the Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement-historical process.

In summary, tell in the sense of form of settlement is a concept derived from the Arabic word�“mound�” and designates those multi-stratified, fully sedentary settlements in the Neolithic andBronze Age which carried the potential preconditions of pre-urban and urban development intoSouth Eastern Europe and whose development led to the earliest form of towns in the Near East.

So, because of their underlying contents there is no need to be in doubt concerning the rightuse either of �‘tell�’ nor �‘tell cultures�’ as archaeological terms, least of all to discard them fromarchaeological terminology.

II. CLASSIFICATION OF TELLS

Another problem is the rather confused classification of settlement types. The idea ofclassifying the Late Neolithic settlements of the Tisza Region by their form, layout, and layerthickness (Kalicz 1965, 31; Kalicz�–Raczky 1987, 15) and areal extent has been turning towardarbitrary, artificial categorization by layer thickness. Later on, this idea has been applied byothers and further complicated (Meier-Arent 1991, 78; Gogâltan 2002, 25). Drawing arbitrarylines of measurement instead of analysing the underlying prehistoric processes, however, is buta quantitative, metrical device. Differentiating between qualities by an approach like this,however, cannot really be a competent basis especially if it is only a question of a dividing lineof a few centimetres between �“tell-like�”, �“genuine�”, and �“flat�” settlements.

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Recently Thomas Link has argued against this approach surmising the proper course ofthe solution and has suggested a threshold of at least two or more settlement phases for defininga tell-like settlement. At the same time, being sceptical until the outcome of verification by layer-accumulation, he has suggested that a higher criterion for qualification of a site as a tell shouldbe laid down (Link 2006, 11). As a quality-based approximation János Makkay has ranged tellsas follows: tells of one layer as tell-rudiments, settlement sequences without a long hiatus asideal-tells, and super ideal-tells when ethnical continuity has been added to the settlement-continuity, noting that in reality such a case probably exists nowhere (Makkay 1982, 108). As fortells of one layer, John Chapman followed the same logic saying rightly that every tell began asa flat settlement (Chapman 1997, 142).

It is worth noting that problems of classification have come partly from contradictary use ofstratigraphic terminology. Archaeologists who have had long-term extensive practice inexcavation techniques must have learned that in most cases neither the so-called �‘single-layeredsettlements�’ nor the �‘flat settlements�’ are really single-layered in the sense of archaeologicalstratigraphy. Thus, very often it is unclear what the authors mean by the term �‘layer�’. This termis used by them to designate something more than a �‘phase�’ i.e. period of settlement. Similarly,the terms layer, or level are often used as simple synonyms and often in sense of phase or period,preventing one from understanding the ideas of the others.

Interpretations of the prehistoric processes from pure physical, stratigraphic remnants inthemselves easily turn into non-historical, rigid approaches. But what is that �“higher�” quantitativecriterion, which meaningfully differentiates between the single- phased rudimentary tells andnon-tell settlements? Without naming this, every argument soon becomes circular.

III. FORMATION OF TELLS IN THE SENS OF FORM OF SETTLEMENT

According to the identification scheme of Andrew Sherratt there are three important elementsin tell formation, namely the intensive use of mud brick, a high degree of location stability andthe concentration of the houses into a coherent unit (Sherratt 1983, 192�–193). Thomas Link hasrightly mentioned, however, that in the case of tells no one of these elements in itself can beregarded as the sole condition for layer formation (Link 2006, 10). John Chapman has found thatthe ratio between built and unbuilt area, and minimum inter-building distance are also importantelements of tells in comparison with flat-settlements (Chapman 1989, 35�–38). János Makkay hasclearly deduced the process of settlement agglomeration in the Hungarian Great Plain through theevidence of detailed field surveys in County Békés, noting, however, that it with the samepreconditions in the formation of central settlements the same process had also been enacted inthe LPC-descendant Lengyel culture (Makkay 1982, 127).

These elements are important criteria, but they are henceforward still only results of aprecondition of how tells could be established. A comparison between areal distribution and theessential agrotechnology of tell and non-tell settlements seems to be one of the potential ways tocontribute to the question of the essential roots of tell formation.

To begin with the area of distribution, there were no tells apparently in either Western or inCentral Europe. The lack of archaeological evidence for fully permanent i.e. multi-stratifiedsettlements of the LPC has been repeatedly imputed to the climatic, environmental differencesbetween the two areas and, more than anything else, to the effect of erosion and precipitation(Rosenstock 2005, 226�–229). Without underestimating the role of these factors, the problembecomes more complicated when explaining the similar lack of tells in the central part of theMediterranean coast. Here, the climate might not differ basically from that of eastern areas andof the eastern Balkans. Finally, it might not differ in any way from that of the contact-zones.

Moreover, north of the Drava valley at the border of the Sopot culture (in close relation withLengyel) tell-settlements stopped in a straight line, in spite of identical factors of climate,precipitation and erosion existing in their northern surroundings.

A more relevant example is that of the Great Hungarian Plain. There are no tells north of thevalleys of the Körös and Berettyó rivers in the Late Neolithic with the exception of Polgár-Csõszhalom (and perhaps Polgár-Bosnyák domb?). This site lies some one hundred km north ofthe Körös valley. Since basically similar climate and precipitation to that of the Southern Plaincharacterise this region, the mere existence of the Csõszhalom site proves that the lack of the tells

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in this region can not be assigned simply to environmental factors. It should not be forgotteneither, that tells in the Bronze Age, in both of the two areas - crossing the Drava and Danube lines- extended far to the north too.

To continue with the subsistence economy of the LPC, it was traditionally characterized as slash-and-burn shifting agriculture, in which the soil was quickly exhausted and settlements moved onfrequently, perhaps once every generation (Clark 1952, 95�–96). This interpretation arose from theapparently insubstantial nature of LPC traces by comparison with the tells of southeast Europe and therelatively large number of LPC sites (Thorpe 1996, 31), and the apparent gap in sequences at majorsites (Köln-Lindenthal, Bylany, Brzesk Kujavski).

However, since the 1970s there has been a tendency in Middle and Western European archaeology,which denies the basic socio-economic difference between the two type of settlements and that of thecommunities they belonged to (Rowley-Conwy 1981; Barker 1985, 167�–168; Bogucki 1988, 79�–92;Rosenstock 2005, 229�–233; Link 2006, 13�–14). On some LPC settlements (Elsloo, Sittard, Stein)intensive agriculture has been conjectured (Willerding 1980, 81�–82). The assumption that cropcultivation was more important in LPC than animal husbandry is, however, based on largely theoreticalgrounds (Whittle 1996, 160�–161). Similarly, the mere presence of some biennials does not prove by anymeans the introduction of a more developed cultivation technique, rather than horticulture in gardenssituated close to the household. As Perlès has aptly noted �“Permanent settlements do not necessarilyimply full sedentism. Year-round sedentism needs to be established independently, in particularthrough archaeo-zoological archaeo-botanical studies.�” (Perlès 2001, 153).

But in spite of considerations concerning the intensive agriculture and full sedentary settlement-system of LPC cited above, there seems little doubt that there were no tells at any place or time duringthe Neolithic either in Western or in Central Europe.

In this case the solution must be hidden within the underlying pattern of subsistence, land-use, andsocial organization of the communities leaving tells to posterity. To summarize, the numerousapproaches and models concerning this topic are not easy to identify in qualitative or in quantitativeterms, at least in a short presentation. One essential element of them is the problem of land-use, or moreexactly the rudimentary form of field-rotation system.

In the literature there are references to this system as early as in the 1960s, mainly in connectionwith tell settlements (Pigott 1965, 48; Bóna 1984, 17; Renfrew 1972, 276; Kosse 1977, 179) andfollowing that, sometimes in connection with LPC settlements too (Wislanski 1970; Barker 1985, 167�–168; Whittle 1985, 88 and notes 61, 70). Renfrew, Perlès, Dannel, Jones, Halstead and others haveproposed crop rotation and manuring in Neolithic Greece based on the grounds of the presence ofselected pulses in the archaeo-botanical remains (Perlès 2001, 165). According to Amuretti, Jones andHalstead �“this traditionally Mediterranean alternance was probably coupled with short term fallowand manuring the fields by the grazing of animals on stubble and fallows�” (Jones�–Halstead 1995, 103�–114).

In the Great Plain, before the regulation of the rivers, two million hectares along the Tisza (i.e. two-thirds of the Great Plain) were temporarily or permanently under water (Pécsi�–Somogyi 1971). Thepercentage of inundated land was calculated around each settlement within a 5 km square area (Kosse1977, 87), but in the cases of the southern Tisza culture settlements like Hódmezõvásárhely-Kökénydomb, Gorzsa and Lebõ it might well be below this average, some 1 square km. In two housesof Kökénydomb more than 700-700 litres of grain was stored, calculated on the basis of measures oflarge storage vessels (Korek 1973, 362). Such an amount of grain in relation to the restricted field areacannot be produced without adopting the crop-rotation system.

In the Early Tisza tell settlement Battonya-Parázstanya the number of seeds of about 4300 cerealsand 3000 pulses (Gyulai 2005, 194�–200) fits the assumption of the practice of a two-course rotationsystem. A similar ratio between cereals and pulses in Tápé-Lebõ also supports this. In Berettyóújfalu-Herpály the number of pulses is also considerable. However, in the later part of the Late Neolithic thisratio, on the grounds of evidence from Gorzsa and Csõszhalom, seems to be clearly decreasing (Gyulai2005, 194�–200). Parallel with this, the increasing importance of stock breeding and hunting can beperceived which ought to be a tendency related to the abandonment of tells in the following period.

As a future object of research we badly need case studies involving more detailed analyses of theratio of cereals and pulses, determining traces of field rotation that could be an essential condition ofthe full sedentary settlements. This approach would perhaps bring us nearer to finding the key to thelock of the underlying sources of the tell phenomenon.

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NEW EVIDENCE OF NEOLITHIC AND COPPER AGE AGRICULTURE AND WOODUSE IN TRANSYLVANIA AND THE BANAT (ROMANIA)

Renato Nisbet*

Keywords: archaeobotany, Romania, early crops, charcoal analysis.

I. INTRODUCTION

The aim of this paper is to propose a reconstruction of some aspects of on-site vegetation as shownby charcoal, charred fruits and seeds, from some digs carried out in the last few years in Transylvaniaand Romanian Banat1 . These materials were collected by different teams from a few Neolithic andCopper Age sites: Parþa, Dudeºtii Vechi, Foeni-Cimitirul Ortodox and Sânandrei, in the Banat,Miercurea Sibiului-Petriº and Peºtera Ungureascã in Cheile Turzii Gorge, in Transylvania.

Unfortunately, the materials are abundant only for the last site and come from a large wet-sieving sampling (at 1 mm). The other samples are small or even very small �– between 50 and 100mL �– and mostly were handpicked (except for Miercurea Sibiului-Petriº, which was also floatedand sieved at 1mm). Given this difference in sampling in the diverse sites, we have therefore onlya very preliminary indication on agriculture and wood use.

II. NEOLITHIC SITES

1. Miercurea Sibiului-PetriºIn our record, the only Early Neolithic evidence of agriculture comes from Miercurea Sibiului-

Petriº (Secaºelor Plateau, Sibiu district) where extensive flotation of sediment from several pitsbelonging to the Starèevo-Criº culture led to the recovery of barley and bread/club wheat, asshown from Table 1.

Taxa Early Cri Vin a A2 Triticum cf monococcum, einkorn 1 G20s2 Triticum dicoccum, emmer 4 G20s2 Triticum cf. dicoccum, emmer 3 G20s2 Triticum sp., wheat 1 Pit 35 6 Pit 18, G20s2 Triticum sp., wheat 1 G20s2 Hordeum vulgare, barley 1 Pit 35 Panicum miliaceum, broomcorn millet 4 Pit 18, G20s2 Cerealia, cereals undiff. 2 Pit 35 2 Pit 18, G20s2

Table 1. Miercurea Sibiului-Petriº. Neolithic cereals.

These few data are presented here, in spite of their obvious limits, because no agriculturalremains were previously known in spite of the large extent of the site, which until 2006 wasinvestigated over a surface of not less than 840 square metres2 . The absence of cereal chaff,

* Viale Rimembranza, 7 �– 10066 Torre Pellice, Italy, [email protected] I would like to thank Drs D. Ciobotaru and F. Draºovean (Banat Museum, Timiºoara) and Prof. S. A. Luca (LucianBlaga University, Sibiu) who provided part of archaeobotanical materials. Thanks are due also to Prof. P. Biagi (Ca�’Foscari, Venice University), for support and funding and the organizers for the invitation to the TimiºoaraSymposium.2 Luca et alii 2007.


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weeds and other agricultural indicators documents the high dispersion of these remains, andmakes impossible to compare the local farming activity to other sites of the Balkans. A singleemmer grain from Pit 18 (105 cm) was dated to an early Vinèa phase, i.e. GrA-33127: 6475±40uncal BP (Biagi et al., 2007).

However, other sites had already been studied for their archaeobotanical contents, like Parþa,where barley and both glume and free-threshing wheats in the Vinèa B layers were found3 , Foeni-Sãlaº, with einkorn, emmer, barley, oat, millet and lentil from early Criº layers4 and DudeºtiiVechi, with Early Neolithic glume wheat5 . The few data from Miercurea Sibiului therefore fitwell in this general framework of with the presence of barley and wheat since the seventhmillennium uncal BP (Early Criº).

In all these sites agriculture first developed in a woody landscape with an homogeneous treecover, as shown in the following Table, where only a small number of plants is represented in theCriº hearths of different sites.

Cri Banat Culture IIC

Vin a Radiocarbon Date

Miercurea Sibiului-Petri

Quercus, Acer, Fraxinus

Quercus, Acer,Fraxinus, Prunus sp. Carpinus, Maloideae

GrN-28520:7050±70 BP6; GrN-29954: 7010±40 BP; GrN-28521: 6920 ±70 BP; GrN-33127:6475±40 BP; GrN-29503:6350 ±139 BP; GrN-30500:6200±60BP; GrA-26606:6180±40 BP

Par a Quercus, Ulmus, Corylus, Fraxinus

Sânandrei Quercus, Ulmus, Fraxinus, Acer, Carpinus, Maloideae

Foeni-Cimitiriul7

Quercus, Acer,Fraxinus, Pr unus sp, Carpinus

GrN-29015:5750±30 uncal BP; HD-22653: 5699±37 uncal BP; HD-22658: 5783±27 uncal BP8

Dude tii Vechi

Quercus, Ulmus

GrA-28111:6990±50 BP 9; GrA-28113:6930 ±50 BP; GrA-24115: 6920±80BP; GrA -26951:6845±40 BP; GrN-28876±70 BP

Table 2. Wood use in some Neolithic sites from the Romanian Banat.

Altogether these data show the presence in all sites of a broad-leaved Oak. Ash wood is alwayspresent, with the exception of the scanty materials from Dudeºtii Vechi, and Elm wood was foundin 50% of samples. The existence of open woodland, or wood fringe, where edible wild plantscould be collected, are shown by Hazel, some Prunus and Maloideae species, such as CrabApples, wild Pears, Hawthorns and Whitebeams.

At Miercurea Sibiului-Petriº, in a hilly landscape, the Early Neolithic woodland was formedby mixed-oak forest with Ash and Maple. Later on, trees from more open environments wereadded to these species, such as elements of the Maloideae subfamily and Prunus, but it isimpossible to relate this apparent change to men in the form of some kind of agricultural orpastoral activity. That the latter was fundamental to the local Criº economy is well documented

3 Monah 1994.4 Draºovean 2007; Greenfield and Jongsma 2008.5 Fischer unpubl., in Fischer and Rösch 2004.6 All uncalibrated radiocarbon dates from Biagi et alii 2005 and Biagi et alii 2007.7 Medeleþ and Bugilan 1987.8 Dates HD from Draºovean 2005.9 All uncalibrated radiocarbon dates from Biagi et alii 2005 and Biagi et alii 2007.

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by the presence of cattle and caprovines10 , so that some impact on the vegetation cannot bediscounted. Moreover, the occurrence of flint and obsidian sickles in several Vinèa pits11 alsopoints to an increase of farming activities and therefore of human pressure on the woodland.

On other sites different vegetation types occur, such as Querco-Ulmetum and Querco-Carpinetum. Summing up, we observe from these few data that farming communities, at least sincethe Vinèa culture, had settled in a heterogeneous woody environment, from which they could drawdifferent kinds of wood to be used as timber or firewood, with a strong bias towards Oak.

References to pollen analysis in the Banat and Transylvania, which may broaden ourknowledge of middle Holocene forest vegetation as obtained by charcoal, point to a similar andmore detailed development of the forest cover. In the Banat (Semenic, 1400 m asl)12 the Holocenevegetation history is dominated by Pinus in the Preboreal, by Corylus and Mixed Oak Forest fromthe Boreal to the Middle Atlantic, by Picea and Mixed Oak Forest in the Late Atlantic, by mainlyCarpinus in the Early Subboreal. Other work13 carried out in the middle altitude RomanianCarpathians, over 1,000 m asl, shows that the first indications of human activities are observedduring the second half of the seventh millennium uncal BP, following the spread of Carpinus anddevelop in the so-called Quercetum mixtum, with Elm, Ash and Lime. At a lower altitude inTransylvania14 middle/late Holocene vegetation is again dominated by Quercus and Ulmus,followed, before 5000 cal BP, by the spread of Corylus.

2. Peºtera Ungureascã, Copper AgeGreater evidence of agriculture and wood use comes from Peºtera Unguereascã. This cave

opens at an altitude of about 800 m, some 100 m above the local base flow, and is located in anarrow gorge some 3 km long. It can be reached only from the valley bottom, today crossed bythe Hãºdatelor River. The gorge is carved through a variety of habitats, up to the proximity of thecave; further in the plain are wet environments with mires and probably peat favourable for off-site palaeobotanical investigations.

The material presented in this paper comes from the dig carried out in 2003-2004, directed byP. Biagi and Gh. Lazarovici15 , near the mouth of the cave covering a surface of some 5 squaremetres. All sediment was transported down to the river, where it was water-sieved with a 1 mmgrid. Altogether, 94 samples were processed obtaining a volume of charred material of 6.3 litres.

A. Charcoal analysesThis table shows the number of charcoal fragments for taxon and for culture.In about 2,500 fragments, 19 tree taxa were recognised. They represent some aspects of the

forest cover in the surrounding areas for no more than four or five centuries of the second half ofthe sixth millennium uncal BP.

The radiocarbon dates for layers 2a-2b, Early/Middle Toarte Pastilate culture (TP)16 spanbetween 5350 e 5100 uncal BP. The layer 3a2 has been dated as GrA-35701: 5275±35 uncal BP(Petreºti culture).

Most of the charcoal fragments are scattered in cave sediment, and could not be clearly relatedto any particular context. Only a small part of the charred material (both wood and seeds) comesfrom close contexts, namely one pit, four fireplaces and one oven.

The wood could have been brought inside the cave for heating, for cooking, for lighting, forbaking clay or for melting metals17 . At least in part, it was also used as timber for buildingspecific structures, such as enclosures and hut walls, as possibly shown by one small �“man-madestructure delimited by an alignment of very small post-holes�” in the Early TP layers18 . From these

10 El Susi 2007.11 Biagi, oral comm. 2007.12 Rösch and Fischer 2000.13 Farcas et alii 1999; Tantau et alii 2003.14 Feurdean et alii 2007.15 The excavations were carried out with the financial support of the Italian Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MAE), withthanks.16 Biagi and Voytek 2006.17 Biagi and Voytek, ibid., 179 and 183.18 Biagi and Voytek, ibid., 178.

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Co ofeni/TP Late TP Middle TP Early TP Petre ti Alnus sp. + - - Betula sp. - Corylus sp. + + ++ + - Carpinus sp. - Quercus sp. +++ ++ +++ + +++ Acer sp. ++ + +++ ++ ++ Ulmus sp. + + ++ - + Fraxinus sp. +++ ++ +++ ++ ++ Maloideae + - ++ - + Prunoideae - - - - Prunus cf. spinosa - - Prunus sp. - - + Crataegus sp. - Cornus mas ++ + +++ + + Viburnum sp. - Viburnum opulus - cf. Cotinus/Prunus - Euonymus europaeus - Populus sp. -

Table 3. Charcoal fragments from Peºtera Ungureascã, Bronze and Copper Age. -: < 10; +: 10÷50; ++:50÷100; +++: > 100.

data some conclusions can be drawn (Fig. 1). Apart from the older Petreºti period, where oak isprevalent, in all layers the most frequent wood is Ash, followed by Oak, Maple and Corneliantree. However, the diagrams give an idea of the broad spectrum of habitats exploited for woodcollection.

Looking at the distribution of taxa by cultural period, we appreciate remarkable differences(Fig. 2). In the Petreºti layers we found 11 taxa; the number reduces to 7 in the Early TP layers,increases to a maximum of 16 in the following Middle TP period. During the Late TP the taxa are9 eventually reaching the number of 12 in the upper layers, the Coþofeni/TP periods.

It is possible that these variations in number of taxa, compressed in a short period of fewcenturies, do not necessarily reflect changes in the local wood composition, but rather a changein the use of the trees, at least partially related to grazing or animal feeding.

Apart from the absolute values, there is an interesting trend with regard to Oak and Ash, twoof the main trees whose foliage was (and still is) used as fodder.

Oak prevails only in the lower, Petreºti layers, afterwards Ash becomes dominant. This maysuggest the selection of Ash branches and leaves as fodder, as has been demonstrated in otherCopper Age cave-sites in Europe. Oak and Ash �– particularly the latter �– are considered excellentplants for feeding herbivores in autumn or winter, and it is possible that a store of leaves wasmade in the cave in late summer for later consumption. This case is strongly supported by thefrequent presence, in all layers, of very narrow tree rings over a span of several years, particularlyon Fraxinus, Maloideae, Ulmus, Acer and Quercus, but mostly on Ash and Oak.

The charcoal assemblage gives us the opportunity to appreciate the past vegetation landscapein the surroundings of the cave (Fig. 3).

The Petreºti layers show several kind of vegetal associations. First is the mixed oak wood withAsh, Maple and Whitebeam. Scatters of thermophilous shrublands are indicated by the presenceof Hazelnut, Wig-tree or Blackthorn and Cornelian tree, all extensively exploited in the diet of thelocal communities. Fringe wood elements are shown by the light-demanding Hazelnut, Maloideaeand Prunoideae, and along the riverbanks and on sandy and gravely terraces Alder and Ash couldbe easily collected.

In the following periods the wood composition stays unchanged and we find at the bottom(Petreºti) and the top (Coþofeni/TP) of the sequence substantially the same taxa.

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Open areas and degraded woodland with heliophilous vegetation may be represented in theselater periods of occupation by a little charcoal of Birch and perhaps, more consistently, of theWhite Oak, Quercus pubescens, the latter on the south-facing side of the valley and even on thecliffs, where the soil conditions were more favourable. Mixed Oak forest is further indicated byElm, and the wood fringe shows the presence of Viburnum cf. opulus, the Guelder Rose.

The existence of dry, open patches is suggested, apart from the previously mentioned species,by Cotinus/Prunus bushes, while the Poplar was collected on the riverbanks.

B. Seeds and fruitsOf 94 samples, 49 yielded evidence of seeds, cereal chaff and fruits. These materials are

present in all periods, but mostly in the Middle TP period. Table 5 lists all the identified taxa.Only a few remains can be associated with fireplaces and ovens, usually they are randomly

dispersed at a low density. They are frequently fragmented or somewhat worn, probably due totrampling or solifluction. The same feature affects the shells found in the sediment19 .

B1. CerealsThe most frequent class of remains consists of cereals, 40% of which are hulled wheats; 7%

are both six-rowed and two-rowed barley (Hordeum vulgare and H. distichon) and only 4% arebread/club wheat. About 50% are undetermined wheats and barley.

The main crop consisted of emmer (Triticum dicoccum) (28% of the total grains). Einkorn(Triticum monococcum) is far less abundant (7%) and very rare is the new glume wheat, representedonly by a few spikelet forks. In addition grains and chaff of oat (Avena sp.) are present, probably asweeds. The chaff consists mostly of glume bases and spikelet forks from the hulled wheat.

In the Petreºti layers, the cereals are not abundant, but all species are present. Excluding themore problematic identifications, but adding chaff remains to the grains, emmer is still thecommonest crop found in these layers, with 24% of the total, followed by einkorn (12%), barley(5%) and free-threshing wheat (4%) Only traces are present of the new glume wheat (1%). In theinterpretation of these data, it must be considered that about 50% between grains and chaff arenot determined at a species level.

During the whole TP layers, the crop composition does not change in respect to the Petreºtiperiod. Emmer is still most frequent (21%), einkorn is 9%, the new glume wheat 5% and the free-threshing wheat is least common, with 3% of the total. Undetermined glume wheat reaches 11%and barley (both hulled and naked grains) 4%. Undetermined barley and wheat grains attain 46%.

In the upper layers, belonging to the Coþofeni/TP cultures, with 13 samples, emmer standsagain as the commonest crop (23%), and the other wheat species follow in the same order asfound previously. Only barley (two- and size-rowed files) grows to 12%.

If we take into consideration only the cereal grains, the distribution for cultural period isshown in Fig. 4.

Here we should mention the presence of few grains and some awns of Oat (Avena sp.). Therarity of this species confirms that it was not grown as a crop, but occurred in the cereal fields asa weed.

The relative presence of chaff remains in all layers suggests that at least part of the harvest,namely hulled wheats, was stored in the cave as spikelets, and it was only dehusked later, then,for whatever reason, coming in contact with heat. A distinctive feature is the low number of chaffremains, about 100, in comparison with a total of more than 500 cereal grains. This gives theimpression that the excavated area was used for the final treatment of the crop, and the storagesurface was somewhere else in the cave.

Because of the local territory morphology, it seems that only the part of these remainsbelonging to wild plants came from the immediate surroundings, while the cereals were probablygrown on the valley floor, therefore far from the cave.

In all cultural layers a small quantity of bread/club wheat grains was found. Apart from thetypical ones, there are some very short and plump caryopses, which may be referred to Triticumcompactum.

19 Girod, pers. comm. 2007.

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Archaeological Cultural Attribution C/TP LTP MTP ETP Pe Samples 13 1 24 3 8 49 Cereal chaff Triticum dicoccum, spikelet forks 1 1 6 1 1 10 Triticum dicoccum/NGW, spikelet forks 2 4 6 Triticum monococcum/NGW, spikelet forks 5 1 6 Triticum monococcum, spikelet forks 2 3 12 17 Triticum NGW, spikelet forks 3 2 12 17 Triticum sp., spikelet forks 6 7 13 Triticum dicoccum, glumes 2 1 6 1 10 Triticum dicoccum/NGW, glumes 2 1 3 Triticum monococcum, glumes 2 1 2 5 Triticum monococcum/dicoccum, glumes 1 1 Triticum monococcum/NGW, glumes 4 1 5 Triticum NGW, glumes 9 1 10 Cerealia, stem 5 5 Cereal grains Hordeum vulgare hexastichum 1 1 2 Hordeum vulgare distichum 4 4 Hordeum vulgare 12 1 8 2 4 27 Hordeum vulgare, hulled 1 1 Hordeum vulgare nudum 2 2 Triticum aestivum/durum/compactum 6 1 12 3 22 Triticum dicoccum 29 10 66 2 16 123Triticum cf. dicoccum 8 4 18 2 32 Triticum monococcum 7 2 21 1 7 38 Triticum sp. 35 65 3 38 141Triticum/Hordeum (fragms) 18 22 89 1 130Cerealia undiff. 2 9 4 15

Table 4. Cereal remains from Peºtera Ungureascã.

A few grains of a species of oat were recognised only in the Middle TP layers; some twistedawns of oat were found in a sample labelled as �“from the mouth of the oven�”. As no chaff of thisplant has been found, it is not known whether the few caryopses derive form the cultivated Avenasativa or from Avena fatua, which occurs as a field weed.

Only one linseed (Linum usitatissimum) was found in a sample from Middle TP culture.Whether it was grown for the oil-bearing seeds, for the flax fibres or for both, is not known, andthis unique presence is not even sufficient to establish its effective cultivation in the fields.

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Archaeological Cultural Attribution C/TP LTP MTP ETP Pe Samples 13 1 24 3 8 49 Crop weeds - winter annuals Avena sp., awn frgms 15 15 Avena sp., grain 2 2 Bromus secalinus 2 2 Crop weeds - summer annuals Galium aparine 1 1 Oil and fibre plants Linum usitatissimum 1 1 Fruits/Nuts Cornus mas 24 4 109 24 34 195 Corylus avellana 22 3 49 36 10 120 Coriandrum sativum 1 1 Pyrus malus 5 5 Prunus spinosa 1 2 1 4 Prunus padus 1 1 Rubus fruticosus 3 4 10 17 Rubus idaeus 1 1 Sambucus ebulus 2 3 20 8 33 Sambucus nigra 1 6 7 Sambucus ebulus/nigra 1 1 Physalis alkekengi 1 1 8 2 2 14 Ruderal plants Medicago lupulina 1 1 Polygonum persicaria 3 3 Other wild taxa Medicago sp. 1 1 Ranunculus sp. 1 1 Polygonum sp. 1 1 Rumex sp. 1 1 Vicia sp. 2 2 Rumex sp. 1 1 Undetermined 4 2 12 3 21 Other Coproliths (prob. field-mice) 6 8 1 15

Table 5. Weed and fruits from Peºtera Unguereascã.

B2. Wild fruitsA consistent quantity of charred fruits and seeds comes from a woodland environment and its

fringe. Small seeds were probably eaten when collected, and their final deposition in the cave

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sediment could be due to men as well as birds. In fact, many seeds found in the samples comefrom berries, which are commonly eaten by birds, such as blackberries, raspberries, Dane-wortand elder berries.

Men were certainly responsible for the presence of the larger stones of blackthorn, corneliancherry and hazelnuts, as well as small wild apples. These were found as charred fragments onlyin a sample from the Petreºti layers.

As a rule, there is a little probability that this category of finds undergoes carbonisation, andin most cases this happens when they are scattered on the soil and casually enter into contact witha fire. For this reason they are normally under-represented in the presence lists.

The cornelian cherry is a small tree with a high productivity of fruits, which are eaten freshor sun-dried, or fermented to produce a sort of cider. The stones are present in all layers, and arethe commonest fruits collected in the surrounding woods. Also the hazelnuts were recentlygathered and then eaten in the cave. Both fruits furnish evidence of human presence in the caveduring the late summer or early autumn.

B3. Cultivated fields and ruderal plants.We have little evidence of wild plants belonging to synanthropic vegetations, in particular

plants, which grow on disturbed habitats such as fields, roadsides and hedges.Some weeds belong to the Polygonaceae family, like Rumex and Polygonum. These are currently

found in waste areas, in meadows and on moist soils. Some provide sour leaves which might havebeen eaten in salad. Other species like Medicago lupulina, Black Medick, and the Ranunculaceaefamily, and some species of the genus Vicia occur in meadows, pasture and arable lands.

III. CONCLUSIONS

The territory stretching from the Dalmatian coast and the Black Sea was the obligatorycorridor between Southeastern and Central Europe to be crossed by Neolithic farmers. What wasthe role of the Banat, in terms of chronology and human adaptation, is still to be fully established.The archaeobotanical record from this area is now quite substantial, particularly after the recentwork at Ujvar tell, in the Romanian Banat, where a large documentation of early farming, chieflyfor the Middle Neolithic (Vinèa C), was found20 .

The few data referring to Early Neolithic agriculture confirm that free-threshing wheat andbarley were already present in the crop. The list of cereals grown during the Early Neolithic ofSoutheastern and Central Europe is mainly formed by the glume wheats, einkorn and emmer,which are absent at Miercurea Sibiului-Petriº, certainly due to the small sample size.

Much evidence referring to Vinèa C agriculture has recently come from the Uivar tell, where theglume wheats are by far the commonest part of the crop. Here, besides einkorn and emmer, a newwheat glume species is present, identified possibly as Triticum timopheevii. The same species ispresent also in Early Neolithic layers of Dudeºtii Vechi and in Vinèa C layers of Parþa. Free-threshingwheats and barley are not frequent, and oat, rye and broomcorn millet are very rare.

A somewhat similar trend is found in the later, Copper Age site at Cheile Turzii-PeºteraUngureascã cave. The present indications from this site have a double interest. They positivelyconfirm that during the fifth millennium uncal BP the glume wheats, both hulled and naked barleyas well as free-threshing wheat were common part of the crop. They also prove the possiblepresence, to be better established by further work, of the new glume wheat. And finally theyconfirm the broad use of the forest resources, as an integration of the agricultural produce.

At the same time, it is of interest to remark the absence of some cereals currently grown sincethe Neolithic in the whole Southeastern Europe, like spelt, millet and rye. Also noteworthy is theabsence of pods, as legumes like horsebeans, peas and lentils were well-known elsewhere sincethe Early Neolithic.

However, the archaeobotany of this remarkable cave-site gives a first insight into the CopperAge land-use and nutrition of this area. Basic questions however are still to be resolved, and thesolution will be found only in future interdisciplinary work, linking the cave to the surroundingterritory with its whole geological and biological complexity.

20 Fischer and Rösch 2004, who provide much other research, partially unpublished.

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from Romanian Carpathes. Comptes Rendus de l�’Académie des Sciences de Paris, Science de la vie, 322 (1999), 799-807, Elsevier SAS, Amsterdam.

Feurdean et alii 2007,A. Feurdean, V. Mosbrugger, B. P. Onac, V. Polyak, D. Veres, Younger Dryas to mid-Holocene environmental

history of the lowlands of NW Transylvania, Romania. Quaternary Research, 68 (2007), 364-378, Elsevier SAS,Amsterdam.

Fischer, Rösch 2004,E. Fischer, M. Rösch, Archäobotanische Untersuchungen. In W. Schier, F. Draºovean (eds), Vorbericht über die

rumänisch-deutschen Prospektionen und Ausgrabungen in der befestigten Tellsiedlung von Ujvar; jud Timiº,Rumänien (1998-2002), Prähistorische Zeitschrift, 79 (2), (2004), 209-220. Berlin-New York.

Greenfield and Jongsma 2008,H. J. Greenfield, T. Jongsma, Sedentary pastoral gatherers in the early Neolithic: architectural, botanical, and

zoological evidence for mobile economies from Foeni-Salaº, south-west Romania. In D. W. Bailey, A. Whittle andD. Hofmann (eds), Living Well Together? Settlement and Materiality in the Neolithic of South-East and CentralEurope, 108-130, Oxbow Books, Oxford.

Luca et alii 2007,S. A Luca, D. Diaconescu, A. Georgescu, C. Suciu, Archaeological researches at Miercurea Sibiului-Petriº (Sibiu

County, Romania). The campaigns from 1997 to 2005. Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis, VI, (2007), 7-23. Sibiu.

Medeleþ, Bugilan 1987,F. Medeleþ, I. Bugilan, Contribuþii la problema ºi la repertoriul movilelor de pâmint din Banat. Banatica, 9,

(1987), 87-198.

Monah 1994,F. Monah, Determinãri arhebotanice pentru staþiunca neoliticã de la Parþa (comuna ªag, jud. Timiº). Acta Musei

Napocensis 31, (1994), 81-85. Cluj.

Rösch and Fischer 2000,M. Rösch, E. Fischer, A radiocarbon dated Holocene pollen profile from the Banat Mountains (southöschwestern

Carpathians, Romania). Flora 195 (3), (2000), 277-286. Jena.

Tanþãu et alii 2003,I. Tantau, M. Reille, J.-L. de Beaulieu, S. Farcas, T. Goslar, M. Paterne, Vegetation history in the Eastern

Romanian Carpathians: pollen analysis of two sequences from the Mohoº crater. Vegetation History andArchaeobotany, 12 (2003), 113-125. Springer-International, Berlin.

176

Fig. 1(a-e). Frequency of carbonised taxa from PeºteraUngureascã, Copper Age.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Alnus

Betula

Corylu

s

Carpin

us

Quercu

sAce

r

Ulmus

Fraxin

us

Maloid

eae

Prunoid

eae

Prunus c

f spin

osa

Prunus

Crata

egus

Cornus

Viburn

um

Viburn

um o

pulus

cf C

otinus/P

runus

Euonymus

Populus

%

a

Co ofeni / TP - layer 1aLate TP - layer 1b

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

Alnus

Betula

Corylu

s

Carpin

us

Quercu

sAce

r

Ulmus

Fraxin

us

Maloid

eae

Prunoid

eae

Prunus c

f spin

osa

Prunus

Crata

egus

Cornus

Viburn

um

Viburn

um opulu

s

cf Cotin

us/Pru

nus

Euonymus

Populus

%

b

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Alnus

Betula

Corylu

s

Carpin

us

Quercu

sAce

r

Ulmus

Fraxin

us

Maloid

eae

Prunoid

eae

Prunus c

f spin

osa

Prunus

Crata

egus

Cornus

Viburn

um

Viburn

um f

opulus

cf C

otinus/P

runus

Euonymus

Populus

%

e

Petre ti

Middle TP - layers 2-2b1

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Alnus

Betula

Corylu

s

Carpin

us

Quercu

sAce

r

Ulmus

Fraxin

us

Maloid

eae

Prunoid

eae

Prunus c

f spinosa

Prunus

Crata

egus

Cornus

Viburn

um

Viburn

um o

pulus

cf C

otinus/P

runus

Euonymus

Populus

%

c

Early TP - layer 2b2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Alnus

Betula

Corylu

s

Carpin

us

Quercu

sAce

r

Ulmus

Fraxin

us

Maloid

eae

Prunoid

eae

Prunus c

f spinosa

Prunus

Crata

egus

Cornus

Viburn

um

Viburn

um o

pulus

cf C

otinus/P

runus

Euonymus

Populus

%

d

N taxa / layer

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

Petre ti

Early TP

Middle TP

Late TP

Co ofeni/TP

Fig. 2. Variation in number of taxa for cultural layer.

177

Fig. 3. Main sources of wood as inferred from charcoal.

Wood sources

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Mixed oak forest Fringe vegetation Thermophilous trees River banks,swamping lands

Open spaces, lightdemanding trees

num

ber

of ta

xa

0

20

40

60

80

100

A B C D E

Triticum monococcum Triticum dicoccumTriticum cf dicoccum Triticum aestivum/durumTriticum undiff.

Fig. 4. Percentage of the different wheat species as grains. A: Petreºti; B: Early TP; C; Middle TP; D:Late TP; E: Coþofeni/TP.

THE ZAU CULTURE

Gh. Lazarovici*

Keywords: Neolithic, Transylvania, Romania, Zau Culture

I. DENOMINATION

A civilisation of the Developed Neolithic (its beginning, phase 1 lies in the Early Neolithic,phase II lies in the Developed Neolithic and phase III lies in the Late Neolithic,) the Zau culture,which we now define more clearly, has had different names over time as archeological researchprogresses and as the older excavations get capitalised on. These names covered different realfacts known at that time. The older terms which referred to this civilisation were: Transylvanianpainted pottery, West Transylvanian painted pottery (in which the Petreºti culture was included,too), the complex Lumea Nouã, painted Tisa, Tisa II and a few groups that defined variousregional or chronological aspects such as the Iclod group, the Cluj-Pericei group , the Tãulaºgroup (an aspect or painted category of the Turdaº group after Florin Draºovean and Luca Sabin:Draºovean 1997; Luca S., A., et alii 2004; 2005), the Suplac group, the Cheile Turzii group,Lumea Nouã �– Cheile Turzii and others. The terms CCTLNI (Cluj-Cheile Turzii-Lumea Nouã-Iclod), CCTLNIS (Cluj-Cheile Turzii-Lumea Nouã-Iclod-Suplac), CCTLNZIS (Cluj-CheileTurzii-Lumea Nouã-Zau-Iclod-Suplac), standing for an abridged form of the above groups,represent the outcome of our search for defining and covering this cultural phenomenon.

The above mentioned terms were not formal, did not lack grounds and were not superficialeither, each one defining regional phenomena over time and space at the time. The term the Zauculture comes up in our studies (C.M. & Gh. Lazarovici 2006, 404 seqq. and others).

The term the complex of Lumea Nouã, which is rather general, but which would also coverthe group of Cheile Turzii in some opinions (Berciu 1968; Berciu D., Berciu I., 1958; Berciu1961) has a low percentage of painted pottery, about 5-6 %, as the Vinèa materials of phase Bprevail. For that matter, according to our knowledge so far, the Vinèa culture did not extend tothe north of Sîntimbru, which lies a few kilometres north of Alba Iulia.

The term the Cluj group (Lazarovici 1991, 101-102) comprised Turdaº materials (later thanthe Vinèa ones, at level Vinèa B2/C-C1) and painted pottery, a term extended later to accomodatealso Suplac and Pericei, as there also cropped up Turdaº materials and painted pottery (Lazaroviciet alii 1991; M.C. & Gh. Lazarovici 2006, 404 - 439 and bibliography).

In 2006, after we thoroughly reanalysed the statistical data, the C14 data and thestratigraphical observations from Zau, we suggested the term CCTLNZIS or the Zau culture,widely borne out by the C14 data although at that time I had my reservations about this terminol-ogy. (C.M.& Gh. Lazarovici 2006, 404 sqq.). Our approach has been decissively facilitated by thede defintion provided by Florin Draºovean of the chronological horizon of the Foeni group as adistinctive cultural entity and of the relations between this and the Turdaº group (Draºovean1994; 1994a; 1997a; Draºovean et alii 1998; 1999; 2000; 2002). The definition of the strati-graphic postion of these painted materials from the sites of Zau and Lumea Nouã (Draºovean1996; 1996a; Gligor 2007a; 2007b) has also provided us with sufficient evidence to define theZau culture chronologically, culturally and regionally.

The term the Zau culture covers the greatest part of the above mentioned aspects if we mentionthat the early stage did not come into being at that station, but in other areas, maybe at Alba Iulia�– Limba - Cluj, but the research is still rddled with inforamtion gaps, Zau lying at an equaldistance from those (Paul et alii 1998; 1999; 2000; 2001; 2002; 2003; 2004; Gligor 2007a;2007b). From this viewpoint the term Lumea Nouã represents, we believe, a cultural blendbetween two civilisations, the Vinèa being the prevalent one at Lumea Nouã.

* Eftimie Murgu University, Reºiþa; [email protected]


180

II. ORIGINS AND BEGINNINGS

As most specialist have said, especially D. Berciu (1961), the origin of this culture was in theculture of Starèevo �– Criº, which was logical on account of the mixture of chaff into the paste andof the different genres in painting. The best stratigraphical observations come from Zau, wherewe have statistical data levelwise and complexwise (fig. 4a, Tabel 5 and others below), and fromLumea Nouã (Berciu D., Berciu I., 1949, fig. 1; Berciu 1968).

One of the features that exists throughout all the phases (I through to IIIB) is the glaze or thewhite engobe, which were necessary when the paste was mixed with chaff or mud. In the cultureof Starèevo �– Criº from Gura Baciului there are about 500 fragments which were convered inengobe. At Zau, from the same category, there is a smaller batch of about 200 engobe coveredfragments, and of these over 67 % were associated with painting. Of these 10% belonged to theearly stages, 26% belonged to IIIA, and the the rest are in asscoiation with the Turdaº, Foeni,Iclod or Petreºti group materials.

C14 data from Limba bear out the early data from Zau, thus marking the first stage of the Zauculture of whih we believe that can be found at Limba. We do not know whether in the firstpainting horizon from Limba - Bordane there is white engobe as it crops up at the second levelfrom �–Vãrar. In association with these, the presence of Vinèa A2 �–A3 forms at -Vãrãrie (Florescu2007, cat. 13-17) and Bordane prompts a timeline contemporary to the spiral polychromy whichalso has bitronconic shapes.

The area across which these phenomena come about is very wide. It spans over Transylvania(without its SE part), Criºana (northern part), the land of Oaº, the bend of Tisa and the Upper Tisa.

Atmospheric data from Stuiver et al. (1998); OxCal v3.5 Bronk Ramsey (2000); cub r:4 sd:12 prob usp[chron]

Cultura Zau timpurie si mijlocie

6000CalBC 5500CalBC 5000CalBC

Calibrated date

GBaciu SCIIIB Lv-2157 6400±90BP

Tartaria Lady A3B1 R 1630 6310±65BP

Parta CB II Lv 2141 6290±80BP

Limba GrN/28112 6290±50BP

Ciumesti Mantu 95 6280±100BP

Satchinez Vinca A 2 Deb 2579 6270±40BP

Carcea Vii Dud- Vin Bln 2008 6250±40BP

Parta CB I Lv 2142 6240±80BP


Zau A1 G59 L11 Ly-8934 6230±55BP

Tartaria BrdH17_18 A3B1 6215±65BP

Zau A2 Gr.in P8a Ly-8932 6185±55BP

Liubcova Vinca B2 Bln 2133 6175±85BP

MiercS B9 n Ic SC_IIIBIVA GrN-69053 6150±40BP

CTurc SCII H-17919 6105±51BP

Zau A3 G8 Ly-8933 6104±55BP

Carcea Vii Dud- Vin Bln 1980 6100±60BP

LN Gr Funerara P7 Su2 B1 Poz-19490 6090±50BP

Farcasu Dud II-III Bln 2285 6080±60BP

Fig.1. Absolute chronology and the neighbouring cultures Fig. 2. Lumea Nouã, 1947

181

In NW Transylvania and northern Criºanei the Piºcolt group comes into being, which is relatedor dependent upon the the Zau culture (Lazarovici�–Némethi 1983) and on the Alföld group. In theDepression of ªimleu and on the Upper Barcãu, in the area of Suplac�–Pericei, the cultures ofPiºcolt and Zau blend in and co-exist, after which the Zau culture gains the upper hand as it ismore dynamic (Suplac in Ignat 1998; Cluj �– Pericei in Bãcueþ 2006).

III. THE SPREADING AREA (fig. 3)

The area across which the Zau culture extends itself starts from southern Transylvania up tothe Ukrainian Carpathians and according to some clues it might even stretch beyond that. It iscertain that near the border on Transcarpathis, in historical Sighet/Sziget and in the upper basinof the Tisa there are stages of this civilisation. The western edge stretches from the eastPannonian Plain (Alföld) to the Apuseni Mountains, and to the east towards the TransylvanianPlain and Plateau. In the East Carpathian area things are known only in the south, in the UpperOlt basin (determined by Polychromy I �– SC IIIB at Leþ, to the north they are only from phaseIIIC according to the first Foeni �– Petreºti presence (Maxim 1999 s.v Archiud, Matei, Becleanhemispherical lugs: Roska 1942, 39 ).

Fig. 3. Spread and imports

IV. STRATIGRAPHY AND CHRONOLOGY (fig. 1, 4, 7-8, 33 table 5)

Stratigraphical observations of the most eloquent ones stem from Zau and Lumea Nouã (fig.4b)(Berciu D. - Berciu I. 1959; Berciu 1968; Paul 1992; Gligor 2005; 2006; 2007; 2007a) aswell as descriptions of materials levelwise. Important observations of compared stratigraphy andtypological analyses come from Suplac, too (Ignat 1998) and Porþ �– Corãu III (from now on wequote only Porþ-... and the complex: Bãcueþ 2006). At Zau-level 1a (fig. 4a) (hovels, pits ordwellings) the Zau culture appears as a fully shaped civilisation.

A while ago I said that at the northern edge, in the group Piºcolt I (Lazarovici 1983/1984, Abb. 3;Lazarovici-Némethy 1983), the Szatmar group respectively, the same kind of engobe and paintingcrops up with postive motifs against a yellow or brown background, just like in the Polychromy, but adirect link could not be established. Among the Zãu materials, the assignments of stage Piºcolt I, there

182

some of clearly Polychrome making (Maxim 1999, pl. VII/3). Sanda Bãcuieþ presents a few paintedmaterials from different stations which show that the same process takes place in the Upper Barcãubasin, the ªimleu basin (Bãcueþ 2006) and in the Middle and Lower Someº, similar to those in theSomeºul Mic basin and of the Middle Mureº, but which take shape against another culturalbackground, less dynamic and with other components.

V. EVOLUTION (Table 5).

By means of the stratigraphy from Zau, of some data from Lumea Nouã, of other publishedmaterials and of the observations from Piºcolt �– and of Sandei Bãcueþ, today we can ascertain moreclearly the evolution of this culture, some local syntheses, in the their late phases from theTransylvanian Plain an the Cluj area..

In general we can establish four evolution stages marked with I-IV, which would at least partiallyalso cover the mentioned groups of which we have now evidence that they also a chronological valuenot only cultural. The stages of Zau culture are: the first I, which belongs to the Early Neolithic, withtwo substages: IA of genesis and IB, of consolidation; the second, IIA and IIB in the Middle Neolithic;the third, in the Late Neolithic, IIIA and IIIB, maybe IIIC here and there and the fourth (IV) in whichsome elements are preserved or local syntheses come take place. These syntheses take place in the earlyCooper Age (syntheses Iclod - Petreºti) which is also the final stage, being encountered only regionally.

Fig. 4. Zau de Cîmpie �– Grãdiniþã, surface 4, (north profile in the mirror)

For these reasons some groups lose their meaning or stay valid only for short periods of time or forthe synthesis phenomena or with local evolution, e.g.: with Piºcolt in stage IB at Suplac �– Pericei; withVinèa at Tãrtãria, Lumea Nouã and maybe Limba; or with Turdaº at Lumea Nouã or Suplac, Pericei etc.maybe these groups, when morematrials have been puglished, will lose their ethno-cutlural meaningor will be better defined, but this hang upon the accurate statistical and analytical publishing of thematerials, from the older and newer research (Bãcueþ 2006; Gligor 2007a).

The Zau finds do not cover all the phenomena and for certain areas the notion of a group in theaforementioned cases it may not be necessary over time and space, wherever the research is riddledwith information gaps or the materials have been sufficiently published. The synthesis processesshould not be defined as grouips but as stages or local aspects of this civilissation different from onesite to another, from one complex to another.

1. Phase I (5.350�– 5.200 CAL BC) (Zau 4,65 �– 3.30)This belongs to the Early Neolithic, but it is a period of genesis and consolidation. The things are

not clear, because the materials found so far have not been published complexwise.Phase I has two stages IA and IB. Our timeline rests upon the Zau stratigraphy, on the quantitative

analyses and on the Zau complexes, as well as on the research from Limba, Lumea Nouã (the older andnewer one), the excavations from Cluj and from the north-eastern areas of Romania, in the research ofD. Ignat (1998) and S. Bãcueþ (2006). Sometimes, for some stages, there are few stratigraphicalmaterials, the distances among stations are long and there are few analytical studies and works (Ignat1998, 66-76; Bãcueþ 2006) and a few recent reports and publications (Gligor 2005; 2006a; 2006;2007a; Ciutã, 2007).

183

Table 5 comparative, stratigraphical - statistical Table 5 The Zau culture

Vin a Schier Lazarovici

Limba

Zau Levels

Stratigraphy from Zau depths

Complexes from Zau

Quantity items and %

5560 �– 5480 CAL BC 5400 - 5300

SC ? - Vin a A1/A2

Bordane C14

Zau IA 5320 �– 5200 CAL BC Zau IB 5300-5200CAL BC

BB Level 3 Vin a A2 A3/A3

Bordane GrN-28112

lev. 1a lev. 1b Ly-8934

4,64 - 3,65 m -3,50

2 pits G34 G59 2 levels, 1-2 G57+P9 thin

4,50=50 4,00=8 3,90=1 3,70=59 3,65=21

IC 5250 �– 5150 5250-5050 CAL BC

BB 4 A3 -9 -8m

Lumea Noua Ia ? Limba

esu Orzii

2a Ly-8932

3,60 �– 3,30 2 dwellings P8a, P9

3,45=12 3,45=582 3,40=15

IIA 5150 - 5050

B1=BB 5a 5150-5000

Lumea Nou IIa

2b

3,30 �– 2,90 marks of habitation P9

3,30-3,2= 40 3,00= 47

IIB 5050 - 5000 5000 -4950

BB 5b B1/B2 B2

Lumea Noua IIb

2c 2,90 �– 2,80 P1-P3, P8, P10 palisade

2,90= 1554 2,80=68

IIIA 5050 �– 4950 5070-4930 CAL BC

BB 6 C1S Turda I

Lumea Nou IIc

3a Ly-8933

2,80 �– 2,60 G5a Pit 6 P8 P9, P11

2,6/275 3,60= 133 3,2+3,3 bottom 2,75=928 2,70=30

IIIB Turda +Zau Iclod Ib 4950 - 4850 5030 �– 4840 CAL BC

Vin a C2S Turda II

Lumea Nou IIIa

3b Ly-8931

2,60 �– 2,45 G4 Banchet P10 L2.2-L3

2,95=48 3,3=17 3,4=84 2,60=1939 61.5% 2,45=1184 37,5%

IIIC Import Foeni Foeni Petre ti A 4850 - 4750

Vin a C3S Turda III

Lumea Noua IIIc - Foeni

3c 4 ?

2,30 / 2,00 L1a, L3 L3a, L1b

2,30=644 47,3% 2,15=643 47,2% 2,05=75 5,5%

IV Foeni Petre ti A 4750 - 4650 4600-4500 4500-4450

Vin a D1

C14 CAL BC M4590-4450 B4590-

4a 4b 4c

190 �– 1,80

L2.1 L1.1 L3 transition mixture mixture

190=56 2% 185=870 31,4% 170=630 22,8% 155=520 18,8% 150=1 0,3% 140=577 20,9% 125=111 4%

184

This phase is contemporary to Vinèa A2-A3 and Starèevo-Criº (SC) IVA-IVB.

Fig. 6. Limba - Bordane, a-b) phase IA-IB ; Fig. 7. Zau de Câmpie �– Grãdiniþã lev.AVK �– ZAU c)C14 5320 �– 5200 CAL BC 1a phase IA

A. Stage IA (5350 �– 5250 CAL BC).From Zau - Grãdiniþã there are few stratigraphical materials (-4,64 - 3,65 m with three pits),

some come from older excavations. At Limba �– Bordane (fig. 6) at the painting horizon there arematerials similar to those at Zau and probably from other places. The C14 data (GrN-28.112)converge towards the Zau ones (fig. 8). The Vinèa materials from Limba �– Bordane are at thelevel of phase Vinèa A2, (Florescu 2007, p. 34, cat. 13). For that matter the data from GuraBaciului P5 and Ciumeºti (fig. 8: it has 2 main curves, and at Ciumeºti there also Piºcolt IImaterials)(Maxim 1999, 523; Mantu 1995), bears out with SC IVA as genetical role, and theincisions from Ciumeºti are contemporary to those from Piºcolt IA (fig. 8). In stage SC IVABthere already appear linear elements (Bãcueþ 2006, pl. 97 associated also in L14 pl. 81/5-6). Alsoearly are the materials from L10. The mixture of mud into the paste typifies the first two stages.

The materials from level Polychromy I from the Limba area are very early (SC IIIAB), but alsothe painting of stages SC IIIB �– IVA could have played a genetic part for the painting of the Zaugroup (the white glazing and the white engobe also appear at Gura Baciului IV ). From thePolychromy may also stem the painted lines with wide wavy bands which are handed down to theearly levels of Zãuan (fig. 8) or Suplac I- Corãu I (Ignat 1998, fig. 71/6). From Porþ - level II(higher level) there were SC IVA materials , and in Porþ - level I (lower level) there were alsosome SC IIIB materials (Bãcueþ 2006, pl. 75, 78-79, 86-89, 90-97).

Only in stage SC IVB do the beareres of the Zau culture come down there in the area, but thelocal background here is stronger. At Suplac �– Lapiº, on the other bank of the Barcãu, there areSC IIIB �– IVA materials . Also during our excavations from the area of Corãu �– Porþ we found apintadera and SC IVA materials overlaid by early Piºcolt materials, and then follows level SuplacI contemporary with stage Zau IC (Ignat 1998, 214, fig. 71/6). Across the Eru and Someº plainsmeanwhile the Piºcolt group phase IA comes into being as there are also late Polychromymaterials (at Piºcolt painted pottery represented 27% Lazarovici-Némethy 1983, 28).

To this stage the aforementined materials would belong, in which the line painting prevailswith white space and red bands lined arches etc. (fig. 9), motifs which continue well into stageIB. The early ones should still contain elements of Polychromy and Vinèa (already remote orwhich belong to Polychromy II) as things happen in the Piºcolt IA group.

In the south this stage is in full swing. It is contemporary to Vinèa A3 �– Starèevo �–Criº IVBen retard). To this stage belong the materials from Limba (undiscovered before, seen by us).Coming from Lumea Nouã some of the Vinèa tall, empty on the inside beakers, published by D.and I. Berciu (1949a), (fig. 2, 10b) might belong to the stage.

185

At Zau �– Grãdiniþã 1b the level is strewn with later pits, but clear materials are fewer. At thedepth of materials -3,5 m there are two thin levels and two dwellings. For some of these materialsone has studied the economy, pottery technology and the evolution dynamics levelwise andcomplexwise. (Table 5)(Bindea 1996; Lazarovici et alii, 2002; Lazãr 1995 s.v.; 1995a; 1998). Ageneral presentation of the Zau stratigraphy is necessary (Tabel 5), as it underpins ourargumentation for the Zau culture and its synchronisms (Lazarovici 2000; C. M. & Gh. Lazarovici2006, 404 sqq., 429 sqq.; C. M. Lazarovici 2006).


AVK - gr.Piscolt I-II - c. Zau

6000CalBC 5500CalBC 5000CalBC

Calibrated date

GBaciu SCIIIB Lv-2157 6400±90BP

Tartaria Lady A3B1 R 1630 6310±65BP

Parta CB II Lv 2141 6290±80BP

Limba c Zau_GrN/28112 6290±50BP

Ciumesti Mantu 95 6280±100BP

Tarnabod-T AVK Bln-123 6280±100BP

Satchinez Vinca A 2 Deb 2579 6270±40BP


Sonkad Lab ? cSzamos 6250±60BP


Zau G59 L11 Ly-8934 6230±55BP

Sonkad Lab ? cSzamos 6220±60BP

Tartaria BrdH17_18 A3B1 6215±65BP

Zau Gr.in P8 Ly-8932 6185±55BP

Ostoros Tiszadob Bln-549 6180±100BP

Liubcova Vinca B2 Bln 2133 6175±85BP

Tarpesti NK Bln 800 6170±100BP

Fig. 8. C14 data for the Zau culture and its neighbours

B. Stage IB (5250 �– 5200) (fig. 10)The C14 data show that this stage is contemporary to the end of SC IIIB/IVA - Vinèa A2/3. The

staions of this early stage are at Limba �– Bordane and -Vãrar (a station stretchin out across tensof hectares where thaere are still Vinèa A materials).

To this stage belong some of the early materials from Vlaha �– Uliþa micã (Lazarovici -Némethi 1983, 18, n. 14). In the paste and engobe one remarks early Neolithic traditions of thePolychromy or Gura Baciului IV kind. At Cheile Turzii, in various caves, but withoutstratigraphic data, similar materials show up (Chapmann apud Lazarovici 1986, fig. 1).

For that matter, at Porþ �– Corãu III in the alfa section along the Piºcolt IA materials (Bãcueþ2006, pl. 90-96, 97/4,6) there are SC IVA materials (Bãcueþ 2006, pl. 97/1,3,5). Materials ofPolychromy II tradition exist in the inventory of the burial Porþ-M5 (Bãcueþ 2006, fig. 104/2-3),but there are materials typical of the Zau culture, too (Porþ-M5 and Porþ M-M16: Bãcueþ 2006103/1, 104/2-4; 105/1, 106-108, 109/2), being also associated with Piºcolt I and �„Lumea Nouã�”materials with S. Bãcueþ (Bãcueþ 2006, 112, pl. 106-109). When we speak of Polychromy, we donot ahve direct elements in the area (painting, forms) only the materials from stage SC IIIB fromZau I which cannot be separated from Polychromy.

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Fig. 9a. Zãuan �– Dâmbul Bisericii, group Zau Ia

Fig. 9b. Porþ-M5, Polychromy and Zau I

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Fig. 10a. Zau -3,45 m

188

Fig. 10b. Zau -3,45 m

The elements connected to Polychromy would be: the wavy lines, the dots along the line suchas at Zau (fig. 10a/3=10b/3), the clawed spirals and others (fig. 8/b1; 9). Also early are thematerials from Zãuan, those wih painted bands in thin stripes (fig. 9a) and others from Suplac(Corãu I: Ignat 1998, fig. 71/6). Some of these motifs (fig. 10b/3) are not only in Polychromy butfind traditions and analogies further to the south in Greece, in the culture of Dimini -Tsangli, -Larissa and Arapi (Milojèiæ 1960, 45, 15/1,5,7,9). They have been handed down to the Piºcolt �–Szatmár culture: at Piºcolt pits 2, 1, II, 4, 5 : Lazarovici-Némety 1983, 29, pl. III/2, 4, 7, V/5, VII/6); Rétkozberencs �– Paromdomb and Tiszacsege �– Sandgrube and others. (Kalicz - Makkay 1977,fig. 4, 7, 9-10, 14), but the mechanism and the route are not known for sure, but this probablyoccurred through Polychromy. They are preserved later in the Devenþ cave (Lazarovici �– Kalmar1982, fig. 1/4).

The Zau culture is fully shaped at stage IB across almost the entire area of Transylvania, NECriºana and the middle and lower basin of the Someºul Mare and on the Someºul Mic. Thedifferences are determined sometimes by pottery technology errors. Sometimes the colour peelsoff (black or red) and only the painting �„fat�” stays on.

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Towards the NW limit of the area the pottery technology is not of the same quality as in thesouth. In the NW area (from Zãuan) elements of Polychromy get associated with Piºcolt materials(without stratigrafical observations)(fig. 9a) (Maxim 1999, pl. VII) ºi Porþ (fig. 9b/2) (Bãcueþ2006, pl. 102/1, 3-4).

C. Stage IC (5200 - 5150).

Fig. 11. Zau �– Grãdiniþã 1b (-3,45m)

This stage is contemporary to the end of Piºcolt IB/IIA, to the Szamos group (fig. 8), a timein which the inlaid AVK ornaments are preserved along the painting. Those of Starèevo �– Criºtradition become rarer but do not disappear both in our area and in NE Hungary (Kalicz �– Makkay1977: Tolcsva-G1 pl. 26) and Trascarpathian Ukraine (Poshutiak 2004, 68, fig. 9a/101-105).These take place across wide areas from Central Criºana up to Transcarpathia, at Zastavne - MalaHora, near Munkacevo and Rivne �– Kismezö (Potushniak 2004, 68-69, fig. 9a-b especially 118 -155). These discoveries follow in time the horizon with prismatic idols and incisions, thereforeat level SC IVAB (Potushniak 2004, 69, fig. 9b/90 �– 98) associated with a painting typical ofPiºcolt I/II, II. The C14 data from Sonkad (fig. 8) are contemporary to those from Zau I.

The differences are not essential against the preceding period, the same elements are preservedbut the their percentage differs from one level to another and new elemnets appear. At Zau -Gradiniþã 1b the lines made of white dots, which show up in Polychromy and in Piºcolt IB �–Szatmar I (Lazarovici - Némety 1983, pl. I/5-9, III/10 º.a.), are associated with wide bands againsta white background or gainst the vessel background (fig. 11). Such materials, but of a lesserquality, can be found at Porþ-L16 (Bãcueþ 2006, pl. 110-111). In M 18 inventory from Porþ as well

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as in the NW box there are Zau IC materials (Bãcueþ 2006, pl. 119-120). In fact these materialsare considered to belong to the higher part of the layer from Porþ-L15 ºi -L18 (Bãcueþ 2006, pl.63). To this period and to the next period, we believe, belong the materials from the level withhovels from Suplac I - Corãu I (Ignat 1998, 214, fig. 71/6).

Fig. 12. Porþ - Corãu III �– SC IVA �– Zau IC or II B

AB 9%,

AC 6%,

MJ 5%

FC 5%,

MC 5%

BD 3,5%

a bFig. 13. a) Zau -3,40 m ; b) Porþ -M16 the Zau culture IC - II

Through its synchronisms with Polychromy and Starèevo �– Criº IV this stage is contemporaryto the Vinèa A3b finds (Belo Brdo -9,00 �– 8,00 m), phase 4 with W. Schier (1995). To the same

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period we can slot some materials from ªesul Orzii. It is possible for the habitation also tocommence at Lumea Nouã, according to the aspect of some Vinèa materials.

The Zau pottery is of very good quality. By means of some tests run by gelologists the firingtemperature, in some categories was 9000C (samples 38, 40, 61, 69), and in those with chaff ormud the firing temperature amounted to 600-7000C (samples 35, 40, 60, 62 Lazarovici et alii2002a). The material from Porþ-M7 burial might be early, but the painted lines runing parallel tothe dish rim as the dish ornaments might point out to a somewhat later horizon, in phase Zau II(fig. 13c), the same goes for Suplac-M1.

cFig. 13. c) Suplac-M1 c Zau culture IC - II

In two of the dwellings of this horizon from Zau one has found about 600 pottery fragments,which shows the dynamism of the station. The richest are in L8a (2/3 of the layer material) andfrom L11 with fewer materials as the dwelling was rebuilt which led to the removal of somematerials.

We are very keen on mentioning that from the old excavations from Zau, there are over 1200fragments in the data base but many are in a secondary position. In some of squares thereof thereis a mixture brought about by the deep foundations of L1A and L3. These have wrecked a part ofthe researched surface. The painting is made against a white background and the colours blackand red prevail.

Of the about 1200 fragments 80% lacks ornaments, 20% have ornaments carried out byvarious adorning techniques (especially painting, fine arts ornaments) (many stem fromcomplexes L8a, L9, L11). The station is a main one, it is dynamic, the pottery categories refelctthe features at best: 51,3% semi-fine pottery, 32% fine pottery and 16,7% usual pottery. From thelevel of the dwellings with a thin floor and pits excavations stem 61% of the materials and 5,6%evince traces of painting. Thereof 20% have been painted with clear motifs. The wide bandswhich shoew up at this level, are a feature of the next stages in many stations (fig. 11; 15c-d). AtSuplac �– Corãu I there exist materials of stage Zau IC (Ignat 1998, 214, fig. 71/6) in whichtraditions of Polychromy may be observed.

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Fig. 14. Zau, level IC and IIA Fig. 15. Zau �– Grãdiniþã 2a -3,20m

2. Phase II.A. Stage IIA (5150 �– 5050) (Zau �– 3,00/2,90 m) (fig. 16, 21c).Phase II belongs to the Middle Neolithic being contemporary to phases B1 of the Vinèa

culture. The synchronisms may be best observed at the station from Lumea Nouã II, through thearch motifs, wide bands, etc. (fig. 2b; 16 ), with analogies at Zau (fig. 7d-e) and Limba - Bordane(fig. 16b). At Tãrtãria there are several early Zau materials which crop up in Vinèa B1 layers,although deºi I. Paul classifies them as being later, though without arguments (Paul 2007). In thisphase at Zau-Grãdiniþã there are three dwellings: L8a, L11, L9, (which have numerous potteryfragments), and two pits (G5 and G6) which start out from the lower part of Zau 3 level.

Fig. 16. Cheile Turzii �– from the excavations by N. Vlassa

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Fig. 17. Ustrium ? Pits 50a �– 50 b and G18Suplac/Porþ

Looking at the dwellings from this time we find that these have deep pits (fig. 14) for the basestructure, sometimes being dug out in steps (in order to hollowed out more easily) at L9, L8a andL11. In the next stage follow the dwellings with foundation ditches (L3 and L1A) like the entirearea, as it is the case at Porþ-L16, Porþ-M18)(fig. 13b; 14b). We must mention that at Zau thedwelliings are strung along in rows as they are at Suplac (fig. 19), some of the zau dwellingsbelong to some potters as beside the large amounts of painted pottery fragments, next to eachdwelling or in their floor there have emerged pits with very fine black-greyish clay they usedwhen they painted or moulded fine pottery, which through firing turned black or grey, and whenthey were painted they took on a red or bordeaux red colour. These conclusions lean on ourexperiment with htis clay. The clay pits were sometines lined around with lime tree bark or withanimal hides.

In Cluj - Piaþa Unirii (fig. 15a-b)(former Piaþa Libertãþii: Vlassa 1967; 1970; 1971; 1971a;1976 º.a.; Maxim 1999, pl. VIII) we encounter the same motifs, some more evolved, beingassociated with possibly early incised Szákalhát pottery, if we think of the very thin and well firedwalls and of the absence of the red and yellow crusted technique painting and which is not typicalof the Zau culture, but which appears in early Szákalhát and Bucovãþ. The vessels in this stagehave sometimes three colour wide cross-like inwards and outwards painted bands (fig. 11/1, 5;15/2). This ornamentation type is found at Tãrtãria (Vlassa 1963; C.M. - Gh. Lazarovici 2006, fig.IIIe17), being considered by N. Vlassa as Tãulaº, although they are older. Some have red or blackedges and white interior space. (Cheile Turzii fig. 16) with analogies to Zau (fig. 14-15).

Among our excavations from Suplac �– Porþ - Corãu III (unpublished) through a layer of flooddebris coming down from the hill at whose foot the station lies, several pits have been found,which were similar in shape but different from the fill and materials point of view. Some of these

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pits are ercatngualr with rounded edges, others are oval. They lay at the station edge and mighthave served for cremating the dead signalled at levels Piºcolt and Suplac I and II, both in SandaBãcueþ�’s excavations and in our excavations at Porþ (=Suplac III). Such cremation pits or potteryfiring have been uncovered in Croatia (Minichreiter 2006) and at Balta Sãratã C.M.-Gh.Lazarovici 2006, 164, fig. IIIa 49-50).

Doina Ignat has found three cremation graves at Suplac. in some there was also the pit werethe deceased were cremated, the case with M2 (Ignat 1985; 1998, p. 56-58). Sanda Bãcuieþ hasfound cremation graves at different levels at Porþ (Suplac III) (Bãcueþ-Criºan 2004; 2004a).During our excavations we found a cremation grave with the bones contained by an urn (unpublished) (map squares G4-5, S2: C.M. & Gh. Lazarovici 2006, 618, Fig. IVg/23c). Othercremation graves have been found at Tãºad (Chidioºan 1979; Ignat 1998, 56-57). The cremationgraves were oval, with sizes similar to the graves described by D. Ignat, with round edges ofabout 80-90 x 0,75 x 0,3 m (G50 a and 50b) with a yellowish-brown fill, with a trough-likebottom and with fired walls.

In this stage the spiral-like ornament gets generalised with elegant motifs. One should mentionthe the inventory of a cremation grave from Suplac - M1 (fig. 13c) (Ignat 1998, fig. 48 from levelI from Suplac �– Corãu II). This stage is contemporary to phase II of the Piºcolt group, similarmaterials having been found at Ciumeºti �– Berea (unpublished materials in the Baia MareMuseum), borne out by the C14 data from Ciumeºti.

The organisation model of the station from Suplac - Corãu 1 offers us data about thearchitecture of this civilisation. The hovels that belonged to the first phase were grouped like theCorãu II level dwellings. A hovel (B6 according to our counting) was followed by a semi-deepdwelling which was then followed by a surface dwelling (level Suplac II), as the kiln (in the firstphase built into the river bank) served as a hearth for the last two levels. This shows thathabitation spanned over at least three generations. For that matter, the dwelling overlapping andtheir erection on the space location involves the preservation of the family dwelling space.

In hovel 6 all the materials were of teh best Zau quality (paste, engobe, painting). The narrowor wide, rectilinear or curved, inside or outside painted bands are similar to the spiral orconcentrical circles ornaments which have shown up in other complexes at the level of Suplac I(fig. 13c).

B. Stage IIB (5050 �– 5000) (Zau 2,80; 1200 fr.).It is contemporary to level 5b from Vinèa �– Belo Brdo and to stage Vinèa B1/B2 from the

Banat which has another evolution from the one at Vinèa, as well as from the first part of phaseVinèa B2 (from -7 to -6,5 m at Vinèa). At -2,80 m at Zau the layer was wrecked. As we said aboveof several hovel pits from levels 3 some older complexes have been affected. On the dwellingsfloors from this level adobe fragments with beams marks have been found, which shows that thewalls were of wood and the splits between the beams were filled with clay.

At Cheile Turzii the painted pottery from different caves seemd rich. The most interestingmaterials stem from N. Vlassa�’s excavations (references to some of the plates with Chapman1981, from Binder cave).

From our excavations from 1994, about 1180 fragments belonged to the Zau group (fig. 18),and from these 55 were painted, therefore only 4.3%, which radically cahnges the old opinions.Of these only 4 fragments were incised. Of the studied batch, there were 710 fragments ofsemifine pottery (41.2%), 652 fragments of fine pottery (37,8%), and there were only 361fragments of rough pottery (21%). As we study the ornaments we observe that they mostly fallunder stages II, and some have some links with the Tãulaº group (CG, CA, CB, CC), maybepreceding it or contemporary to it. The prevailing degreaser contains sand and mica (28%), sandand shards over 40% and the rest range between 6,6 and 1,7 % which leads us to the Tãulaº group,only there is also Turdas incised pottery.

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Fig. 18. Cheile Turzii, Peºtera Ungureascã, the percentage of the categories: rough, semi-fine and finedepending on the mixture

To this stage belong the materials from levels Zau 2c, and namely from -3,05 �– 2,9 m and thecomplexes P1-P3, P8, P 10 and the palisade (of which we do not know when it was built) butwhich was observed on this horizon.

Fig. 19. Cheile Turzii, ornamental motifs and painting(Binder Cave, after N. Vlassa, Chapman fig. 62).

The inner palisade prompts the existence of a danger and the need of inner defences. Webelieve that there is an even bigger on the outside defence system, which has led to the buid-upof deposits of over 3 m. The main station meausres over 7 ha, but around it revolve other 3 or 4secondary settlements. At the end of this stage dwellings P9, P10 ºi P8 got destroyed.

If we analyse the features of this stage and of the preceding one we notice that the Zau cultureplays an important part in the spread of painting across North East and East Hungary, EastSlovakiaand Transcarpathian Ukraine, see the motifs from table 23, from Zau (fig. 20) withsimilar motifs Cluj - Piaþa Unirii and Vadu Criºului �– Peºtera Devenþ and Cheile Turzii.

Cluj-

Pia a Unirii -5,5m

Zau -3,2 - 2,85m

Zau -2,9m

Zau -2,6m

Zau -2,6 m

Fig. 20. Ornamental painting motifs

196

At Pericei - Keler tag one researched a greater number of hovels some of which cut acrosseach other and others overlapped thus affording stratigraphical observations. In hovel B3 (Bãcueþ2006, 179-184), dug out in steps, there is painted pottery with wide hachured bands, with a wideedge, others with spiral painting (Bãcueþ 2006, 180/ 2,4, 181/1) and some with a thick paintingwhich resembles the Zau one. Some of the Zau fragments clearly point out connections to the latePiºcolt II and ex-Gilãu group (and the motifs PF, PD, SH and others from fig. 20).

In the pottery of this stage some changes in technology can be observed. Next to old elements,which get modified by saving the arches, there emerge hachured bands as these are the stagemotif. The curved spaces, which before used to be full are now hachured (fig. 21-22). The paintedmotifs of the thin, parallel lines bands are ordered in angular, spiral-like or arch-like manner (fig.21).

Ever since the preceding stage there have been changes: painting is on the wane, the lines areno longer so firmly drawn, the white background is more oxyded, the motifs come out painted inbrownish or black hues that fall away into blurred lines and sometimes into wavy outlined lines.

The ladder motifs, which are original from the culture of Zau, may be encountered in PiºcoltII group (Lazarovici - Némety 1983, pl. XXI/1, XXIII/7) and further on on the Upper Tisa atVel�’ke Ra�škovce - Ob. 1 (Vizdal 1973, I/1). At Suplac �– Corãu I, in phase II in dwellings 1 and2 there are oval vessels similar to the Zau culture (Ignat 1998, 72/a 1-4, b2,6). After the pasteaspect the inventory M7 at Suplac would fit in here. According to M. Gligor these painted ladderbands last on till the time of Foeni group.

Fig. 21. Lumea Nouã, 1963 Fig. 22. Doh - Râturi

Materials similar to Zau are in Cluj: �– str. Brãtianu (Roska 1943 º.a.), �–Arhive I (Lazarovici�– Kalmar 1982, 222; -Biblioteca Academiei I (cca 40 cm thick) (Lazarovici 1977d, 23-24, 26, fig.1/1,2, 5; Lazarovici 1986, 36, fig. 1/10, 23, 31; Lazarovici 1977e, fig. 10; MNIT inv. P : 67.725,66. 729. 66720, 61.454). Such painted materials also crop up in the Iclod burials, cemetery B(Lazarovici �– Kalmar 1982, 222; Lazarovici 1977e, fig. 10). At Iclod, too, in the centre of thestation Iclod �– zone B phase Iclod I there is a ditch or a pit over 2 m deep: G 114. raport 1997,with very early materials with a paste typical of Zau �– Grãdiniþã, nivel 2c, without painting de-rived from the technique of stage of level 2a (fig. 17c). The erection of an inner fortress showsthe troubled times. The inner palisades were erected at Zau, Þaga and Iclod.

At Vadul Criºului there are materials from stage IIA but also from IIB as well as some thatseem to be Piºcolt II (Vlassa 1976, 24, fig. 3; Lazarovici �– Kalmar 1982, 235, 1-2; Lazarovici1995, 1/9). Other finds of this stage are at : Gilãu I �– excavations from 1944: A. Mozolics:Lazarovici �– Kalmar 1982, 223). The hachured bands or in anetwork from Zau are combined withdots (fig. 26/4, 7-8). all these elements beside the Turdas ones, underlie the stage Iclod I(Lazarovici 1986, fig. 1-2). Within this period next to the old elements there emerges the archapinting made up of 5-6 narrrow lines as well as the cross-shaped inside tha vessels alternatingwith triangles adorned with hachred dots. All these motifs are handed down to the following

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stages at Iclod I except that painting emerges there only in burials and is kept more like a tradi-tion, as in the settlement. It crops up sporadically, below 1%.

To this period belong the earliest materials from Gilãu I (materials from the exacvations doneby Amalia Mozolics) which belong to the Zau culture. There are also later ones, the so-calledGilãu group, c of which we believe that they are a later penetration of some Piºcolt III commu-nities (Gilãu �– Castru, Aiton, º.a: Kalmar 1982, 2/10; Lazarovici 1995, 2/31; Maxim 1999, 97).

Fig. 23. Zau 5) import Piºcolt

Fig. 24. Cheile Turzii

These come from the valleys of the rivers Almaº, Criºul Repede and the Lower basin of theSomeº, towards the area of Cluj - Iclod (Kalmar 1982, 2/10; L 147, 2/31). In this area the sameretardation process takes place like at Zau (fig. 23), but also at Piºcolt at level II/III, as we dealwith regional retardation processes.

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3. Phase III.A. Stage IIIA �– Turdaº I (5000 �– 4950) (fig. 30-35) (Zau -2,60m about 2000 fr.).

a

b c

Fig. 25. Zau de Câmpie �– Grãdiniþã: a,c) stratigraphy and complexes of levels 2-4b) ritual pit B4

Phase III belongs to the Late Neolithic. During this period important population migrationsfrom the south take place. In the Danube region, these are associated with or known as the VinèaC shock, as we actually deal with several population migrations.

The first migrations yielded the Turdaº culture as they came from the Serbian Banat(Lazarovici 1987; 1991 voci; 1994). In Hungary they contributed to the genesis of the culture ofTisa I and towards west they contributed to the culture of Lengyel, Sopot �– Lengyel (Lazarovici2001). The C14 data bear out the older datings. Stage IIIA is contemporary to Vinèa - Belo Brdo- level 6 (Vinèa C1s apud Schier 1995) and leads to the genesis of culture Turdaº I (the term Turdaº- Vinèa for the Middle Neolithic is anachronical, see: Draºovean 1996).

199

Fig. 26. Cluj �– Napoca, Memorandiºti (-5m): a) incisions; b) painting, 4-9) Tãulaº elements

Fig. 27. Pericei C68

200

At Zau to this period belong a series of hovels pits B5a, B5 (Fig. 25), and especially B4 whichseems to be a ritual pit (fig. 25b)(in it lies the remains of 4-5 bovids, a deer, a pig, fish: C. M.-Gh. Lazarovici 2006, chapter IIIe). At this level in pits B5 and B6 the most numerous deer antlershave been found. The wild animals represented a mere 4% of the total bone material from Zau.The deer represented 33,33 % of the wild animals (Bindea 2005, chapter 6).

The inlaid pottery is scarce (from all the excavations we have got about 100 fragments). Moststem from the above-mentioned pits or from their excavation level. The pits start from -2,50 mdownwards. B5 and B4 are hovels having hearth marks down on the raised being redone severaltimes bottom. This involves a temporary adandonment of the hovels. Pit 6 is later as it starts fromlevel Foeni - Petreºti. At -2,5 m across the layer over 10% of the Turdas incisions have beenfound.

The earliest Turdaº materials (from the pit bottom 5a) evince dotted bands or short cuts, andthis space between the bands was sometimes painted in red, yellow or black we find this back inCluj - Str. �“22 Decembrie�” (former - Bd. Lenin) and -Memorandiºti (fig. 34a/5)(Lazarovici 1986,19, 2/2-4). At Zau inlaid pottery represents below 5 % of the level pottery, the rest being painted.On account of the paste technology the material from Cluj - Memorandiºti from the earliest lev-els and from teh dwellings L2, L3 fits in between Zau 2,70 and 2,45). For these reasons and onthe basis of the incisions we formerly set up the Cluj group where the painted pottery prevailsover the inlaid Turdas pottery as these co-existed and were not associated with Vinca materialsbut with Turdas ones. The problem appears at Lumea Nouã where the Turdas materials mightemerge from level II, too (at that time there are also Vinèa C materials), but certainly from LumeaNouã III. Next to these categories of grey, red and coffee-coloured paste painted with black or redbands typical of the Tãulaº aspect.

Fig. 28. Giurtelec �– Coasta lui Damian, Pit 4, rectangular vessel.

Such ornaments also emerge at Cheile Turzii being associated with wide painted bands andfields. At Cluj, Zau and Turdaº there crops up a black kind of pottery of Vinèa B2/C origin, with-out being decorated with flutings and without being Foeni; in fact it is Turdaº. Incisons andstitches, Turdas elements show up at Pericei in semi-hovels (Sb) or hovels (B): B5 (Bãcueþ 2006206/6); Sb6 (Bãcueþ 2006, 207/6; 208); in Sb7 a sem-hovel with troughs that descend to -2.2mB68 like those at Zau (Bãcueþ 2006, 225; 239/3), these being characteric of the following Zauculture phase too.

All these lay the cultural and chronological foundation for level Iclod I, Suplac I/II (dwellingL2: Ignat 1998, 195, fig. 51). These emerge at the lower level at Turdaº.

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Fig. 29. Suplac II?, Turdaº pottery -0,70 cm

Fig. 30. Porþ - Corãu III

At Iclod - zone C the pottery eveinces a thick white, olve and red engobe at levels I/II(Lazarovici �– Kalmar 1982, 222: Lazarovici 1986) which disappears in Iclod II. Suplac was inthe same cluster (1.2.1 as Cluj �– ªtefan cel Mare, Iclod B and Zau -Cocoarã and -Bufet and thenas �–Zau-Grãdiniþã (separate cluster 1.2.2). The painted pottery allows us to synchronise SuplacI with Tãulaº and Vadul Criºului, and Suplac II (fig. 29). At Suplac II - Corãu I the Turdasmaterials appear (Ignat 1998, 73/3).

To the zau culture belong most materials of the Suplac, Pericei group (fig. 40) to which oneadds the local elements of the Piºcolt II/III group. The evolution of this area and the culturalbelonging are linked up with the Zau group. Late Piºcolt II materials also exist at Porþ - Corãu III,next to the Zau materials among the inventory of a hovel with a Porþ-M2 burial (Bãcueþ 2006, pl.85), overlaid by a burial of the Zau culture, Porþ-M1 (Ibidem, pl. 147-150) with beakers typicalof Suplac I, different from the Iclod I/II ones, but with with S profile vessels, ochre bowls,amphorae as in Iclod I/II (Lazarovici 1986).

202

Fig. 31. Halmeu Vamã, complexul Cx4.

203

There were also beakers typical of Suplac I, slightly different from the one from Iclod II/III,Suplac �– Corãu II but they evince a painting typical of the Zau culture (Ignat 1998, 229, 86). Thethick engobe from Porþ-M9 finds analogy with Iclod I-II. The road of these communities runs overthe Meseº Mountains, towards the Crasna Valley depression, towards Pericei. In semi-hovel sB6from Pericei there are painted, impressed and incised materials like those from Tãulaº (Bãcueþ2006, 189/3, 5; 190/5-6, 195/2-3, 199/1). Other painted motifs (fig. 32) from Pericei (Ibidem, pl.189) find analogy with Iclod I (from cemeteries A and B see sheets). At Pericei in B7, whichhovel cuts across older B6 (Ibidem, pl. 209), there is a frequently encountered at Zau, Cluj, Iclodand at Cheile Turzii (fig. 35b).

Fig. 32. Pericei, L7b


Cultura Zau si vecinii, etapa tarzie

6000CalBC 5500CalBC 5000CalBC 4500CalBC 4000CalBC

Calibrated date

Uivar I 112_Hd-22737 6036±22BP

Uivar I 106_Hd-22735 6022±28BP

Uivar II 115_Hd-22688 5947±41BP

Hodoni Vinca C1 deb 1963 5880±60BP

Hodoni Vinca C1 Deb 2018 5870±60BP

Uivar IV 052_Hd-22759 5862±32BP

Foeni Gr. Foeni Deb 5771 5855±85BP

Foeni Gr. Foeni Deb 5725 5835±40BP

Orastie Turdas I B Deb 5762 5825±60BP

Orastie Turdas I B Deb 5775 5790±55BP

LN Gr Funerara P6 Su2 B1 Poz-19451 5700±50BP

LN Gr Funerara P9 Su3 G1 Poz-22521 5690±40BP


LN Gr Funerara P3 Su2 C1 Poz-19376 5670±40BP


Fig. 33. Chronology of late stages

204

In the ªimleu region, at Giurtelec �– Coasta lui Damian G4 beside painted pottery there is alsoa rectangular vessel adorned with inlaid bands and deep alveolate forms (fig. 28), (Bãcueþ 2006,pl. 280/2), like those from Turdaº and Zau 3a. The beakers are painted with wide bands acrosstheir rims, evince linear motifs (Ibidem, pl. 281) or bands made up of thin parallel or spiral lines(Bãcueþ 2006, 281/8, 287/3). The footless beakers are amde of fine pste with thn wall , paintedwith wide bands across their body (Ibidem, 287-288). They find analogy against a better kind apaste, in Cluj �– Memorandiºti at -5m (fig. 26/4-7). All these point out to the cultural unity and theswiftness with which novelty is disseminated, but also to the presence of some local features.They are the features of the stage Iclod I. Some vessel shapes, incised ornaments typical of stageIIIA, maybe more certainly in stage IIIB, reach the northern edge of the area at Halmeu �– Vamã.The lack of the Foeni elements does not allow us to exactly pinpoint their chronological moment.In the south and in the centre they are present. The presence of ornaments of thin arched linesgrouped into bands and the hachures would pelad for stage IIIB, but at the northern edge it is hardto tell.

In the Cheile Turzii pottery the chaff degreaser, which was typical of level phase Zau IIA (at-2,90m a it reached its peak) is ever shrinking. On the contrary, the sand and micah degreaserreached its peak at -2,40m in phase Zau IIIB.

The white background shrinks quantitatively (good engobe), but is of better quality being thin-ner. The ornamental motifs next to the old ones (narrow spirals, bands made of 5-6 narrowstraight or curved) emerge along with arches and spared rectangular spaces. The white engobe ispatially replaced by a cream-white or greyish-white engobe which makes up the background ofthe vessel on which one paints. The evolution that takes place on the Somes valley (Iclod) or onthe Crasna Valley (Pericei, Dirica), on the Barcãu Valley (Suplac, Porþ) and others is similar tothe one in Cluj and Zau, with local differences from one level to another, from one complex toanother. The rectanguar vessels from Suplac, with dotted or incised ornament, evince the samemotifs as in Turdaº or at Zau (fig. 35), Giurtelec. The oval vessels (with one or two �„salt-cellar-like�’ compartments are frequent in this civilisation both at Zau and at Suplac.

Fig. 34. Turdaº

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In this Turdaº - Zau movement both the incisions and the painting have led to this kind ofunification. This movement pushes elements northwards which no longer appear at Zau (forinstance the cylindrical vessels with wide rim from Cluj - Iclod I), which shows the existence ofregional temporary situations, which do not have similar evolutions. Across the wide station ofSuplac, the Turdas decorated materials (fig. 29) emerge along with the apar Suplac I/II paintedones, in L2 (Ignat 1998, pl. 49/1-5, 7; 51/4,10), a complex in which Piºcolt tradition materialsexist, too (Ignat 1998, 193, fig.49/6). These Piºcolt elements emerge at Zau earlier, at level 2b(fig. 23b). Another example: the small vessels from Iclod or the very wide-rimmed vessels ofIclod I level are identical to those at Halmeu �– Vamã fig. 31) All these tell of the same civilisationwith tight ties. Painted materials of this level emerge also at Suplac in dwelling 5 (Ignat 1998, pl.51/10).

Now an obverse process takes place: communities like Iclod I, we refer to cylindrical vesselswith wide out-turned rim, reach the Transcarpathian border, in Maramures at Halmeu �– Vamã.There they associate with clear Turdas motifs but also with Zau IIIA painting (hachured bands,bands made up of lines, curved wide lines, in arches, parallel lines, etc as they emerge also inCentral and Northern Crisana. Before the genesis of the Foeni group, at Turdas well-polishedvessels with black rim crop up.

Such vessels emerge at Zau and in cemetery A at Iclod, some S profile and cylindrical vesselshave a well polished black inside as they all precede the Foeni group or are contemporary to it.For that matter at Turdas, too cylindrical vessels crop up but they have not been chronologicallyslotted. But there appear not out-turned rim ones as they appear in Cluj, at Iclod and Halmeu.They plead for an extension of the area, from Cluj-Iclod towards Halmeu, maybe on the SomesValley.

The processes are triggered off by the immigration of Turdas communities into the region asthey bring about momentous changes in Transylvania, Criºana and NE Hungary and even fartheraway, in Transcarpathian (Munkacevo - Mala Hora only elements within the so-called Polgárenvironment associated with Szakálhát �– Tisa ( Potushniak 1991, V/11-12, 3,5,8, 15-20) and ZauIII (Potushniak 1991, V/7,9). It is in fact possible for such penetrations from the NW also to havetaken place in older stages. The vessel shapes from the Gilãu group point out to their origin inNW Romania, like those at Vãrzari (fig. 27: compare with fig. 22a and b) or Piºcolt II/III(Lazarovici - Némety 1983, 32) etc., but we encounter them also as imports at Iclod II/III levels(fig. 50)(in our excavations at Iclod: Lazarovici 1986, fig. 4-10; Lazarovici - Kalmar - Maxim1990-1993, fig. 26).

A part of the Turdaº argumentation is also shared by the Tisa culture; Turdaº was sometimesconsidered as Tisa (Ignat 1998, fig. 82), but their paste is different and so are the pottery styles.All tehse groups with pottery and incisions were sometimes considered Tisa II or �„tisoid�” exactlyon account of the paste (not only with D. Ignat), most of them being early. The contemporary onesbelong in the stages of Zau III. About this time, in NW regions NV Herpály �– Salca communitiesemerge.

B. Stage IIIB (4950-4850) (Zau -2,45m)The stage is contemporary to Vinèa C2S (=C1 at Milojèiæ), Turdaº - level II, Orãºtie level I,

Lumea Nouã level III (excavations from the Romano-Catholic farm), with what has been definedas Suplac I/II and II, with Iclod I and I/II. The earliest C14 data stem from the the Turdas settle-ment from Orãºtie, which are contemporary to the latest Zau 3B data (fig. 1). In the blending ofthe paste the sand and micah mixture prevails approximately. 280 fr. (in the data-base the valueis 13,9%) a prevalent element at Cluj- Memorandiºti at -5m, a time at which the painted materi-als similar to those at Tãulaº crop up, being anterior to those at Foeni.

At Lumea Nouã a large pit has been found with a great number of cremated dead. As there areno detalied reports or published materials it is not the case that we should dwell upon it. But theseries of C14 datings from this complex leaves no room for doubt as to the late data for the lateLumea Nou, Foeni and early Petreºti (fig. 33). Since this time at Zau there have been three largecomplexes: hovel 4 the one with the banquet, dwelling 2.2, a complex with adobe remains from-2,45m based at -2,60m (level of excavation), a complex from which the C14 sample has beentaken. Dwelling 3 knew two redoing stages, being overlaid by another complex. In the dwellingarea, next to the north wall, a one year old child skeleton has been discovered.

206

Fig. 35. Zau - Grãdiniþã, level -2,45-2,65m

207

Fig. 36. Zau level 3b 1-6) c. Zau; 7-10 Foeni I

In the layer there were about 3.000 de fragmente, most of them stem from the complexes andthe nearby areas. In G4 there are 486 fragments of which 25 were Turdas. Nine come from thehovel and 16 from the hovel from section 3/1996.

The Foeni communities spread out now and later as far as the Transylvanian plain (Draºovean1996; 1996a; 1997a; 2002; 2006). The C14 data from Zau (fig. 1, 33) show that these arew par-tially contemporary to Uivar and only with reduced likelihood also contemporary to early Foeni.At Vr�šac �– At, Parþa �– Tell 2 and other parts of the Banat the Foeni communities and Vinèa C2S

horizons overlap (=C1 Milojèiæ) (Draºovean 1994; 1994a; 1996; 1997a; 2002).

208

At Lumea Nouã, at the Foeni levels, not the earliest levels according to the C14 data, there isLumea Nouã pottery but also perforated idols and Vinèa C amulets (where Bicske or Zorlenþ typeamulets are in the hundreds: Lazarovici 1979, fig. 8 and pl. XXI-XXII and bibliography; 2000c,fig. 7) Gligor 2007; 2007a). In Transylvania there are numerous Foeni finds: Mintia (Draºovean�– Luca 1990), Turdaº (Draºovean 1996, 97; Luca 1996; 1997, 73), Pian, Noºlac, Viiºoara(Draºovean 1997 and bibliography) Zau, Cluj, Archiud etc. (Draºovean 1996; Lazarovici 2000b,35-52 and bibliography; Maxim 1999, s.v.; Gligor 2007; 2007a).

In Cluj- Piaþa ªtefan cel Mare next to Iclod I/II materials there are incised Turdaº materials,hachured rhombical bands, dotted bands like the Iclod ones in graves (Lazarovici et alii 1984, fig.7-10).

In the NW Meseº mountains there is a parallel evolution to the iclod group (regarding beakers,they are tulip-shaped, big footed, formally identically) but they also belong to this stage andphase. The Turdaº elements from here shrink away, painting and pottery technology are on thewane (pl. 260/1,3). There are common ornamental motifs withthe iclod ones, but they have a lo-cal, regional evolution. The decline is caused maybe by the southward and westward developmentof the Herpály culture which will spread out atowards these areas (Carei, Zãuan etc.) and whichis contemporary to Foeni and early Petreºti on account of the imports (Paul 1992; Draºovean1996;1996a; 2006; Lazarovici 2000c, fig. 6).

At Pericei - Keler tag beside the incised Turdas pottery, one has found spoons with a whole ontheir handle in several complexes. Some are feeding bottles (Maxim 1999, fig. 100; 106:Lazarovici 2000c, fig. 4) others have other uses. They allow the syncronisation of stage Iclod I/II in complexele : C68 (Bãcueþ 2006, 228/1-3, 238/1-2, 239/3; 239/4); C8 (Bãcueþ 2006, 240-245), B49 (Ibidem, 246), C35 (Bãcueþ 2006, pl. 255), C48 (Bãcueþ 2006, pl. 256) also from thelayer (pl. 257).

Between Iclod II/III - III and Suplac II/III �– III there appear several common shapes: widebeakers, semispherical on top and extremely high-footed (Ignat 1998, fig. 86) with identicalshapes to those from Iclod II/III being common to others of the time (Iclod: Lazarovici 2000c, fig.1). Some perforations foreshape the Tiszapolgár ones (Lazarovici 1986, fig. 9/1-3).

At Suplac, Pericei and Halmeu-Vamã there appear several zoomorphical andanthropomorphical idols with dotted decoration, typical of this period and the NW area (Fig.39)(Ignat 1998, fig. 34, 2,6-8; 36/7-9; Bãcueþ 2006, 270/1-2, 271/1-3 ). Some idols are bow-legged (fig. 49 b) evincing analogy with Munkacevo �– Mala Hora II (Potushniak 1991, VI/1,3),like the alter ones from the Cucuteni culture.

C. Stage IIIC (4850 �– 4750) (Zau -2,30 m)The stage is contemporary to Vinèa C3S phase (=C2 with Mijloèiæ), but such materials reach

only Oltenia and the Southern Banat at Liubcova, Cuvin/Temeskubin (Lazarovici 1974a, fig. 3),being rarer in the north, at Borja�š (Lazarovici 1994, fig. 26, especially 26/5), their place beingtaken by the Foeni communities (Draºovean 1996; 2002; 2006). At Lumea Nouã there are con-tacts of the Foeni communities with idols of the Zorlenþ type and Herpály import pottery (Gligor2007a), beside the Vinèa C materials. A finer dating of the Vinèa C materials is not possible asvery few have been published. According to the C14 data referring to Foeni from Transylvania(fig. 33), the first stage was set around 4650 CAL BC and the second around 4500 CAL BC(Gligor 2007; 2007a). They are set after Hodoni and Foeni being contemporary to the beginningof the Sãlcuþa culture (the evolution of the Sãlcuþa culture was set within the interval 4600/4500- 4000 B.C. (Mantu 2000, table 2); the Foeni painting in white may have played an important partthere, too beside the southern and Vinèa elements.

At Zau �– Grãdiniþã nivel 3c at depths of -2,3 �– 2,15 m there are three dwellings rebuilt on thesame spot: L1a, L3a and L1b. The earthenware batch exceeds 1300 items of which there are 375fragments at -2,30 m and more than 400 at -2,15 m. Of these there are about 1200 in the com-plexes (see table 5). The Turdaº-like materials evince very good craftmanship, fine incisions, un-like those from Turdaº, Orãºtie, Cluj and Pericei which are on the wane. Such elements are kepton, according to I. Paul (1981), in the Petreºti culture.

Fine incisions (sometimes polished), are associated in other stations too with Foeni materi-als, at Bernadea (unpublished before materials MNTI). At Zau running parallel to the eveolution

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from the settlement at Grãdiniþã there are materials at other locations too, most of them chrono-logically and culturally contemporary but unpublished before (Lazãr 1995; 1995a; 1998).

The Foeni materials are early, one can detect Vinèa C1 elements in them, common to the Foenigroup too, but there are also elements found in Petreºti A (Paul 1992/2-3, 5, 6, 9) or Foeni (fig.36/8-10). The same kind of evolution takes place at Lumea Nouã and Tãrtãria. But the slotting ofall the Lumea Nouã materials into the Vinèa B2 �–C level (Paul 2007) lacks arguments. Vinèa Cmaterials can be found in Iclod �– Petreºti stations, too.

Fig. 37. Zau level 3c ornaments of the Zau culture, phase IIIC

The painted pottery is of softly manufactured (blending of chaff, mud, ground shards) but alsoon account of very good sandy paste, it has red, brown or black band motifs with these bandswhich are wide under the rim or run across the vessel. Now too one should mention the oval bowlshapes which are the elements typical of the period deemed to be Iclod II/III (see the Iclod sheet)and Suplac II/III (Ignat 1998, pl. 55-57; 72-73).

The mud, chaff and ground shards pottery (the old background) amounts to about 30%, thesand one reaches about 30%, and 40% represents common elements. A change into what laterbecomes Petreºti A is now under way, as I. Paul defined it (Paul 1992). Unfortunately we havefew observations from other stations for this period. Such materials exist in Cluj �– BibliotecaAcademiei (the layer measures almost 0,40 m), - Arhive II according to craftsmanship and withwhite engobe deemed to be Iclod I (Lazarovici 1977, 23-25, fig. 1; L 153, 37, 2/1, 13a-h, 20, 32-36; 4/7; Lazarovici �– Kalmar 1982, 222), materials that belong in this phase.

Towards NW the things evolve locally. In some stations an involution takes place (a part of thematerials of the complexes of which some are in retardation at Pericei : C68, C8, C 49, C 3, C48(also the above bibliography for phase Zau IIIB) and it may last till now, too. From the NW andfrom the Cluj region the bearers of the culture Hepály �– Salca head off to other stations or areas.This seems to be a parallel group to levels IIIB, which came into being under the spell of PiºcoltII �– Esztár. Herpály materials show up on the Criºul Repede Valley in the past and now too andthen on the Someºul Mic all the way down to Cluj - Sf. Ion (Lazarovici �– Kalmar 1982, pl. III: themotifs in white entail a dating to stage II a c. Herpály).

At Cluj - Piata Unirii, among our excavations (Bazin 4,3 - 4,8 m), there are late Zau materi-als next to Foeni materials and a black kind of pottery of Foeni but also of Iclod I and I/II type.Like at Zau these point out to a contribution made by the Foeni group to the genesis of the Iclodgroup, in fact it is the same process and the concept of the Iclod group take on substance maybeonly for the late stages, of involution or cultural syntheses (ex. Iclod �– Petreºti). In the Turda area,from Viiºoara comes a bowl of Iclod I paste but with the typical shape of the Foeni group. Fot thatmatter at Cheile Turzii too in the caves there are some shapes similar to the Foeni ones, only thepaste is different (unpublished materials).

D. Stage IV Foeni - Petreºti A (4750 �– 4650 ) (Zau -2/1,90m).According to C14 data, but also after the Foeni group evolution, this one is followed in the

southern areas by Vinèa D horizons. At Zau the materials are at levels 5a-c, the levels richest inpottery (table 5). The genesis of phase A of the Petreºti culture, as defined by I. Paul, may beobserved at Zau too (fig. 38), Cluj, Lumea Nouã (Gligor 2007a; 2007b) as the materials arespread across wider areas (e.g. at Beclean there are semispherical protuberances typical of Foenior Petreºti A, called Lengyel by us), but at that time they were not so obvious and the Foeni group

210

had not been yet defined by F. Draºovean (1993; 1997; 2002; 2003). The Foeni pottery keepssome elements (retracted rims allowing liquid flow and with fine notches: a feature of the Foenigroup which is kept until the early Petreºti.

Fig. 38. Foeni - Petreºti A a) Zau �– Grãdiniþã (-2m), b) Lumea Nouã

Now too the wide painted triangles on vessels stands from Zau IV are made of a Foeni �– Petreºtipast. Such vessel stands crop up at Turdaº at the Foeni level and then at the Petreºti level. At thesame level there are some fragments of bitronconical beakers crafted according to the blacktopedtechnique (fig. 38/1-2), which evince analogy in the Banat sites: some are identical, sometineswronly considered to be Vinèa A. Of the same Foeni type are some bitronconical bowl rims with finenotches.

VI. ICLOD �– PETREªTI SYNTHESES (4650 �– 4550/4500)

In the Cluj area and in the Transylvanian plain, in the area of the Zau culture one has investi-gated several stations and sometimes levels, especially at Iclod at higher levels (Iclod II/III, ÞagaII) Foeni or Petreºti A shapes made of Iclod type paste, which mentioned the horizon on whichthese took place. The same processes take place in the late Iclod and Petreºti stations (Maxim �–Kalmar 1991, 137-138). Such materials have been found at Vlaha (fig. 39), Baciu �– Str. Nouã,Livada �– În spatele gãrii, at Matei �– în sat a large station.

Other materials are at Dedrad (Lazãr 1995, 68) and Saroº, Criº - Ciorãnel (materials in MNIT,col. Amlacher; Soroceanu et alii 1977), Dorolþu (Maxim 1999, s.v.), Fizeºu Gherlii �– Kiszsedem,Buneºti, Rãdaia, Suceagu, Viºtea, Cãmãraºu Deºert (Maxim 1999, s.v.; RepCj 1992, 74, 84 ). AtDedrad there appear idols with fine incisions like the ones at Petreºti. In all these stations oneclearly observes the Foeni shapes; sometimes the paste is like the Iclod one or late Zau. When thevessels are black on the inside, a feature of the stage Iclod I (Cemetery A), this marks, we believe,Foeni-Petreºti influences. The difference is that in the Petreºti stations the blending and the fir-ing of pottery are better than in the Iclod or late Zau ones. The Foeni shapes are obvious. In thesame place, Vlaha, without stratigraphical conditions, we observe several inlaid materials with

211

dotted band, incisions which stylewise remind us of the Turdaº or Vinèa C ones, so that the be-ginning of Iclod �– Petreºti process should occur at Zau IIIC level as there are shapes, decorationsand firing typical of the late Zau culture.

Fig. 39. Vlaha, syntheses Iclod - Petreºti

212

Here also one should remind us of the spoon handle with a whole, a similar form to theLengyel culture (Kalmar 1986; Lazarovici 2000c, fig. 4), similar artifacts also show up at Suplac,Pericei and other places. The use of these artifacts is different. At Iclod, in a complex their useas feeding bottles has been demonstrated as one has discovered 9 spoons in hovel 14, exactly bibsranging from a suckling�’s to a two year old�’s. (Cucoº 1974; Kalmar 1986, fig. 3-4).

These may dsicharge different functions on account of their multiple shapes: spoon, bib, paint-ing pot and one cannot rule out their use as melting pots for melting metal but for this one needsspecial tests. In these stages, in each geographic area, the Zau culture ends its evolution in differ-ent ways, which is natural as the dynamism of the stations recedes and the defences get aban-doned. At Iclod and Þaga one can observe the erection of constructions across the defences, thedwellings are more modest and the pottery is on the wane.

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