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Post by Admin on Mar 8, 2022 18:40:20 GMT
CHRONOLOGY
The chronology constructed on the basis of the radiocarbon dates now available for
southeast Europe shows the length of the Chalcolithic and the earlier inception of the Early
Bronze Age. It expands the duration of the earlier Chalcolithic chronological phases that were
once thought to coincide with the Early Aegean Bronze Age. In general, the southeast European
Chalcolithic/Eneolithic begins around 5300 BC and ends around 3500 BC. Slag from a Baden
context from Novačka Ćuprija in Serbia suggests that the use of arsenical bronze began by the
late fourth millennium B.C. (Bankof and Winter, 1990). The earliest evidence of worked raw
copper without melting goes back to the early Neolithic in the Near East. A copper pendant was
found in northern Iraq that dates to 8700 BC (Hessse, 2007). However, the true “Copper Age“
did not begin until the advent of copper smelting at the end of the 6th millenium.
The Baden, Ezero, Usatovo, and Cernavoda represent a cultural complex in what is now
Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Moldavia, and Romania that marks the transition from the
Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age in the second half of the fourth millennium. Bronze use as
a diagnostic does not truly kick off until the 3rd millenium but the cultural transitions that were
the origins of Bronze Age societies that will be discussed here are believed to have begun in the
mid 4th millennium. In other parts of Europe the Early Bronze Age would arrive considerably
later. But what we shall see is that this restructuring of settled society would occur roughly
around the same time in both Southeast, Eastern, and Central Europe.
The origins of the Chalcolithic cultures go back to the beginning of the Neolithic. Here
we find evidence for the beginnings of domesticated plants and animals from Southwest Asia,
the first permanent settlements, and the first pottery around 6200 BC. Nearly everyone agrees
with the model first put forward by Childe (1927) that has waves of migrants first entering
Europe via the Aegean from Anatolia. Over the next 2500 years, these small farming
communities grew into vibrant and dynamic cultures with proto-urban societies. Settlements
grew in size and number. Some of the largest Vinca sites in the 5th millennium were larger than
most Minoan and Mycenaean sites! (Chapman 1981) New settlements were founded on
secondary areas around the periphery of the older settled regions. Many of these settlements
became tells, man made hills from the accumulated remains of centuries of nucleated
occupations being built on top of the remains of older ones. One of the most massive of these
tells is at Karanovo in Bulgaria. Here we find a excellent stratigraphic sequence going back to
the beginning of the sixth millennium and continuing until the Early Bronze Age (Georgiev,
1967). These tells started to appear after 5500 BC but were limited to Thrace and Macedonia
and then spread to the rest of the Balkans in the 5th millennium (Bailey 2000). The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in modern Ukraine, Moldova, and northeast Romania, at its peak, built the largest settlements in Neolithic Europe and with very high density but they would burn their entire village every 60-80 years for reasons that are not yet clear. (Mantu, 2000; Diachenko & Menotti 2012). An intriguing dilemma arises, why were so many of these tells throughout the region abandoned and replaced by a more dispersed settlement pattern at the end of this period
ca. 4000 B.C.?
To get us on the same page, I will use the region of Southeast Europe/ the Balkans, to
include the modern nations of Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Albania, Romania,
Moldova, Hungary, and even parts of the Ukraine. In spite of the increasing diversity of
cultures, there was considerable homogeneity throughout the region (Sarasauskas 2011). “As a
result of the development of metal mining, metallurgy and the intensification of cultural contacts,
the mid-fifth millennium B.C. in southeast Europe witnessed deep integration among
neighboring cultures, resulting in the formation of large cultural complexes” (Todorova 1995:
87). The different kinds of pottery overlap considerably and are found scattered throughout the
region, suggesting extensive trading and interacting (Barker, 1985, Renfrew 1969, Bailey 2002,
Chapman 1981). “It is important that we treat the whole of south east Europe as part of the
same system” (Sheratt 1983: 191). This setting has been named “Old Europe” by some scholars
(Gimbutas 1974, Anthony 2009) to distinguish it from the Indo-European cultures that moved in
and replaced it, according to theory.
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Post by Admin on Mar 8, 2022 21:24:59 GMT
HISTORY OF RESEARCH
It is necessary to briefly explain the historical process in archaeology that has brought us
to our knowledge of the Chalcolithic in the Balkans. How did we come to understand the
Balkan Chalcolithic as an autonomous entity and its chronology? There are various historical
trends worth identifying.
The first important discovery that brought attention to what would be known as the
Chalcolithic was Miloje Vasić’s uncovering the remains of the central site of the Vinča culture,
Vinca, in 1908 (so-naming the culture after the site). Vasić, a Serbian educated archaeologist,
knew that the site was very ancient from the deep stratigraphy. The site is situated on the east
bank of the Danube, 14km downstream from Belgrade, on a high loess terrace. Vinča Belo Brdo
is one of the largest tell sites in the Balkans, covering 10 hectares with 9 meters of cultural
deposits (Chapman 1981). Vasić began finding figurines, exquisite pottery, and what appeared
to be writing on the pottery. Vasić asserted typological links between Vinca and Troy (Vasić
1906, 116). This assertion invoked the possibility of ‘impulses’ from the Aegean to explain the
similarities and to the origins of the Vinca. This may actually be a correct assertion but Vasić
chronology was skewed. These excavations were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I
and besides a brief season in 1924, Vasić was unable to get enough funding until his initial
reports caught the attention of British businessman and archaeologist Sir Charles Hyde and
backed him financially. Vasić was able to resume excavations, on a much larger scale, between
1929 and 1931. Interest in the pre-history of the Balkans was underway. The excavation was
visited by numerous prominent scholars of the time: Veselin Čajkanović, K.O. Myres, W.A.
Hurtley, Bogdon Popović and Gordon Childe. Other countries in Western Europe and the
Balkans began conducting their own excavations
This ‘short’ chronology assumption would have meant that the Late Neolithic of
southeast Europe was contemporary with the Bronze Age of the Aegean and thus, the succeeding
Copper Age of Southeast Europe must be later than these. This chronology was set until decades
later when the radiocarbon revolution was fully underway. Meanwhile, Balkan, Western, and
Soviet archaeologists were busy digging at tell sites, uncovering, classifying, and sequencing
new ceramic types belonging to unknown cultures of the Chalcolithic (Christescu 1925, 1933;
Dumitrescu 1925; Fewkes et.al 1933; Banner 1937, 1942; Kutzian 1944; Gaul 1948; Grbić
1957). They did not have a way to absolutely or even relatively date them with certainty. It was
the period of describing, comparing, and explaining those comparisons by way of cultural
diffusion and migrations. In summing this up, Renfrew (1979: 140) correctly observed:
“European prehistory has long had a preoccupation with origins and with the way in which ideas
and cultural traits were transmitted. Today it seems more fruitful to consider process and the
way in which such features were invented.”
It was not until the 1960’s that the true chronology and cultural sequence was realized
and a new phase in research began. James Mellaart (1960) first showed how the new
radiocarbon evidence appeared at odds with the old chronological structure. Mellaart showed
that C-14 dates put Early Vinča well before the beginnings of Troy I. He estimated that Troy I
should have begun around 3500 BC, when Vinca was ending. He advanced the view that the
Balkan cultures such as the Gumelnitsa and Salcutsa must have had a west Anatolian influence.
In Todorova’s three-stage model (1978) for Bulgarian archaeology, at least, 1960 marks
the beginning of the third stage. The first stage extends from 1898 to 1944 and culminates with
the posthumous publication of Gaul’s (1948) study, The Neolithic in Bulgaria. The second
period is from 1944 to 1959. This period was characterized by further data gathering devoted
largely to relative dating (Sterund et. al, 1984). The third stage is marked by more
comprehensive and focused research, the application of radiocarbon dating, and the use of the
exact sciences. During this period more Western archaeologists became interested in the
Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Southeast Europe.
The 1950’s excavations at the mound of Karanovo in central Bulgaria and the following
publications (Mikov 1959; Georgiev 1961) that documented the important stratified sequence
there illustrated the utility of the new long chronology. A whole nearly unbroken sequence from
the Early Neolithic to the Bronze Age (6000 to 2000 BC) is shown. In addition, the discussions
of this information between prehistorians at the 1959 International Conference in Prague (where
Georgiev presented the data) were important.
The radiocarbon chronology only validated what prehistorians in Southeast Europe had
suspected. The stratigraphic evidence from numerous mounds of the area clearly demonstrated
that the early assumption made about Vinca and Troy was an error. The materials that had been
equated with Troy I-II were clearly from the Middle Neolithic age rather than of the Early
Bronze Age. The material from the Balkan EBA lined up much better with Troy I-II both
typologically and stratigraphically (Sterund 1984: 717).
In addition to the publication of the Karanovo sequence, the excavation and publication
of many other tell sites added to the evidence of the long chronology. These sites include – in
Bulgaria, Azmak (Georgiev 1963), Ezero (Georgiev and Merpert 1966), Gradechnitza (Nikolov
1974), Ruse (Georgiev and Angelov 1952, 1957); in Romania, Cäscioarele (V. Dumitrescu
1965), Gumelnita (V. Dumitrescu 1966), Hirsova (Galbenu 1962). In Yugoslavia, the
reassessment of the Vinča material (M. Garašanin 1958) and excavations at Gornja Tuzla (Čović
1961), Obre I [Raskršće] (Benac 1973) and Obre II [Gornja Polje] (Gimbutas 1970) were
published. In Hungary, the excavation of Herpaly (Kalicz 1969), Aszód (Kalicz 1967) and
Dévaványa (Ecsedy 1972) added more evidence connecting the Hungarian Plain with the
Balkans in the Chalcolithic (Kalicz 1970). Excavations in Greece at this time were also
important in establishing the stratigraphy of Southeast Europe: at Lerna (Caskey 1957, 1958,
1959), Sesklo (Milojčić 1971), and Sitagroi (C. Renfrew 1971, 1973; Renfrew, Gimbutas and
Elster, eds. 1984).
In 1971, Colin Renfrew published three articles favoring the chronology debate in favor
of the long chronology (1971a, 1971b, 1971c). He also calibrated the C-14 dates to
dendrochronology, pushing dates back even farther and introduced the concept of the
“chronological fault line”. This graphically defined the differences of the long versus the short
chronology and convinced many scholars, such as Gimbutas, of the validity of the long
chronology. Still, a minority stood with the short or traditional chronology (e.g. Hood 1973;
Milojcic 1973, Leben 1979; Makkay 1976). Renfrew (1973, 1979) was also a seminal figure for
the argument that the Chalcolithic in the Balkans was autonomous, that is, metallurgy was
independently developed there as opposed to spreading from the Near East, which was the view
held for decades.
A discovery in Transylvania spurred much interest in the Balkan Eneolithic. The Tartaria
tablets are three unbaked clay tablets, discovered in 1961 by archaeologist Nicolae Vlassa at a
Neolithic site in the village of Tărtăria. Similar clay tablets had been found as early as 1876 at
Tordos. It was Vlassa that obtained the stratigraphic key to the mass of material collected from
Tordos. They were found together with 26 clay and stone figurines and a shell bracelet,
accompanied by the burnt, broken, and disarticulated bones of an adult male. They were
identified as belonging to the Vinca-Tordas culture, which was still believed by Serbian and
Romanian archaeologists to have originated around 2700 B.C. Vlassa interpreted the Tărtăria
tablets as a hunting scene on one with a kind of primitive writing similar to the early pictograms
of the Sumerians on the other two. This claim immediately attracted a great deal of attention.
The comparison was confirmed by Falkenstien, who was responsible for the publication of the
tablets of Uruk, from Uruk III and Jemdet Nasr periods. This striking comparison however was
unfounded as radiocarbon dating of associated bone material in the deposits that they were
significantly older, to as long ago as 5300 B.C. (Haarman, 1990). The nature of the symbols has
been the subject of much debate. Some are of the opinion that it is some form of archaic writing,
most notably, Marija Gimbutas (1974). Others, such as Colin Renfrew (1973), only see them as
perhaps marks of ownership or as the focus of religious ritual. The fact is that the symbols do
share close similarities with other signs found on artifacts in the region, suggesting
standardization. They are also sequenced in rows and in rectilinear shapes and are very
comparable to other archaic writing systems (Haarman, 1990).
The rise of the “New Archaeology” first in the United States and then by British and
Western European archaeologists brought new methods and theory to archaeology, including
Southeast Europe. Methods became more scientific with specific research questions and goals.
Invention and innovation with a society became more accepted as theories of social change as
alternatives to the traditional theories of diffusion and migration to explain social change.
Because of the materials collected from the mounds of the Balkans were shown to be older than
Troy’s, the traditional model of diffusion from Asia Minor and the Near East of peoples and their
innovations such as metallurgy, had to be rethought. It began to become apparent that copper
metallurgy was likely of independent origin in the Balkans.
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Post by Admin on Mar 8, 2022 22:14:32 GMT
A potentially very useful test looking at ethnogenesis and population shift was done by
Sterud (1976). He did statistical test on material from the lower levels of Obre II (the KakanjButmir cultural transition). He attempted to define the continuity or lack of continuity through
time within artifact categories. The majority of his statistical tests, particularly on manufactured
items such as ceramics, showed a break between the earlier and later periods. The question
seems obvious: Are these discontinuities representative of a change in population from a new
group, or the simple adoption of cultural innovations by the native group? Sterud says that the
test results in this case lend credence to the replacement theory, indicating that migration indeed
took place. Others, like Benac (1973), however, see incremental change in material form from
the same site and argue for autochthonous development of the Burmir culture. (Sterud et. al,
1984). This whole issue raises the age-old question of whether pots equal people. I believe that
in many cases they do, and that in cases like the one Sterud looks at and that will be discussed in
this essay, dramatic breaks in the seriational sequence can almost certainly mean some kind of
significant outside influence, if not replacement.
Traditionally, scholars from Southeast Europe have focused on the site as the unit of
analysis rather than the region (Georgiev 1967; Todorovo et. al 1983). They were interested in
the details of social life that can be determined from complex sites like mounds. This was very
useful for the Cultural-Historical approach. But there was a dearth of regional and off-site
studies to assess what the whole Neolithic/Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age cultural landscape was
like. There were actually a variety of site types that varied a great deal with the time period and
from one region to another. Not that such types of sites had not been looked at or considered, by
native archaeologists and foreign scholars, but the 1970’s saw a great increase in the diversity of
research questions on new types of sites and environmental studies. It was also a decade of
astounding discoveries.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s, archaeologists began to examine broad settlement patterns and
factors affecting those patterns. One such example is site catchment analysis looking at the
geographic context and landforms. Survey projects of settlement patterns were, among others,
the Minnesota Messinia Project (McDonald and Rapp 1972); the Melos Project (Renfrew and
Wagstaff 1982); see also Sherratt (1982, 1983). Davidson (1971) looked at geomorphology and
settlement on the Plain of Drama. The economy and subsistence also became important areas of
focus (Glisić 1968; Dennell 1972, 1974, 1978; Sherratt 1981; Kaiser 7 Voytek 1983;
Dolukhanov 1978; Bökönzi 1971). The ancient climate and environment also began to be
intensively studied (Greig & Turner, 1974; Grüger 1976; Clason 1980; Rasson 1983a, 1983b).
Chapman (1981) studied the Vinca from every angle. Others took a purely ecological approach
(Rasson 1983, Sterud 1978).
Interest and excitement in the societies of the Chalcolithic Balkans really took off with
the discovery of the Varna necropolis in 1972 and subsequent publication of the initial
excavation (Ivanov, 1978). Up until this point it was largely believed that Neolithic and
Chalcolithic societies were egalitarian. Discoveries of fantastic necropolises began to raise new
questions about social inequality, trade, and craft specialization. It also had the important effect
of further solidifying the uniqueness of the Chalcolithic not just technologically, from the
preceding Neolithic, but also socially. This was the first time that separate cemeteries were
located outside of settlements in Europe. The spectacular gold and copper adornments on just a
small fraction of the total burials at Varna led to the obvious conclusion that they must have been
social elites, perhaps the earliest evidence of such class differentiation. Grave 43 contained more
gold than has been found in the entire rest of the world for that epoch (Ivanov 1978). Some
graves were empty, cenotaphs, but loaded with grave goods. The findings also showed that the
Varna culture had distant trade relations (possibly from the lower Volga and the Cyclades),
perhaps exporting copper and salt. As one can imagine, this finding was of great interest to
more anthropologically inclined archaeologists wanting to look at social processes such as social
differentiation, stratification, exchange of prestige goods with other regions (Renfrew 1978,
1986; Marazov 1997; Ivanov 2000; Chapman 1990, 1991; Chapman et. al 2006) and even more
post-processual archaeologists looking at the symbolic aspects and belief systems of the culture
(Nikolov, 1994, Smolenov et. al 2009).
The excavations of the Varna cemetery continued into the 1990’s by the Bulgarian’s but a
full publication of the site and it’s archaeological finds has not yet been published (Hingham et.
al 2007) It was not until the late 2000’s that accelerated mass spectrometry dating gave us
reliable accurate dates for this site. (Chapman et. al 2006; Higham et. al 2007; Reingruber and
Thissen 2009). The dates showed it was in use earlier than thought previously, many of them
fitting into the 46th century BC. The results suggest it was used relatively briefly, perhaps 50
years. The Chalcolithic was now seen as a crucial stage in the cultural evolution towards
civilization.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain in 1989, archaeology in the
Balkans and the rest of Eastern Europe entered a new phase. Previously, these countries mostly
were closed to Western archaeologists. Only Yugoslavia, communist but independent of the
Soviet Bloc, was open to the West. Western scholars had to rely on reports from local
archaeologists. While the Balkans and Soviet Union produced excellent archaeologists, the West
brought new methods, theories, and often more advanced equipment into the field. The 1990’s
saw the emergence of new technologies such as Geographic Information Systems and
geophysical remote sensing equipment. Ironically, with the new political and visa freedoms,
archaeology of the Chalcolithic Balkans has not accelerated much at all, to the best of my
knowledge. Some would say that, if anything, archaeology and archaeologists in most Balkan
countries are worse off than before (Bailey 2000). During the decades of Marxist socialism there
was ideological primacy and assured financial support for projects. But in recent years, budgets
have been thin.
Nevertheless, there have been a number of recent projects that are usually co-operations
between native and Western archaeologists. The Southern Romania Archaeological Project
(SRAP, 1998 to present) is a Romanian-British collaboration between Cardiff University, School
of History, Archaeology & Religion (Professor D. Bailey and Dr S. Mills), the Teleorman
County Museum, Alexandria, (Mr P. Mirea) and the Romanian National Historical Museum,
Bucuresti (Dr. R. Andreescu). SRAP focuses its attention on the Neolithic and Eneolithic (6000-
3600 BC) around the village of Măgura in the Teleorman River Valley, 85 km southwest of
Bucuresti. It’s objectives are to understand both the middle-late Neolithic shift to permanent tell
villages at the beginning of the 5th millennium and also to understand why those tells were
abandoned at the end of the late Neolithic (from 4000 BC). SRAP research focuses on fluvial
geomorphology in the valley.
One of the most important figures in the history of archaeology in the prehistoric Balkans
is Henrieta Todorova. Her 40 years of research and the many extensive excavations she has led
has significantly widened our knowledge of the Neolithic, Eneolithic, the Proto-Bronze Age, and
paleo-climate in this part of the world. She defended her doctorate thesis on the “Eneolithic
Ceramic From Thrace and North-Eastern Bulgaria” in 1964 at the Archaeological Institute of the
Slovakian Academy of Sciences under Anton Totchik. Her book, The Eneolithc Period in
Bulgaria in the Fifth Millennium B.C., has become one of the most widely cited publications on
the Chalcolithic Balkans to date. From 1967 to 2003 she worked at the Archaeological Institute
of the Bulgarian Academy of Science in Sofia. Her research has concentrated mainly on the
Neolithic and Eneolithic periods in North-Eastern Bulgaria and on the western Black Sea coast,
about which we had virtually no information prior to the 1960’s (Stefanovich, Angelova 2007).
She was the first to note the particular significance of the area around the Varna Lake in 1967,
later to be confirmed by Ivanov.
Todorova excavated at the necropolis of Durankulak and shed light on the origin of the
Neolithic Hamangia culture, which she identified as the most eastern group of the lower
Danubian Vinca Cultural Complex in the 6th millennium and not as originating from Anatolia as
was previously thought. She also excavated at other tell sites and her excavations at Durankulak
continued for over 30 years. She has made this a key area of research for European prehistory.
The data gathered there has greatly enhanced our knowledge of the social and demographic
structure of the Eneolithic society in the 5th mil B.C., and also on a number of cultural aspects
and burial customs. She was the first to link cognate cultures in Bulgaria into large cultural
blocs, such as the Kodjadermen-Gumelnita-Karanovo VI Comlex (KGK VI). This allowed the
complicated character of the prehistoric development on the Balkan Peninsula to be defined in
terms of pan-regional processes. “Thus, Balkan prehistory was freed from the cul-de-sac of
limited local research.” (Stefanovich, Angelova 2007: 17). She also discovered a number of new
archaeological cultures, phases and periods. At Ochorovo, she contributed to questions of
Eneolithic cult and beliefs by illustrating a pantheon of gods of the sun, moon, and natural
elements and contributed to our understanding of the role of idol figures of this age. She is
currently a member of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin and a member of the
permanent council of the Union International des Sciences Pre- et Protohistoriques.
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Post by Admin on Mar 9, 2022 1:10:38 GMT
The Deutsches Archäologiches Institut (German Archaeological Institute) has been very
important for research into the Chalcolithic in cooperation with local archaeologists in recent
years. One project is focused on the late Chalcolithic cultures (Cernavoda I and Usatovo) on the
steppe margins in modern day Moldavia and far western Ukraine. This project began in 2007
and has used remote sensing at selected sites in order to determine their structure. Furthermore,
the excavation at the settlement site of Orklovka near Reni (Ukraine) will look at the
stratigraphic succession of the Gumelnita, Gernavoda I and Usatovo cultures for the first time.
Samples will be taken for archaeobotanical and archaeozoological examination and for
radiocarbon dating. Above all, the research project concentrates on geophysical prospecting.
Another ongoing project of the DAI is at the site of Pietrele in the Wallachian Plain (Hansen et
al; 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007). This project aims at learning more about cultural
relationships on the Lower Danube during the fifth millennium BC. It also looks at the use of
space in the site and makes good use of geophysics. Criticism of some of this German research
has come from Dragoman and Marghitu (2007) as being overly functionalist, positivist in their
interpretation and paradigm. “A great importance is paid to the differences between the
functional areas within the settlement, established by plotting the archaeological material on the
plan of the settlement,’ and “the villages are conceived as a sum of houses defined as ‘economic
units’.” Indeed, it does appear that functionalism and a settlement archaeological approach
based on quantitative methods and backed by the ‘hard’ sciences seems to be the paradigm for
the project but this is not a bad thing. This criticism seems to come from a want of more postprocessual theory and phenomenology. They also say that although the aim is to understand the
evolution towards social inequality, what it is meant by this change is not discussed. The
concept of social structure is not theorized at all. (2007; 106) People do not act in ways that
seem rational as to fit a functionalist model.
Nevertheless, the Germans’ work at Pietrele appears to be the most sophisticated going
on at the moment. The scale of the operation is unlike any other excavation into the Chalcolithic
Balkans. Its block excavation is similar to those at Vinca and Karanovo and is aimed at
understanding the architecture of the structures and overall layout of the site. It looks at the use
of space within the houses. It is a multiple disciplinary work receiving a generous amount of
funding from the German government. It is done at the appropriate scale with the appropriate
personnel. Pietrele should be a model for other excavations.
The Neolithic and Eneolithic in Hungary seems to have been getting a fair amount of
attention in recent years (Giblin 2009; Giblin et. al 2013; Gulyás & Sümegi 2011; Parsons 2012).
The Körös Regional Archaeological Project from 2000-2006 at Early Copper Age Tiszapolgar
Culture sites on the Hungarian Plain was a multi-discipline study aimed at building a model of
social organization from the period (Parkinson et. al 2010). Archaeology of the Neolithic and
Chalcolithic in Hungary appears to be on the rise with specific research questions looking at
aspects of demography and cultural change.
Research has also been going on the other margin of the Southeast European Chalcolithic
steppe margin. One Tripolye town, Tal’yanki with an estimated area of 450 hectares, would
have been the largest of its time 3500 BC, even larger than Uruk (Anthony 2007, 278-281).
Interest has risen sharply in recent years on these enormous Late Chalcolithic Cucuteni-Tripolye
sites largely because of the geophysical prospecting that has shown the full sizes of these sites
that was not known before.
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Post by Admin on Mar 9, 2022 19:54:57 GMT
CHALCOLITHIC CULTURE
POTTERY:
There were very distinct regional styles of fine pottery with varied shape and decoration:
“dark burnished vessels painted with graphite in Bulgaria (Gumelnitsa, Salcutsa); dark burnished
vessels decorated with fluting and pattern burnish in Yugoslavia (Vinča); dark pottery encrusted
with red, yellow and white paint after firing in western Hungary (Lengyel); plain dark pottery
with warts and knobs in eastern Hungary (Tiszapolgar); and polychrome vessels painted before
firing in Romania (Petresti) and the Ukraine (Tripolye)” (Barker, 1985). Nonetheless, there is a
general similarity in ceramics among the cultures of this period; pottery was elaborately
decorated with painted and incised designs. Bowls with thick rolled ring-edges are common for
the Eneolithic of the entire Balkan Peninsula and northwest Anatolia (Todorova 1995). We see
patterns of cultural continuity from Neolithic pottery forms into the Chalcolithic (Renfrew 1979:
148). A pattern of increasing complexity and diversity in painted pottery over time beginning in
the Neolithic suggests increasing social diversification and craft specialization within these
growing communities. It may have been that individual potters attempted to stamp their own
identity onto their work to distinguish them from the other village potters or from the
neighboring village. However, in the Late Eneolithic KGk-VI cultural complex in the northeast
Balkan Peninsula we see pottery which is typologically uniform: grey-black and black pottery
known as Gumelnita ware, decorated chiefly with negative graphite ornament or barbotine on the
coarse ware. There was an emphasis on dark metallic finishes decorated with incised and
encrusted designs after firing (Barker 1985). Bailey said (2000: 227) that the common ceramic
link for all of these regions was the presence of graphite-decorated pottery, although there are
other similarities such as excised decoration. The appearance of graphite-decorated pottery
most of the Lower Danube tells were occupied for a relatively short amount of time but with
rapid rates of accumulation (Hansen et al 2009). Gimbutas states (1976: 32) that at least five
hundred tells containing Gumelnitsa material remains have been recorded in Romania, Bulgaria,
and eastern Macedonia and that they were occupied for nearly a millennium.
After the middle of the sixth millennium, there were important alterations in the building
organization at existing settlement tells. Changes include an increase in the size of individual
buildings, an increase in the number of rooms within buildings and in the organizational
complexity of the rooms and space inside these buildings and they were made of more durable
materials.
Tells were usually enclosed by a ditch and palisade. They were usually organized into
several standardized rectangular enclosures with alleyways and narrow streets, a design, which
implies the existence of a predetermined plan (cf. Todorova 1984 for Bulgarian tells; Gheorgiu
2008). We find evidence of zoning within settlements as seen with the creation of ceramic
manufacturing workshops and areas in order to create storage vessels for increasing populations
and agricultural production (Ellis 1984). There were also buildings for copper and lithic
production. The degree of planning of the settlement layout is less so with the flat sites, where
there was more potential for accretion and cumulative change given the unenclosed space.
(Chapman 1989: 40). Some settlements along the Black Sea coast, such as Ezerovo, had pile-dwellings.
At the Lower Danube site of Pietrele, geomagnetic survey shows that houses were
arranged in rows running east to west, whereas the houses themselves are oriented north-south
(Figure 4). Twenty-five constructions could be distinguished from the survey. “Supposing that
the dwellings were in use simultaneously and calculating 8-9 inhabitants per house, then some
200-225 people might have been living on the tell.” (Reingruber et. al, 2010: 172). There were
also similar remains visible to the north and west of the mound. Located at the fringes of the tell
were the kilns and installations for processing copper, yet no dwelling areas. These peripheral
structures were also positioned in rows running east-west. Thus according to Reingruber,
Hansen, and Toderas, tells can now be seen as being only a part of a more complex settlement.
Taking all the houses visible in the magnetogram, up to 1000 people could have lived on and
near the tell. “A much higher population would explain far better how the numerous economical
activities could have actually been mastered”.
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