Lost in Transition: The problem of Early/Middle to Late Neolithic Transition in Yugoslav/Serbian Archaeology of the second half of the 20th century

Abstract

Numerous Neolithic sites from the territory of modern Serbia and adjacent areas have traditionally been attributed, on the grounds of the archaeological finds, to two “cultures” – Starčevo and Vinča. Their definition and relativechronological demarcation have been based upon the extreme abundance of pottery finds; unsurprisingly, the issues of transition between “early” and “late” Neolithic have also been treated from the culture-historical point of view, above all according to the qualities of shards. Differing opinions concerning the role of the Central Balkans in the process of transition led to several different solutions to the problem.By the end of 1990s, the issue of the Neolithic transition has been totally neglected, in spite of the fact that extensive field research has been conducted since then and a number of new sites have been identified. On the other hand, the current archaeological approaches treating the variability of archaeological material (pottery) and interpretation based upon the analysis of technological style with the aim to identify social groups, i.e. group identities, would be highly appropriate for the study of transition processes. Pottery is still crucial, but not as a corpus of material with certain typological characteristics, but as a source of information on socially conditioned practices (techniques of production, ways of learning and transferring knowledge), as the consequences of specific traditions. The research into the problem of the Neolithic transition from this angle would offer answers to crucial, but yet unresolved questions.

Demography of the Early Neolithic Population in Central Balkans: Population Dynamics Reconstruction Using Summed Radiocarbon Probability Distributions

“…The transition between Starčevo and Vinča seems to conform to this general pattern. Sites with mixed Starčevo and Vinča assemblages (with vessels produce with mixed technologies) may be particularly interesting in this regard [ 22 , 85 ], although it is not likely that there was a bias against these sites in Serbian archaeology because the Serbian researchers artificially solved this problem by assuming two different phases on these sites purely on typological ground and in the absence of stratigraphic evidence [ 85 ]. Therefore, these sites would not stand out as culturally undetermined.…”

Food Production and Security in the Area of Serbia: Historical Background and Current Situation

“…This, long before the beginning of agriculture, was the time when humans separated from other animals, i.e., stood up (Homo erectus), began to use their hands to make tools, and moved from gesticular to mutual verbal communication. Later, in the period before around 200,000 years ago and according to skeletal remains, anatomically modern people mostly lived in small groups of around 20 members (Baltić and Bošković, 2015;Hailicwkes, 1966;Vuković, 2015).…”

Late Neolithic Figurines as an Expression of Social Inequality

“…Etnoarheološka istraživanja i analize zanatske proizvodnje pokazali su da zanatlije nisu imale mnogo prostora da eksperimentišu, niti slobodu da izraze kreativnost. Sasvim suprotno tome, svaka zanatska aktivnost bila je veoma konzervativna, a u očuvanju tradicije, koja uključuje primenu jasno određenih procedura i tehnika i izradu predmeta određenog izgleda, ključan je socijalni pritisak, koji neretko uključuje i određene vrste sankcija (Gosselain 1992, Vuković 2015. S druge strane, pokazano je da ukrašavanje predstavlja onaj aspekt zanatske proizvodnje gde majstor ima veću slobodu izraza i može da iskaže svoju kreativnost (Chilton 1999;Dietler and Herbich 1989;Stark 1999) 8 .…”