by Chris Fowler
This modelling can go one step further. If the population density of the Visoko basin was similar to other Butmir core areas, then a population of c. 32,000 across the 1,000 sq. km of this cultural group’s distribution can be extrapolated. Counting half the mountainous landscape between Butmir and other groups as belonging to the former gives a ‘territory’ of 18,000 sq. km, and accordingly, a general population density of 1.8 persons per sq. km (Fig. 3.3).
Whilst population density and land use indicate local mobility in the form of transhumance, other spheres of late Neolithic life were organized differently in respect to the movement of people, items, and ideas. Late Neolithic material culture illustrates a steady ‘flow’ of symbols and signs up and down the Bosna-Neretva communication route: a corridor of interaction is certainly demonstrated by late Neolithic impressed pottery, which was produced locally along the named route, but which shared a common design and decorative tradition. In this case, material culture exemplifies the linkage of local groups and perhaps even the sorts of contacts that social factors like marriage custom would generate. Interestingly, during both the early and late Neolithic the appearance of different ceramic types in Bosnia appears structured. The restriction of certain ‘Adriatic’ or ‘Danubian’ types appears to mirror political control over communication in this area of the Balkans and whether local institutions gave way or not to foreign influences on their own household units.
Whilst ceramic design mirrors the local constraints of social relations, and transhumance the regional organization of subsistence, late Neolithic weaponry shows an affiliation to political tradition. The contrasting distribution of arrowheads and sling shots cuts Bosnia in half, highlighting the complexity of boundaries and mobility in the late Neolithic world of the Balkans. This pattern in weaponry is trans- cended by the flow of other design types like impressed decorative patterns and by raw materials being found across both parts of Bosnia. Special flint materials were imported from the north into the Bosnian central zone. The economic, social, and ritual spheres of late Neolithic societies hence reacted quite differently to the spatial dimensions of communication and separation. In consequence, late Neolithic individuals in the Bosna valley were confronted with different types of mobility and different motivations for accepting and integrating foreign items and people into their local community.
COPPER AGE DEVELOPMENTS
The introduction of copper metallurgy was to have a profound impact on the communities of south-east Europe and upon patterns of mobility. Whilst the reasons for its development are still a matter of discussion, its chronology and geographical spread can now be described (Lichardus 1991; Parkinson 2002; Strahm 1994; Todorova 1982). The earliest copper artefacts are known from Veselinovo and Karanovo III sites in Bulgaria and Vinča B sites in Serbia. Nevertheless, the first evidence of metallurgical working—including the full range of processes from smelting raw materials through to casting and the final making of copper artefacts—dates from 4800 BC onwards from Maritsa in Bulgaria, Vinča C in the central Danube, and Herpaly and Theiss in the Tisza region. The copper mines in Rudna Glava and Ai Bunar, probably set up already c. 5000 BC, symbolized the importance of copper production for Thracian and Danubian communities. This more or less industrial scale of copper production was to promote social differentiation within early Chalcolithic societies, especially during Vinča C/D and Kojadermen-Gumelniţa-Karanovo (KGK) VI. Around 4500 BC, during KGK VI and Vinča D, important social differences are displayed at the Varna cemetery and by the spatial differences between houses on the settlement mound and much of the surrounding flat area at the sites of Pietrele and Czőshalom as a result of metallurgy (Hansen et al. 2004; Raczky et al. 2002).
The origins of the Chalcolithic in south-east Europe are unclear. Although metallurgy is known in Anatolia from around 6000 BC, evidence for its existence is limited (Pernicka et al. 1997). The role and quantity of Anatolian copper products in Çatal, Hacilar, and Ilipinar is in each phase small, and certainly much smaller than at the KGK VI and Vinča sites of around 4500 BC (Fig. 3.4). Contacts between Anatolia and south-east Europe are assumed, yet it appears that the ‘idea’ of metallurgy in Bulgaria and west Asia possibly differed. Early copper metallurgy in south-east Europe may have therefore emerged as an independent innovation. Beside regional ornament types, it appears mainly heavy copper axes were produced.
FIG. 3.4. Distribution of tell settlements (a), copper production (b), Spondylus artefacts (c), and shaft-hole axes (d) in south-east Europe. The lines are chronological estimations of their spread BC
(drawing by Holger Dieterich, Kiel).
This innovation was accompanied by important changes in the social and political system. The symmetrical and rectilinear layout of concentrated occupation at tells is not just a matter of planning, but also of social control (Chapman 1994b). Ovcarovo is one example of such a tell site. These organized settlements with defensive systems were linked to a change in the spatial organization of burial, cemeteries in the vicinity of sites replacing burial in the settlements themselves (Todorova 2002).
Social stratification resulted in a need to express social status (Müller and Bernbeck 1996), thereby enhancing the flow of goods, and especially exotic goods, in south-east Europe. Beside elaborate copper artefacts, gold and shell objects assumed different values, as illustrated by the grave goods of Varna (Müller 1997; cf. Fig. 3.5): gold objects were found in graves with the largest number of objects, whilst Spondylus and copper objects are associated with a second group of individuals. They are still richly equipped, but not as clearly linked to important supra-regional networks as those with gold and other objects. Here access to exotic and expensive objects like gold artefacts was restricted to elderly men, who had obviously monopolized social knowledge and controlled the exchange system.
FIG. 3.5. The distribution of local and exotic items in burials of the central area of the Varna cemetery.
(drawing by Holger Dieterich, Kiel).
The extent of Copper Age societies and their exchange systems is represented by the distribution of copper shaft-hole axes and Spondylus artefacts. Spondylus artefacts are distributed all over south-east Europe and seem to assume a higher value the further they are from the Mediterranean and Aegaen, since in central Europe they are only found in the richest burials. Copper shaft-hole axes are widely known across the Carpathian Basin and as far away as southern Scandinavia (Klassen 2004). Continental north-west–south-east networks clearly functioned to link together different groups who themselves were at different technological levels. These networks are responsible for the distribution of ideas and the flow of goods between neighbouring villages and societies. Many innovations, which had already reached south-east Europe during the early Neolithic, are transformed during the Chalcolithic of northern regions. Figure 3.4 summarizes the major flows of some of these ideas and inventions, charting the distribution of tell sites, copper production, shaft-hole axes, and Spondylus shell products. New social orders are created in the Carpathian Basin, leading to independent regional developments like the Tiszapolgár and Bodrogkeresztur (Banffy 1991; Parkinson 2006).
Despite these typological similarities and the flow of items, the few demographic calculations available for the Chalcolithic do not indicate population rates much different from the late Neolithic (Müller 2007). There is little evidence for demographic pressure impacting on the movement of people. aDNA and strontium isotope analysis suggest the movement of local and regional cattle populations via herding networks, but if there had been a steady flow of items and animals it was not matched by human immigration (Bollongino 2006; Giblin 2009).
Tell sites were abandoned from the second half of the fifth millennium BC in the Carpathian region, and by about 3800 BC elsewhere in south-east Europe (Link 2006). The demise of the ‘tell cultures’ was not an abrupt event resulting from the invasion or influx of Pontic steppe populations. Rather, tells were abandoned individually and not as part of a synchronous process. New commun
ication patterns arose, with a change in the range of strontium isotope values between tell and non-tell societies in the Carpathian Basin indicating that local populations became more mobile, perhaps because they were now part of less integrated social units (Giblin 2009).
Starting around 3800 BC, the Boleráz-Cernavoda III ceramic tradition linked the lower and middle Danube regions (Furholt 2008). The communication network integrates both these important spatial foci of Chalcolithic development. New innovations took place, but the absence of economic data makes it difficult to identify and describe the processes at work. Some time around 3500 BC the wheel and wagon were introduced across central and eastern Europe (Bakker et al. 1999; Maran 2004). This switch to the use of draught animals for traction must have been linked to economic transformations, and large quantities of spindle whorls point to the introduction of woolly sheep and changes in textile production.
It is difficult to identify the level of mobility associated with these innovations, but the Boleráz/Cernavoda III and Baden sequences mark the emergence of supra-regional archaeological groups united by distinctive similarities in material culture. Whilst it is possible to reconstruct mobility during the Neolithic and early Chalcolithic, the character and driving force of late Chalcolithic interaction is still poorly understood. What is clear is that these processes lead to new social inter-relations and the resulting exchange systems of tin bronze which characterize the Bronze Age.
CONSEQUENCES
The mosaic-like introduction of farming subsistence strategies into south-east Europe enhanced the mobility of groups and interaction between them. Both the economic potential of different ecological settings and population sizes in agricultural core areas were responsible for Neolithic and Chalcolithic local and regional mobility. The demands of complex societies for ritual activity and social prestige items furthered long-distance barter. With the ending of tell settlements in south-east Europe, the spatial scale changed again to broader possibilities of regional movement due to less integrated social structures. Nevertheless, the agencies of supra-regional archaeological phenomena, starting at around 3800 BC, are still a matter of discussion.
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