Larger populations meant more advanced cultures and societies, and this leads to a phenomenon peculiar to humans: art. The site of Lepenski Vir contains some of the oldest artwork found in the western Balkans. The most notable of these are stone sculptures carved from the rocks found in and around the Danube River, some dated as far back as 6,500 BC. Some of these figurines were placed by the hut’s central stone hearth, while others were placed in association with the graves. Both of these locations indicate that these figures represent protective gods or spirits, either protecting the house or protecting the body and/ or soul of the dead. Some of these figures are quite large. For example, one of them is two feet long and weighs almost two hundred pounds, and would have been virtually impossible to carry around as part of a nomadic society. Therefore the presence of stone sculptures indicates that the people at Lepenski Vir had transitioned from a nomadic to a non-nomadic society.32
However, becoming sedentary has its risks. Unless your habitation site is especially lush and overflowing with bounty, your local food supply will run out eventually. If you cannot easily obtain food from the landscape through a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, then you have to obtain food through other means; you must provide your own food by growing it yourself.
Agriculture appeared in the western Balkans rather early on. The oldest digging tools found in this region, made from bones and deer antlers, are dated to about 6,000 BC. It is interesting to note that even well into the Roman period when iron was readily available, tools made from bone were still being used. Archaeologists have grouped these Neolithic artefacts into what is called the Starcevo Culture, named after an archeological site on the Danube River close to the city of Belgrade where some of these artefacts were discovered. The Starcevo Culture lasted from about 6,000 to 4,500 BC. Farming seems to have occurred in the north first, in the area of the central Danube and its various tributaries, in the areas of northern Serbia, Bulgaria and southern Romania, and it was not until later that farming spread southwards into the rocky hills and mountains of the southern Balkans and northwards into what is now Hungary. It is not surprising that farming would develop in the river valleys first. As said earlier, the fertile soils around the Danube River were favourable for the growth of various types of wild grain such as wheat, barley, oats and rye. In time, people would learn to harvest them and raise them as crops. They would also begin cultivating millet and beans. Furthermore, when growing crops, it helps to have a good water supply.33
With the adoption of agriculture, semi-nomadic camps were replaced by permanent farming communities. Based upon what archaeological discoveries can illustrate, some of these settlements were continuously occupied for thousands of years. Not long after farming took hold, the people in the western Balkans began domesticating animals as well. Cattle, pigs, sheep and goats were raised and butchered for their meat and skins and possibly for their milk. The bones also provided a great source for sculpting utilitarian items such as needles, eating utensils and tools. Ceramic loom weights and spindle whorls indicate that the people were using clay, and were also raising sheep for their wool to make clothing instead of relying upon leather skins.34
During the Neolithic, artwork became more sophisticated. Cylindrical human and animal figurines with crudely-fashioned heads have been discovered dating from Neolithic times. These finds are similar to artefacts found in Greece and Turkey, indicating a common eastern Mediterranean culture, or possibly even early trade. All of this corresponds to what is called the Balkan-Anatolian Complex, an archaeological term for several related cultures that existed at the same time within southeastern Europe and Anatolia.35 Some of the best-known pottery from the prehistoric western Balkans comes from the Butmir Culture, which was exclusive to the region of Bosnia’s capital of Sarajevo, although it was part of the larger Mediterranean Neolithic Culture that spanned the entire Italian Peninsula, the western Balkans, southern and central Gaul and the eastern coast of Spain. The artefacts were first discovered in 1893, and it was determined that they came from a single recognizable culture unique to this region dating from 5,500 to 4,500 BC. Butmir has been declared both the oldest and most well-known Neolithic settlement in all of Bosnia. In addition to the pottery, Butmir is also known for the presence of a substantial number of female figurines, likely representing a fertility cult. The Butmir Culture is divided into three phases, all of them dated to the Late Neolithic. Of these, Butmir II is especially noteworthy for its remarkable artwork. The region around Butmir, which is a neighbourhood in the town of Ilidža, which is itself a suburb of the city of Sarajevo, is rich in flint, and this is what likely drew large numbers of human settlers here since there was a vast abundance of tool-making stone. At Butmir, there were found large flint knives, arrowheads and axes. Ilidža is also the home of Bosna Spring, the source of fresh water from which the Bosna River emerges. On the whole, it was an ideal place for settlement.36
With a readily-available food source also came a substantial increase in the region’s population. At Okolište, Bosnia, the remains of a massive Neolithic settlement were discovered, dated to 5,200-4,500 BC. At its height, it covered an area of just over 18.5 acres and is estimated to have contained a population of about 1,000 people, which is unheard-of for this time period. This village was also fortified, surrounded by a ditch and a wooden palisade wall with only one entrance. At Obre, located in the fertile valley of the Trstionica River, not far from the town of Kakanj, Bosnia, excavations were conducted showing that its history stretched back to the Neolithic. During Obre’s earliest phase, the people’s homes were ‘pit houses’, common among the Slavic, Baltic and other eastern and northern European peoples from ancient to modern times. As time progressed, both the houses and the settlement as a whole became more sophisticated. At Butmir, in the layers identified as Butmir II and Butmir III, the houses were rectangular longhouses made of wattle-and-daub, which would have been very similar to those constructed by the Celts of the Hallstat Culture or the ancient Germanic tribes, and were arranged in rows on a grid pattern like modern streets. One of the houses that was excavated actually had a floor made of wooden boards, and at one end was a dome-shaped oven with an ash pit, along with a separate area for grinding grains. The oven, commonly called a ‘calotte’, is similar to modern-day bread ovens used by the Serbians and other people living today in the western Balkans called a furuna, also spelled as vuruna or vurnja, possibly a derivative of the word ‘furnace’. Food, especially grain, was stored inside the house in large ceramic containers. Outside the house were buildings that archaeologists suspect might have been workshops to craft the pottery and other artwork that we see in this region dated to this time.37
In addition to sculptures and decorated household goods, artwork can also take the form of personal ornamentation. We have many examples of jewellery made from the shells of Spondylus gaederopus, commonly called the European Thorny Oyster.38 The shells of this marine animal have been found in archaeological sites throughout Europe dating as far back as the Paleolithic. The fact that we have people from an inland culture wearing jewellery made from the shells of oceanic invertebrates indicates that there must have been some sort of early trade network in the western Balkans at this time, in which inland settlements could obtain goods from the sea coast. The trade in Spondylus shells was almost pan-European, with specimens being found as far away as central Germania, the Carpathian Basin and even in the foothills of the Swiss Alps, which is about as far from the European coast as you can get.39
In addition to art, another important addition to culture occurred during this time: writing. It is possible that one of the world’s oldest writing systems appeared in the Danube River Valley at around 5,500 BC. The ‘Vinca symbols’ are a series of symbols that have been found on pieces of pottery and other clay objects. Some of them are geometric in shape, while others can be described as hieroglyphic in appearance. I was always taught that the oldest-known writing that appeared in the world had occurred in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and schola
rs of these two regions state with pride that these areas were the birthplace of writing. However, the symbols uncovered in Romania and Serbia pre-date the oldest-known writing by more than a thousand years. Many scholars, especially those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, express high doubts that these symbols represent a language and might refer to something else.40
Illyria Modernizes through Metal
The Stone Age ended when people began using metal to make tools instead of relying on stones and bones, and the first metal to be exploited by early Man was copper. In 2008, the oldest-known copper axe from Europe was found in Prokuplje, Serbia, dated to around 5,500 BC.41 While some might have claimed that this showed copper being imported into the western Balkans from elsewhere, possibly Mesopotamia where it was long-believed that copper production began, this view dramatically changed in 2010 when it was discovered that Belovode, Serbia, located on Mount Rudnik, contained the oldest-known site for copper smelting, also dated to about 5,500 BC.42 The adoption of copper in the region possibly marks the beginning of the Butmir Culture.
Around the year 4,500 BC, the Butmir Culture, which had dominated much of what is now Bosnia for a thousand years, fell away and other cultures took its place. One of them was the ‘Vinca Culture’, named after a settlement on the Danube River near the city of Belgrade. It was during this time that agriculture finally broke out of the well-watered river valleys and began encroaching into the hills. Vinca-style pottery can be distinguished by a much wider variety of forms and decoration than that seen in previous archaeological cultures. The Vinca Culture of central Illyria directly replaced the Butmir Culture, and it lasted for five hundred years.43 During the same time in southern Illyria along the Adriatic coast, the ‘Danilo Culture’ was taking shape. At the hilltop settlement of Danilo Gorje, the remains of twenty-four houses were found, and some of their floors were paved with stone. There also appears to have been some cultural contact across the Adriatic Sea between the Neolithic inhabitants of the western Balkans and the people of eastern Italy, since some of the pottery found at Danilo Gorje reflects Italian style. This could mean that there was active trade between the eastern Italians and the people along the Balkan coast. After all, only a few miles separate Italy’s heel from the Balkans, and even small primitive boats could easily make the trip back and forth. Therefore trade is not an unreasonable idea. It could also mean that the native inhabitants of the western Balkans had seen Italian-style pottery and decided to copy it. Either way, the people of the Danilo Culture liked what the eastern Italians were doing and decided to have Italian-style goods.44
Illyria during the Bronze Age
Unlike agriculture, the adoption of metal tools by the people of the Balkans appears to have been a slow process.45 As said earlier, even after metal tools were in use, some were still using farming tools made out of bone instead of metal. When they finally did decide to switch over to using bronze tools in large quantities, iron had emerged onto the scene.46
By the Bronze Age, the people of the western Balkans were definitely in contact with the outside world, and there appears to have been an especially strong trade connection with the people of modern-day Greece and Turkey. Bronze weapons start turning up in sizeable numbers, including daggers, swords and Minoan-style double-bladed axes. They even had contact either directly or indirectly with the Baltic tribes, because amber from the Baltic region has been found within Illyria, possibly traded down the Vistula River, across the Carpathians, and ending at the northern end of the Adriatic Sea on the border between Italian and Illyrian territory. Amber jewellery was rather popular with the Illyrians, because it is found in some quantity in graves in the form of necklaces, pendants and set within metal brooches. A laboratory analysis conducted in 1976 of amber recovered at Illyrian archaeological sites shows that almost all of it came from the Baltic region. Amazingly, the Illyrians recognized that amber was solidified tree resin, in contrast to Greeks and Romans who thought that it was simply a rock, and they tried to make their own home-made imitation amber from pine resin in their own land, but it didn’t work.47
The ties between Greece and the people of the western Balkans during the Bronze Age are confirmed by the presence of numerous Greek artefacts found within Albania. Most of the artefacts that were found were weapons of Mycenaean design, indicating an impressive arms trade between the early Greeks and the early Illyrians.48 One wonders what the Illyrians traded in exchange for all of these weapons. John J. Wilkes states that manufactured goods were exported to Illyria from Italy and Greece, and in exchange, the Illyrians traded natural products such as grain and animal skins, and possibly slaves.49 However, ‘natural products’ is a bit vague; what does the Illyrian landscape have to offer? From our earlier survey of Illyrian geography, we know that this region is rich in forests, grain and livestock. The Illyrians could have traded timber, grain, live animals, meat and leather. Such products, especially food, would have been in high demand within Greece because the Greek landscape does not have much farmland. Even today, nearly 70 per cent of Greek territory is not suitable for growing crops. The vast grain fields and livestock pastures of Illyria, separated from each other by thickly- forested mountains, must have been viewed by the ancient Greeks as a great centre of natural resource wealth. Grain may have been sent to feed the people and animals, wood was sent for construction and shipbuilding, and leather was used for making clothing and body armour.
Illyria during the Iron Age
Iron became available in the Balkans beginning at around 1,000 BC. It is also around this time that we begin to see the emergence of cultures that can be described as ‘proto-Illyrian’. By the eighth century BC, iron usage had spread entirely through the western Balkans, probably due to increasing contact with Greece and the Celtic tribes.50 The ancient world was getting smaller and less isolated. Expanding populations, improved technologies and the creation of vast trade networks made people more interconnected than ever before. The tribes of the Dinaric Mountains were now in contact all around the ‘civilized’ world. Primary influences upon the lives of these people were the Celts, Greece and northern Italy, notably the Venetics and Etruscans.51
A typical Illyrian settlement during this time consisted of a fortified hilltop settlement, or ‘hill fort’ as it is commonly called. Burial practices took a noticeable shift. During the early Bronze Age, tumulus burials were common, but as the Bronze Age progressed, they were increasingly replaced by cremation burials. By the end of the Bronze Age, cremation graves were common throughout all of south-eastern Europe. In a cremation burial, the dead would be burned and the ashes laid to rest in the ground, sometimes in a ceramic container. With the beginning of the Iron Age, burial rituals abruptly swung back towards laying the dead to rest within circular burial mounds, in many cases defined by stone circles about thirty to forty feet in diameter, often containing two to four graves.52 Since there are numerous archaeological sites of earthen mound burial tombs that have been uncovered in Western Europe and have been attributed to the Celts, the presence of these types of tombs possibly shows the influence of Celtic culture upon the Illyrians, or at least this particular region of Illyria. Some ornamentation was laid with the dead, but not much.53
Until the sixth century BC, tumuli occurred in groups of ten, but afterwards there were more. Major tombs consisted of a central burial chamber lined with roughly-cut stones, with secondary burials around the main central tomb, outside the stone enclosure, and orientated in an east-west direction. Cremation graves became more popular from the end of the sixth century BC onwards. In the sixth and fifth centuries BC, burials became increasingly richer with a lavish profusion of grave goods, including jewellery, weapons, armour and imported Greek and Italian pottery and glassware. Other grave goods appear to be the work of Illyrian craftsmen who were either trained in classical artistic styles or trying to imitate them.54 In the late fifth century and into the early fourth century BC, the dominant burial practices in central and eastern Europe changed from burial mounds t
o individuals being buried in flat graves in vast cemeteries. At the same time, many of the hilltop settlements that prevailed in that region were abandoned and people moved down into the fertile lowlands.55
Metal-working of all sorts became a major industry in Illyria from about the fourth century BC onwards. Archaeologists have uncovered numerous metal-working tools, smelting furnaces, casting moulds and even the graves of the craftsmen themselves. Understandably, local mineral deposits determined what sort of materials would be worked. If a silver mine was found in a certain area, then that location and the area immediately surrounding it would become a centre for silver production. One of the most famous, located in eastern Bosnia, was aptly named ‘Argentaria’ (‘silver place’) by the Romans. Domavia (modern-day Gradina) was also an important centre of silver production, whose job it was to supply silver for the imperial mints to be produced into coins. In Salona, there was a government bureau tasked with overseeing goldmining.56 Some Illyrian tribes made their own coinage. At first, they were simply copies of existing Greek coins, manufactured in the fifth century BC. The Greek colonies located along the Adriatic coast minted their own coins for their own personal use, not for trade with the Illyrians. Later, Illyrian tribes that had gained power and notoriety minted their own coins, but they were not widely circulated.57
The Illyrians had a tendency to adopt aspects of the cultures with which they were in contact. Southern Illyrians were very Hellenized, northern Illyrians were Celtic in appearance, and the Illyrians in the far west were similar to the Etruscans and northern Italians. Among the eastern Illyrians where Greek culture was the dominant force, there were even small aspects of Thracian and Scythian influence.58
The Great Illyrian Revolt Page 4