Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:49:56.862Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Early Neolithic Land Use in Yugoslavia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Graeme Barker
Affiliation:
Department of Ancient History, Sheffield University

Extract

Ever since the publication of Gordon Childe's Danube in Prehistory, almost fifty years ago, the first neolithic colonisation of temperate Europe through the Balkans has been one of the cornerstones of European prehistory. There is still a consensus of opinion in most of the recent literature on the general character of this process: that it involved the transmission of farming techniques and probably the movement of groups of peoples—the first farmers. Farming was ‘carried into central Europe up the Danube … a stone-using agricultural peasantry was widely established in eastern Europe by 5000 B.C.’ (Piggott 1965, 46). However, it has been extremely difficult to proceed beyond this kind of general statement, because there is still an alarming shortage of detailed economic evidence from early neolithic sites in the Balkans. Plant remains and animal bones have been reported from neolithic sites scattered across the area (Murray 1970; Renfrew 1973), but in many cases the recovery of this kind of economic evidence was not the primary objective of excavation and, as a result, the methods employed to gather such evidence have rarely been sufficiently refined to meet the stringent requirements of modern faunal and plant analysis. Alexander (1972, 34) noted recently that, in the case of the First Neolithíc of Yugoslavia, ‘there is as yet no detailed analysis of the animmal bones from any site’ and adequate faunal and botanical reports from early neolithic excavations are still all too few in the Balkan area as a whole.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, J., 1972. Yugoslavia. London, Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Ammerman, A. J. and Cavalli-Sforza, L. L., 1971. ‘Measuring the rate of spread of early farming in Europe’, Man, 6 (1), 674–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angel, L., 1968. ‘Human remains at Karataş’, American Journal of Archaeology, 62 (3), 260–3.Google Scholar
Bökönyi, S., 1964. ‘The vertebrate fauna of the neolithic settlement at Maroslele Pana’, Archaeologiai Ertesítö, 91, 8793. (In Hungarian with English summary).Google Scholar
Brukner, B., 1960. ‘Die Resultate der Schutzausgrabung auf der Lokalität “Baštine” bei Obrež’, Rod Vojvodanski Muzeja Novi Sad, 9, 110–11.Google Scholar
Brukner, B., 1968. Neolit u Vojvodini. Beograd-Novi Sad, Vojvodanski Muzej.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1929. The Danube in Prehistory. Oxford, Clarendon.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1957. The Dawn of European Civilization. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 6th edition.Google Scholar
Chisholm, M., 1968. Rural Settlement and Land Use. London, Hutchinson University Library, 2nd edition.Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D., 1965. ‘Radiocarbon dating and the expansion of farming culture from the Near East over Europe’, PPS, 21, 5873.Google Scholar
Dennell, R. W. and Webley, D., 1975. ‘Prehistoric settlement and land use in southern Bulgaria’. In Higgs, E. S. (ed.). Palaeoeconomy. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 97109.Google Scholar
Dohrs, F. E., 1971. ‘Nature versus ideology in Hungarian agriculture: problems of intensification’. In Hoffman, G. W. (ed.). Eastern Europe: Essays in Geographical Problems. London, Methuen, 271–95.Google Scholar
Dudal, R., Tavernier, R. and Osmond, D., 1966. Soil Map of Europe (with accompanying text). Rome, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.Google Scholar
Galović, R., 1962n1963. ‘Neue Funde der Starčevo Kultur in Mittelserbien und Makedonien’, Bericht der Römisch-Germanisch Kommission, 43–44, 129.Google Scholar
Garašanin, D. A., 1954. Starčevačka Kultura. Ljublana, Arheološki Seminar.Google Scholar
Garašanin, M. V., 1953. ‘Preistoriski nalazi iz Crnobuki kok Bitolja’, Arheološki Vesinik, 7593.Google Scholar
Garašanin, M. V. and Garašanin, D. A., 19601961. ‘L'habitat néolithique de Vršnik près de Tarinci’, Zbornik Stipskiot Naroden Muzej Stip, 2, 740.Google Scholar
Garašanin, M. V., Sanev, V., Simoska, D. and Kitanoski, B., 1971. Les Civilisations Préhistoriques de la Macédoine. Stip, Naroden Muzej.Google Scholar
Gimbutas, M., 1972. ‘Excavation at Anza, Macedonia’, Archaeology, 25, 112–23.Google Scholar
Grbić, M., 1960. Porodin. Bitolj, Naroden Muzej.Google Scholar
Higgs, E. S. and Vita-Finzi, C., 1972. ‘Prehistoric economies: a territorial approach’. In Higgs, E. S. (ed.). Papers in Economic Prehistory. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2736.Google Scholar
Hopf, M., 19601961. ‘Untersuchugsberich über Kornfunde aus Vršnik’, Zbornik Stipskiot Naroden Muzej Stip, 2, 41–5.Google Scholar
Kutzian, I. B., 1947. The Körös Culture. Budapest, Dissertationes Pannonicae.Google Scholar
McPherron, A., and Srejović, D., 1971. Early Farming Cultures in Central Serbia. Kragujevac, Naroden Muzej.Google Scholar
Murray, J., 1970. The First European Agriculture. Edinburgh, University Press.Google Scholar
Nandris, J., 1970. ‘Groundwater as a factor in the First Temperate Neolithic settlement of the Körös region’, Zbornik Naroden Muzej Beograd, 6, 5971.Google Scholar
Nemeček, J., 1971. ‘Determinations of the age of organic material by C14’, Rostlina Vyruba, 17 (7), 745–51.Google Scholar
Osborne, R. H., 1967. East-Central Europe. London, Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar
Pešić, B. R. (ed.), 1967. Soils of the Velika Morava and Mlava Basin. Beograd, NOLIT Publishing House.Google Scholar
Piggott, S., 1965. Ancient Europe. Edinburgh, University Press.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1969. The Arts of the First Farmers. Sheffield, Sheffield City Museum.Google Scholar
Renfrew, J. M., 1973. Palaeoethnobotany. London, Methuen.Google Scholar
Rodden, R., 1963. ‘Excavations at the early neolithic site of Nea Nikomedeia, Greek Macedonia’, PPS, 28, 267–88.Google Scholar
Shackleton, M. R., 1964. Europe—A Regional Geography. London, Longmans (7th edition).Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. G., 1972. ‘Socio-economic and demographic models for the Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Europe’. In Clarke, D. L. (ed.). Models in Archaeology. London, Methuen, 477542.Google Scholar
Tanasijević, D., Antonović, G., Aleksić, Z., Pavicević, N., Filipović, D. and Spasojević, M., 1966. Pedologic Cover of Western and Northwestern Serbia. Beograd, NOLIT Publishing House.Google Scholar
Tringham, R., 1971. Hunters, Fishers and Farmers of Eastern Europe 6000–3000 B.C. London, Hutchinson University Library.Google Scholar
Yugoslavia, volume 1 (1944). Geographical Handbook Series of the Naval Intelligence Division.Google Scholar
Yugoslavia, volume 3 (1945). Geographical Handbook Series of the Naval Intelligence Division.Google Scholar