Absolute dating of Copper and Early Bronze Age levels on the eponymous archaeological site Bubanj (South-Eastern Serbia).

This paper reports the first radiocarbon dates obtained for the Eneolithic / Bronze Age site of Bubanj, Serbia. Despite featuring prominently in the existing typo-chronological schemes for south Eastern Europe, the history of research and recent large-scale destruction of the site had prevented so far the acquisition of samples from secure archaeological contexts. We fill this documentary gap by presenting ten new radiocarbon dates, covering the late 5th, 4th and 3rd millennium cal. BC. These dates are compared to the existing documentation from the literature, in order to assess the place of Bubanj within its wider archaeological context

New contributions to the absolute chronology at the Early Eneolithic cultures in the central Balkans.

In this study we present new absolute dates for the Early Eneolithic in Serbia. Four of them confirm the recently obtained dates from that period (Bubanj-Hum I culture) but two samples (from Mokranjske stene and Bubanj) provide somewhat later dates for this period, although their stratigraphic context makes their interpretation difficult. Pottery from those sites, besides the typical examples, also shows particular stylistic and typological characteristics that resemble Galatin or Sãlcuþa IV cultures, so one can presume that the Bubanj-Hum I culture in Serbia may have lasted longer than what is generally assumed

New absolute dates as a contribution to the study of the Late Bronze Age Chronology in the Central Balkans

The paper presents three Late Bronze Age absolute dates from contexts located in the territory of western Serbia and northern Republic of Macedonia, and discusses them together with further absolute dates from the same period, which will be published shortly by one of the authors and other colleagues. On the basis of these dates the Late Bronze Age chronology is discussed together with cultural aspects of the groups representative of this period in the Central Balkans

Radiocarbon dating the 3rd millennium BC in the central Balkans: a re-examination of the Early Bronze Age sequence

Long-standing archaeological narratives suggest that the 3rd millennium cal BC is a key period in Mediterranean and European prehistory, characterised by the development of extensive interaction networks. In the Balkans for instance, the identification of such interactions relies solely upon typological arguments associated with conflicting local terminologies. Through a combination of 25 new radiocarbon dates and re-examination of the existing documentation, this paper defines the absolute chronology for groups which were previously only broadly framed into the 3rd millennium BC central Balkans (modern-day Serbia and North Macedonia). These absolute dates allow us to establish with greater clarity the chronological relations between different cultural groups that represent the main cultural units of the central Balkans sequence for the 3rd millennium cal BC: Coțofeni-Kostolac, Bubanj-Hum II, Belotić-Bela Crkva, Armenochori, and Bubanj Hum III. When comparing together the chronologies for material culture, funerary treatment of the body funerary architecture, there are no easily discernable patterns. We observe instead a complex mix of traits criss-crossing over a wide area encompassing the Pannonian basin, the central Balkans and the Greek peninsula

One sea but many routes to Sail. The early maritime dispersal of Neolithic crops from the Aegean to the western Mediterranean.

This paper explores the first maritime westward expansion of crops across the Adriatic and the northern coast of the western Mediterranean. Starting in Greece at c.6500 cal BC and following the coastline to the Andalusian region of Spain to c.4500 cal BC, the presence of the main cereal, pulse, oil and fibre crops are recorded from 122 sites. Patterns in the distribution of crops are explored through ubiquity scores, correspondence analysis and Simpson's diversity index. Our findings reveal changes in the frequencies of crops as farming regimes developed in Europe, and show how different crops followed unique trajectories. Fluctuations in the diversity of the crop spectrum between defined areas are also evident, and may serve to illustrate how founder effects can explain some of the patterns evident in large-scale spatio-temporal evaluations. Within the broader westward expansion of farming, regionalism and multi-directional maritime networks described through archaeological materials are also visible in the botanical records

Along the Rivers and into the Plain: Early Crop Diversity in the Central and Western Balkans and Its Relationship with Environmental and Cultural Variables

Agriculture is a complex and dynamic socio-ecological system shaped by environmental, economic, and social factors. The crop resource pool is its key component and one that best reflects environmental limitations and socio-economic concerns of the farmers. This pertains in particular to small-scale subsistence production, as was practised by Neolithic farmers. We investigated if and how the environment and cultural complexes shaped the spectrum and diversity of crops cultivated by Neolithic farmers in the central-western Balkans and on the Hungarian Plain. We did so by exploring patterns in crop diversity between biogeographical regions and cultural complexes using multivariate statistical analyses. We also examined the spectrum of wild-gathered plant resources in the same way. We found that the number of species in Neolithic plant assemblages is correlated with sampling intensity (the number and volume of samples), but that this applies to all archaeological cultures. Late Neolithic communities of the central and western Balkans exploited a large pool of plant resources, whose spectrum was somewhat different between archaeological cultures. By comparison, the earliest Neolithic tradition in the region, the Starčevo-Körös-Criş phenomenon, seems to have used a comparatively narrower range of crops and wild plants, as did the Linearbandkeramik culture on the Hungarian Plain

Modelling diffusion of innovation curves using radiocarbon data

Archaeological data provide a potential to investigate the diffusion of technological and cultural traits. However, much of this research agenda currently needs more formal quantitative methods to address small sample sizes and chronological uncertainty. This paper introduces a novel Bayesian framework for inferring the shape of diffusion curves using radiocarbon data associated with the presence/absence of a particular innovation. We developed two distinct approaches: 1) a hierarchical model that enables the fitting of an s-shaped diffusion curve whilst accounting for inter-site variations in the probability of sampling the innovation itself, and 2) a non-parametric model that can estimate the changing proportion of the innovation across user-defined time-blocks. The robustness of the two approaches was first tested against simulated datasets and then applied to investigate three case studies, the first pair on the diffusion of farming in prehistoric Japan and Britain and the third on cycles of changes in the burial practices of later prehistoric Britain

A cautionary tale from the Adriatic Palaeolithic: reassessing the stratigraphic reliability of Sandalja II cave (Istria, Croatia)

Šandalja II has been a reference site for numerous decades for the definition and study of the Eastern Adriatic Upper Palaeolithic and corresponding techno-complexes. This is due both to its extensive material record, and the purported presence of some otherwise elusive techno-complexes in the area, such as the Aurignacian and the Early Epigravettian. In this paper, we present two new series of C14-AMS dates (from layers H, E, C/d and A/d) to assess the validity of its archaeological sequence, together with previously obtained radiocarbon dates, both AMS and conventional. The results show, unambiguously, the lack of reliability of the stratigraphy defined for the site during the excavation. A simple chronometric deconstruction reveals, at the very least, that the assemblages from Šandalja II can no longer be considered and used as an example of the diachronic evolution within the Aurignacian and Epigravettian of the Eastern Adriatic, thus calling for a further reevaluation of features defined for the Adriatic Upper Palaeolithic on the basis on the assemblages from Šandalja II. Hence Šandalja II joins an increasing list of so-called reference sites which must not be considered as “referential” anymore

A Vinča potscape: formal chronological models for the use and development of Vinča ceramics in south-east Europe.

Recent work at Vinča-Belo Brdo has combined a total of more than 200 radiocarbon dates with an array of other information to construct much more precise narratives for the structural history of the site and the cultural materials recovered from it. In this paper, we present the results of a recent attempt to construct formal models for the chronology of the wider Vinča potscape, so that we can place our now detailed understanding of changes at Belo Brdo within their contemporary contexts. We present our methodology for assessing the potential of the existing corpus of more than 600 radiocarbon dates for refining the chronology of the five phases of Vinča ceramics proposed by Milojčić across their spatial ranges, including a total of 490 of them in a series of Bayesian chronological models. Then we outline our main results for the development of Vinča pottery. Finally, we discuss some of the major implications for our understanding of the source, character and tempo of material change