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[EN] Vrbjanska Čuka is a tell site in the region of Pelagonia (Macedonia) established 8000 years ago by the Neolithic communities. Later it was used as an agricultural unit during the Roman era and the Middle Ages when it was also employed as a burial area. The excavations performed in the 1980s and during the last five years indicate a Neolithic farming society that constructed large buildings made of daub in a settlement enclosed by a circular ditch. The buildings had many clay structures, such as ovens, granaries, bins and grinding areas for processing cereals and bread production. The Neolithic communities used sophisticated fine pottery and modeled figurines and altars, while the stone tools were mainly used for cutting trees, harvesting and grinding. Apart from the cereal-based food (einkorn wheat, emmer wheat or barley), the inhabitants of Vrbjanska Čuka consumed lentils, peas and a variety of gathered wild fruits, while cattle, caprovine, mussels, fish and wild game meat was also part of a diet, as well as the dairy products. This paper will be a summary of a variety of data provided from the current international and multidisciplinary research of the site that involves excavation, prospection, geomagnetic survey, study of material culture, examination of architecture, radiocarbon dating, geoarchaeological, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological, lipid and use-wear analyses, as well as the topographic and 3D modeling. The recent knowledge on Vrbjanska Čuka provides novel understanding of the Early Neolithic in Pelagonia and contributes to the more extensive research of first farming societies in the Balkans., [MK] Врбјанска Чука претставува тумба во котлината Пелагонија (Македонија), основана од неолитските заедници пред 8000 години. Била користена како стопанска целина за време на Римската Империја, но и во текот на средниот век кога исто така функционирала и како некропола. Ископувањата вршени во 1980-те и во последните пет години укажуваат на неолитско земјоделско општество кое конструирало големи градби направени од лепеж во населба заштитена со кружен ров. Во градбите се наоѓале многу глинени конструкции, како што се печки, амбари, сандаци и места за мелење и обработка на житни култури при подготовка на леб. Неолитските заедници користеле софистицирана фина керамика и моделирани фигурини и жртвеници, додека камените алатки главно се користеле за сечење дрвја, жнеење и мелење. Освен храната на база на житни култури (еднозрнеста и двозрна пченица или јачмен), жителите на Врбјанска Чука исто така конзумирале леќа, грашок, разновидно овошје, говедско, овчо и свинско месо, школки, риба и месо од дивеч, како и млечни производи. Овој труд ќе биде резиме на различни податоци добиени од тековните меѓународни и мултидисциплинарни истражувања на локалитетот, а кои вклучуваат ископување, рекогносцирање, геомагнетно скенирање, проучување на материјалната култура, испитување на архитектурата, студии за функциите на алатките, радиојаглеродно датирање, геоархеолошка, археоботаничка, археозоолошка и липидна анализа, како и топографско и 3Д моделирање. Добиените сознанија за Врбјанска Чука даваат ново разбирање на раниот неолит во Пелагонија и придонесуваат за поопсежно истражување на првите земјоделски општества на Балканот., [DE] Vrbjanska Čuka ist ein Tell in der Region Pelagonien (Mazedonien), der vor 8000 Jahren entstand. Während der Römerzeit und im Mittelalter fand hier Landwirtschaft statt, zudem wurde der Hügel als Grabstätte genutzt. Die in den 1980ern sowie während der letzten fünf Jahre erfolgten Ausgrabungen führten den Beleg einer neolithischen bäuerlichen Gesellschaft, die in einer von einem kreisförmigen Graben umschlossenen Siedlung große Gebäude aus Lehm errichtete. In den Gebäuden wurden zahlreiche Lehmstrukturen nachgewiesen, etwa Öfen, Getreidespeicher sowie Bereiche zur Verarbeitung von Getreide und die Herstellung von Brot. Die neolithischen Gemeinden nutzten qualitätvolle Töpferwaren, modellierten Figuren und Altäre, während die hier geborgenen Steinwerkzeuge hauptsächlich zum Fällen von Bäumen, zur Ernte oder für das Mahlen von Getreiden verwendet wurde. Neben Nahrungsmitteln aus Getreide (Einkorn, Emmer, Gerste) konsumierten die Einwohner von Vrbjanska Čuka Linsen, Erbsen und eine Vielzahl wildgesammelter Früchte. Die Ernährung bereicherten ferner Rind-, Ziege/Schaf- und Wildfleisch, außerdem Muscheln und Fisch sowie Milchprodukte. Der vorliegende Beitrag fasst eine Vielzahl von international und multidisziplinär ermittelten Daten zusammen. Diese basieren auf örtlichen Ausgrabungen, Prospektionen, geomagnetischen Untersuchungen, Studien zur materiellen Kultur, der Architektur, Radiokarbondatierungen, geoarchäologischen, archäobotanischen, archäozoologischen und Lipiduntersuchungen. Hinzu kommen Gebrauchsspuranalysen, Studien zur Topografie sowie 3D-Modellierungen. Die Untersuchungen in Vrbjanska Čuka erbrachten neues Wissen zum frühen Neolithikum in Pelagonien und tragen ferner zum umfassenderen Verständnis der ersten bäuerlichen Gesellschaften auf dem Balkan bei.

With the exception of the well known Mesolithic sites in the Danube Gorges (or the Iron Gates), the wider areas of the Central Balkans and southern fringes of the Great Pannonian Plain still represent a terra incognita when it comes to the presence of Mesolithic communities. The absence of Mesolithic sites in the region was associated with environmental changes in the Early Holocene, presumed low human population densities, limited possibilities of detection, or the lack of adequate research. However, valuable insights into the obscure regional Mesolithic can be gained not only by new archaeological excavations, but also by revisiting and reanalysing of existing archaeological collections. Particularly informative in this respect are the Early Neolithic sites, indicative of the extensive spread of farming communities from c. 6200 cal BC. Within the ERC Project BIRTH, a large sample of human and animal remains from these sites was dated, falling in the (expected) range between c. 6200‒5300 cal BC. However, one human and several animal bone samples from the sites of Magareći mlin, Gospođinci-Nove zemlje and Grabovac-Đurića vinogradi were dated to the 8th millennium cal BC, providing the first radiocarbon evidence of Early Holocene sequences in the territory of Serbia other than the Danube Gorges. In this paper, we present the new radiocarbon dates, discuss the contextual provenance of dated bones, and explore the implications of these results for a better understanding of the problem of the “missing” and “invisible” Mesolithic in the region.

The new set of radiocarbon dates was used to explore the timing and tempo of the Neolithic expansion across the Central Balkans. Our results suggest that the first farmers arrived in this region around or few decades before 6200cal BC. The observed spatio-temporal pattern based on the radiocarbon data suggests that the general direction of the expansion was along the south-north axis. The regression analysis (arrival time vs. distance from the origin of expansion in northern Greece) was used to estimate the Neolithic front speed. The results of this analysis suggest that there is a moderate fit of the linear model. Most of the front speed estimates based on the Central Balkan data are between 1 and 2.5km/year (depending on the data subset and the statistical technique) which is mostly above the expected range (around 1km/year) for the standard wave of advance model and the empirically determined continental averages. We conclude that the spatio-temporal pattern of the Neolithic expansion in the Central Balkans is broadly consistent with the predictions of the wave of advance model, with the possibility of sporadic leapfrog migration events. The speed of the expansion seems to have been faster in the Central Balkans compared to the continental average.

Around 8000 years ago, throughout the Neolithic world a new type of artefact appeared, small spoons masterly made from cattle bone, usually interpreted as tools, due to their intensive traces of use. Contrary to those interpretations, the small dimensions of spoons and presence of intensive traces of use led us to the assumption that they were used for feeding babies. In order to test that assumption we compared 2230 marks on three spoons from the Neolithic site of Grad-Starčevo in Serbia (5800−5450 cal BC) with 3151 primary teeth marks produced experimentally. This study has shown that some of the marks on spoons were made by primary teeth, which indicate their usage in feeding babies. The production of a new type of artefact to feed babies is probably related to the appearance of a new type of weaning food, and the abundance of spoons indicates that new baby gruels became an important innovation in prehistoric baby-care.

The aesthetic appearance of metals has long been recognised in archaeometric studies as an important factor driving inventions and innovations in the evolution of metal production. Nevertheless, while the studies of ancient gold metallurgy are well supported by the modern research in colour characteristics of gold alloys, the colour properties of major prehistoric copper alloys, like arsenical copper and tin bronzes, remain either largely understudied or not easily accessible to the western scholarship. A few published studies have already indicated that alloying and heat treatment change the colours of copper alloys, although they are mainly based on the examples of prehistoric tin bronze objects and experimental casts. Here we present the procedure for building the Cu-As-Sn ternary colour diagram, starting with experimental casting of 64 binary and ternary alloys in this system. We used two types of information to produce two different ternary colour diagrams: one, based on photographs of the samples, and the other, established on the colorimetric measurements. Furthermore, we developed the procedure for creating a graphic representation of colours in the Cu-As-Sn ternary diagram using QGIS. As an initial case study, we plotted the composition of the world’s earliest tin bronze artefacts; the graphic representation further supports claims about the importance of golden hue for their invention and demand, c. 6,500 years ago. We argue that the presented colour diagrams will find wide use in future investigations of aesthetics of prehistoric copper alloys.

Pripitomljavanje životinja i biljaka, i promene koje su time usledile, imaju ključno mesto u arheološkim narativima o procesima neolitizacije. Budući da se neolitske zajednice po pravilu percipiraju kao „stočarsko-zemljoradničke“, aktivnosti koje su uključivale lov na divlje životinje u ovim kontekstima često su interpretirane kao sporadične, usputne i sezonske, pa čak i kao anomalije. U ovom radu, ukazujemo da su ljudske strategije opstanka i interakcije sa životinjama u kontekstu ranog neolita Vojvodine i centralnog Balkana bile mnogo raznovrsnije i (mikro) regionalno i kulturno specifične. U žiži rada je nalazište Golokut-Vizić, koje se izdvaja u odnosu na druga starčevačka naselja kako po svom specifičnom položaju u okviru šumovitog i brdovitog pejzaža Fruške gore, tako i po visokom udelu ostataka divljih životinja u faunističkom uzorku. Inkorporirajući prethodno publikovane i nove rezultate arheozooloških analiza (na prvom mestu taksonomski sastav faune i studije sezonalnosti), rezultate analiza stabilnih izotopa i arheološke podatke o obrascima naseljavanja (studije arhitektonskih objekata i artefakata), razmatramo ekološki, ekonomski i društveni kontekst eksploatacije životinja na Golokutu, i problematizujemo dihotomiju lov:stočarstvo u kontekstu ranog neolita na teritoriji Vojvodine i centralnog Balkana.

The catalogue of the exhibition "Science for the museums: the prehistory of Sombor and its surroundings in the light of new bioarchaeological research", held in Town Museum of Sombor during 12.11.-14.12.2019. The exhibition was authored bythe researchers of the BioSense Institute, University of Novi Sad; Town Museum of Sombor, Sombor;Museum Unit in Odžaci, Odžaci; Laboratory for Bioarchaeology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade; and it presented the results of the ERC Project BIRTH:Births, mothers and babies: prehistoric fertility in the Balkans between 10000 and 5000 cal BC. DESCRIPTION:Museums often serve as resources of (bio)archaeological material for various kinds of specialist analyses, however the results seldom find their way to museum exhibitions and the general public. Within the project, the new results of macroscopic, microscopic and physical-chemical analyses of human and animal skeletal remains and artefacts from the Neolithic sites of Magareći mlin, Topole-Bač and Donja Branjevina are presented, in order to familiarize the audience with the lives of humans and animals in prehistory, as well as to introduce them to innovative methods used in archaeological research. The visitors and the workshop participants have the opportunity to learn when did the first inhabitants of Bačka live, what were the lifeways and the environment of the hunter-gatherer communities like, when did the first farmers settle in the area, what did they look like and what was their health status, what did they eat and which animals they kept, how did they feed their babies and bury the deceased memebers of the community. They also learned more about the process of anthropological and archaeozoological analysis, radiocarbon dating, stable isotope analysis of human and animal bones, the analysis of organic residues from pottery vessels, and remote sensing in order to determine the location and landscape settings of archaeological sites. Given that the (bio)archaeological material used in the analyses originated from the Town Museum in Sombor and the Museum Unit in Odžaci, the wider aim of the project was to raise the communication between scientists, the museums and the public to a higher level, and to promote science among schoolchildren.

In this paper, we test the hypothesis of the Neolithic Demographic Transition in the Central Balkan Early Neolithic (6250–5300 BC) by applying the method of summed calibrated probability distributions to the set of more than 200 new radiocarbon dates from Serbia. The results suggest that there was an increase in population size after the first farmers arrived to the study area around 6250 BC. This increase lasted for approximately 250 years and was followed by a decrease in the population size proxy after 6000 BC, reaching its minimum around 5800 BC. This was followed by another episode of growth until 5600 BC when population size proxy rapidly declined, reaching the minimum again around 5500 BC. The reconstructed intrinsic growth rate value indicates that the first episode of growth might have been fuelled both by high fertility and migrations, potentially related to the effects of the 8.2 ky event. The second episode of population growth after 5800 BC was probably owing to the high fertility alone. It remains unclear what caused the episodes of population decrease. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Cross-disciplinary approaches to prehistoric demography'.