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Various socio-economic changes, including the introduction of metallurgy, mark the long duration of the Vinča culture. For detailed studies of the transformations of the Vinča societies, analyses of subsistence and economy must also be placed on the chronological line. The small-sized excavations carried out in 2018 at the Late Neolithic site of Jablanica (c. 5000–4700 BC) in central Serbia provided a faunal assemblage that enabled analyses of animal exploitation patterns, bone technology and also provided the samples for radiocarbon dating. The faunal remains show the predominance of domestic species, especially cattle. The site also yielded approximately 90 artefacts produced from bone and antler, including finished objects, preforms and manufacturing debris. Predominant raw materials were bones, mainly long bones, metapodials and ribs, followed by red deer antlers. Also, one artefact from Spondylus shell was found. Awls were the most frequent techno-type, and the typological repertoire also included other pointed tools, scrapers and other tools. Several preforms (mainly awls) and manufacture debris provided evidence of a working area or workshop within the settlement. Absolute dates showed that the beginning of the Late Neolithic occupation at the site of Jablanica could be equated with the relative depths of 4.5 meters at the type site of Vinča – Belo Brdo, or the late Vinča Pločnik I (Vinča C) period, while the radiocarbon dates associated with the end of the Late Neolithic occupation of the site can be correlated to layers between 4.0 and 3.5 meters at the type site of Vinča, i.e., the Vinča Pločnik IIa.

The Late Neolithic period in Southeast Serbian Banat is marked by a host of Vinča culture sites located between the Danube and the Vršac mountains, the south end of the Carpathian mountain range in this area. It is a predominantly flat landscape enclosed by extensive former marshes of Mali and Veliki Rit in the northwest, Vršac mountains in the northeast, and Deliblato sands and River Nera in the southwest and the southeast. Over 40 late Neolithic sites are known throughout the area, most from surveys, but some also excavated. Between 2020 and 2022, as part of the Regional Absolute Chronologies of the Late Neolithic in Serbia project, funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, At and Potporanj sites were radiocarbon dated to produce detailed, Bayesian statistical model-based chronologies that could be used as a local chronological reference for future researchers of the Late Neolithic in the region. In this chapter, we present unified chronological data attributable to the beginning and ending phases of the Neolithic in this region.

In the paper we will introduce the results of several recent archaeological surveys in the area of Novi Kneževac, Čoka and Kikinda municipalities on the north Banat side of Tisza and Kanjiža and Senta municipalities on the Bačka side of the River. The north Bačka region of Serbia is physically divided by the waters of the Tisza River from the north Banat region, but both were greatly influenced by its everchanging course throughout (pre)history. The surveys have yielded new information about the middle and late Neolithic in the north of Serbia, but have also brought to light numerous interesting facts. The earliest evidence of human habitation in the area date to Körös-Starčevo period of the middle Neolithic with multiple sites of various sizes discovered on both sides of the River. Surface collection indicates that these sites are mostly short time, single period settlements, without prominent vertical stratigraphies or tell like formations. While the north Banat area on the left bank of Tisza was continuously occupied and transformed unhindered from middle to late Neolithic traditions with several multi-layered telloid sites attested in the period, having Körös-Starčevo, Sakalhat and early Vinča presence, on the opposite bank, in the north Bačka area, the late Neolithic period remains elusive. In the paper, we will analyse and compare several aspects of the living environment, the landscape and subsistence strategies to compare two neighbouring regions and attempt to isolate and identify factors that may have influenced the absence of the late Neolithic in the area of Serbian north Bačka.

This paper aims to assess the etiology and differential diagnosis of severe pathological lesions in wild and domestic cattle from the Late Neolithic site of At-Vršac in the northeast part of the present-day Serbia. Excavations of this multilayered site revealed the remains of a Late Neolithic settlement belonging to the Vinča culture network of the Central Balkans. An aurochs metacarpal bone, two domestic cattle fragments of fused ulna and radius and of tibia, all with massive bone proliferations were recovered during the archaeological excavations in 1976. Paleopathological study was undertaken using an interdisciplinary approach, including AMS dating, radiography, computed tomography (CT), and histopathology. The results show severe oblique healed fracture with secondary pronounced bone reaction in the aurochs metacarpal bone and in the domestic cattle ulna–radius, while traumatic alteration infected with disseminated osteomyelitis was found in the domestic cattle tibia. These pathologies of wild and domestic cattle are discussed to reveal the level of environmental and human influence on the origin and development of the lesions in the Late Neolithic cattle.

The paper presents the concept, methodology and preliminary results of the project Regional Absolute Chronologies of the Late Neolithic in Serbia that started in 2020 using a case study from the site of At near Vršac in northeast Serbia. The aim of the project is to create multiple new regional chronological strands consisting of Bayesian modelled radiocarbon dates from sites with material culture belonging to the tradition of the Late Neolithic period Vinča culture. Combining statistical seriation of pottery assemblages and the Bayesian statistical modelling framework of several case studies from various regions of Serbia, new regional chronological anchor points will be created, thus avoiding constant comparison with the assemblage and dating of the eponymous site of Belo Brdo in Vinča. This approach will overcome the effects of the regionalization of material culture evident in most ceramic assemblages located further than 100 kilometres away from the type site. Using archival archaeological records from previous excavations will enable an establishment of a geography of chronological reference points which would then provide new insights into the dynamics of the evolution of the Late Neolithic Vinča societies and changes that occurred throughout its territory during the late sixth and the larger part of the fifth millennia BCE.

In many real-life situations, data consists of entities and the connections between them, which are naturally described by a complex network (graph). The structure of the network is often such that it is possible to group nodes based on the existence of connections between them, where such groups are called clusters (communities, modules). If the nodes are allowed to partially belong to clusters, they are called fuzzy (overlapping) clusters. There is a huge number of algorithms in the literature that perform fuzzy clustering, so a mechanism is needed to evaluate such clustering. The function that assesses the quality of a performed clustering is called the cluster quality function. One of the latest proposed quality functions is the E-function. The E-function is based on a comparison of the internal structure of a cluster, i.e., the connection between nodes within a cluster and the connection of its nodes with the nodes of other clusters. Due to its exponential nature, the E-function is sensitive to small changes in the membership degrees to which the nodes belong to clusters. As such, it has shown good results in evaluating clustering on known data sets. In this paper, the experimental results that the modified E-function achieves in the case of overlapping clusters are presented. Also, some possibilities for fuzzy clustering by optimizing the E-function are displayed.

This paper aims to assess the etiology and differential diagnosis of severe pathological lesions in wild and domestic cattle from the Late Neolithic site of At-Vršac in the northeast part of the present-day Serbia. Excavations of this multilayered site revealed the remains of a Late Neolithic settlement belonging to the Vinča culture network of the Central Balkans. An aurochs metacarpal bone, two domestic cattle fragments of fused ulna and radius and of tibia, all with massive bone proliferations were recovered during the archaeological excavations in 1976. Paleopathological study was undertaken using an interdisciplinary approach, including AMS dating, radiography, computed tomography (CT), and histopathology. The results show severe oblique healed fracture with secondary pronounced bone reaction in the aurochs metacarpal bone and in the domestic cattle ulna–radius, while traumatic alteration infected with disseminated osteomyelitis was found in the domestic cattle tibia. These pathologies of wild and domestic cattle are discussed to reveal the level of environmental and human influence on the origin and development of the lesions in the Late Neolithic cattle.

Zooarchaeological studies of the early medieval contexts are very scarce in present-day Serbia. Only a few studies dealing with the role of animals in funerary rites or the animal economy of settlements are currently available. For the first time, a detailed analysis of two complete animal skeletons from one early medieval settlement in the country will be presented in this paper. Excavations at the multilayered archaeological site of Divičmeđ in central Serbia have revealed the remains of a fortified early medieval settlement dated to the tenth–eleventh centuries. The excavations inside the settlement ramparts, among other features, revealed an oven most likely used for pottery production. A completely preserved dog skeleton was discovered at the bottom, while a pig skeleton was found in the oven’s upper layers. These skeletons indicate secondary use of the oven and prompt further questions about possible cultural impact and depositional scenarios, and they also shed light on the everyday life management within the settlement. In this paper, an interdisciplinary approach will be applied to dog and pig skeletons, which will further give us a rare opportunity to reconstruct their osteobiographies. Radiocarbon dating of the skeletons will provide us with the absolute chronology necessary for a better understanding and reconstruction of deposition processes. This study will also help us to address research questions about broader contexts of human–animal interactions in the country during the early medieval period.

A newly discovered network of later Bronze Age fortified sites of unusually large size are discussed, with a primary focus on results of excavations at the site of Gradiste Idos. Closely associated with the rivers Mures, Tisza, and Danube, these sites are located in the southeast of the Carpathian Basin in central Europe. On current evidence, the main period of construction and occupation took place between 1400-1100 b.c., probably constituting successor communities of the tell-centred societies of the Middle Bronze Age. Geophysical survey and excavation results from Gradiste Idos, the largest site in this network in Serbia, are presented in this paper within their regional context. We discuss preliminary insights into the structural development of the site, alongside a correlation of new C-14 dates with relative ceramic chronological markers and the results of faunal analysis. These results provide new perspectives on settlement systems at the dawn of Urnfield cultural traditions in this region.

The Late Neolithic/Early Eneolithic Building 01/06 at the site of Vinča-Belo Brdo on the Danube burned suddenly. The daub sealed the interior of the three-room structure and preserved its contents as they stood in the 46th century BC. The building was preserved so well that the details of its interior can be reconstructed. On the floor, under thick layers of destruction, ovens, querns, and deposits of artefacts and ecofacts were discovered, capturing a moment in time. The systematic retrieval of remarkably well-preserved plant macro-remains and other materials, and subsequent analyses, offer new information about practices such as food processing and storage and the use of space towards the end of the occupation of the site. In this article, we present a detailed examination of the interior architecture, and of finds of ceramics, stone, plant and animal remains within each of the three rooms of Building 01/06. Our detailed contextual analysis of the building’s internal configuration and of its contents, coupled with the precise dating of organic material, provides new data for the interpretation of a Vinča-style building and its use.

One of the most popular topics in analyzing complex networks is the detection of its community structure. In this paper, we introduce a new criterion for community detection, called the E-quality function. The quality of an individual community is defined as a difference between its benefit and its cost, where both are exponential functions of the number of internal edges and the number of external edges, respectively. The obtained optimization problem, maximization of the E-quality function over all possible partitions of a network, is solved by the variable neighborhood search (VNS)-based heuristic. Comparison of the new criterion and modularity is performed on the usual test instances from the literature. Experimental results obtained both on artificial and real networks show that the proposed E-quality function allows detection of the communities existing in the network.

This paper reports how an information and communications technology (ICT) system can support greater connection across and outcomes from home and school mathematics learning practices for 11-to-14-year-old pupils. The article details: (1) the purpose, background and theoretical basis of the study; (2) the design approach, including features, accessibility and implementation of a web platform (eZbirka) created as a tool for solving teacher-reported problems in learning practices; (3) the methodological approach adopted for the study; and (4) the effects and contributions of web-based home-and-school-linked practice on pupils and teachers. Interviews with and surveys from pupils and teachers were used to gather data. Findings highlighted the efficacy of the system, indicating benefits arising when pupils and teachers used the entire range of features. This communication and collaboration tool enabled teachers to assist pupils in developing knowledge and abilities only a short time after its inception. Research revealed specific features of the software that support ICT integration into mathematics teaching and learning practices; specifically, it shifts an ineffective learning process and offers new ways of thinking about mathematical learning.

This paper considers the Balanced Multi-Weighted Attribute Set Partitioning (BMWASP) problem which requires finding a partition of a given set of objects with multiple weighted attributes into a certain number of groups so that each attribute is evenly distributed amongst the groups. Our approach is to define an appropriate criterion allowing to compare the degree of deviation from the "perfect balance" for different partitions and then produce the partition that minimizes this criterion. We have proposed a mathematical model for the BMWASP and its mixed-integer linear reformulation. We evaluated its efficiency through a set of computational experiments. To solve instances of larger problem dimensions, we have developed a heuristic method based on a Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS). A local search procedure with efficient fast swap-based local search is implemented in the proposed VNS-based approach. Presented computational results show that the proposed VNS is computationally efficient and quickly reaches all optimal solutions for smaller dimension instances obtained by exact solver and provide high-quality solutions on large-scale problem instances in short CPU times.

Моделовање предвидљивости постојања археолошких локалитета заснива се наматематичком, тачније статистичком предвиђању локације непознатогархеолошког налазишта на основу одабраних параметара познатих локалитета упроучаваној области. Предмет теоријско-методолошког истраживања у најширемсмислу јесу обрасци насељавања у различитим географским регијама натериторији распростирања винчанске културе у периоду касног неолита Служећисе моделовањем предвидљивости, које је заправо изражавање вероватноћедешавања/постојања локалитета покушаће се показати колико је могуће одредитипостојање свесног обрасца при одабиру локације за становање у односу наразличите полазне чињенице, од околишних преко друштвених, па чак можда ииндивидуалних. Селекција анализираних локација зависи од физичко-географскихкарактеристика чиме се показује да ли постоје разлике у факторима животнесредине и да ли је једно праисторијског друштво какво је било друштво винчанскекултуре подједнако свесно тих фактора приликом одабира неког региона занасељавање.Са друге стране предмет емпиријског истраживања биће односи насеља касногнеолита са својом животном средином, али и са могућим друштвеним факторимакоји су могли утицати на одабир локација при насељавања. Израдом моделапредвидљивости ми покушавамо да моделујемо специфичну, проверљивуимпликацију археолошке теорије, тј. утицај људског понашања (активности ипраксе) на акумулацију материјалних података на регионалној размери.Културно-историјски домен археолошког истраживања овог рада јесте винчанскакултура, а просторни домен ове културе је територија централне Србије, Косова,Војводине, те румунски део Баната, Олтеније и Трансилваније, источна Босна,северна Црна Гора и Македонија. У дисертацији су анализиране области источногБаната око Вршца и Беле Цркве и подручје Лесковачке котлине са градомЛесковцем у средишту. Хронолошки посматрано дисертација се бави целокупнимраспоном винчанске културе од око 5300-те до 4600-те године премакалибрисаним 14C датумима., Predictive modeling of the existence of archaeological sites is based on mathematical or moreprecisely statistical prediction of the location of an unknown archaeological site based on thepreviously selected parameters of the already known and established sites in the area of interest.The subject of the theoretical and methodological research in the widest sense are the settlementpatterns of different geographic regions inhabited by the members of the Vinča culture duringthe late Neolithic period. Using predictive modeling, which in itself is the expression ofprobability of occurrence/existence of sites I will try to establish conscientious patterns inchoosing site locations for settlement locations in regard to the various factors, fromenvironmental to social, and perhaps even individual. The selection of the locations to beanalyzed depends on their physical and geographical characteristics in an attempt to show thedifference in environmental factors amongst regions in order to establish whether a prehistoricsociety such as Vinča culture was equally aware of various impacts possible in choosing certainregions for settling.The subject of the empirical research is the relationship of the late Neolithic settlements with thesurrounding environment, but also the possible social factor influencing the process of choosingthe settlement location. The creation of a predictive model attempts to model a specific,verifiable implication of an archaeological theory, i.e. the impact of human behavior (activityand practice) on the accumulation of material data over a regional scale.The culture – historical domain of the archaeological research in this dissertation is Vinčaculture, whilst the spatial domain lies within the boundaries of central Serbia, Kosovo,Vojvodina, the Romanian regions of Banat, Oltenia and Transilvania, eastern Bosnia, northernMontenegro and Macedonia. However, within the dissertation, only two regions, the area of eastBanat centered between the towns of Vrša