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THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
Marya Gimbutas
EDITED BY JOAN MARLER
ing
HarperSanFrancisco A Division of HarperCollins Publishers
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the course of thirty years of research and excavation in Europe, hundreds of archeologists wholeheartedly shared with me the new infor- mation essential for the process of reconstruct- ing the Old European culture. Their names are in the notes and the bibliography and I am in- debted to all of them. Much was learned through excavations of Neolithic sites (Obre in Bosnia, 1967-68, Anza and Sitagroi in Macedonia, 1968-70, Achilleion in Thessaly, 1973-74, and Scaloria in Southeastern Italy, 1978-80): heart- felt thanks to my collaborators Drs. Alojz Benac (Sarajevo), Sandor Bok6ny (Budapest}, James | Mallory (Belfast), the late Janos Nemeskéri
Design and Production: Design Office, San Francisco Bruce Kortebein, Marilyn Perry
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS: The World of Old Europe. Copyright ©1991 by Marija Gimbutas. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or repro- duced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For infor- mation address HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. FIRST EDITION Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gimbutas, Marija Alseikaité
The civilization of the goddess : the world of Old Europe / Marija Gimbutas.—Ist ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-06-250368-5 (hard : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-06-250337-5 (pbk.|
1. Religion, Prehistoric—Europe. 2. Goddesses—Europe. 3. Neolithic period—
Europe. 4. Europe—Antiquities. I. Title. GN799.R4G54 199] 936—dc20 90-55792
CIE 91 92 93 94 95 K.P 1098 7654321
This edition is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute 239.48 Standard.
(Budapest), Colin and Jane Renfrew (Cambridge), Daniel Shimabuku (Los Angeles], Santo Tine (Genoa), and Shan M. M. Winn (Hattiesburg). The preparation of this book coincides with the beginning of the application of radiocarbon dating to the Neolithic materials and the calibration with the tree-ring chronology. For guidance in the complicated process of dating I am indebted to my colleagues at the University of California, Drs. Hans Suess and Rainer Berger. For inspiration and assistance warm thanks to my friends, Indo-Europeanists, and archeologists, Drs. Edgar C. Polomé, Wolfgang Meid, Martin Huld, Eric P- Hamp, Miriam Robbins Dexter,
Elizabeth Barber, David Anthony, Michael Herity, Sarunas Milisauskas, and Rimuté Rimantiené. And for invaluable help to my former students Dr. Karlene Jones-Bley, Patricia MacDonell, Michael Everson, Kristina Kelertas, Dr. Susan Skomal, Starr Goode, and the late Zipporah Sabsay. For the continuous assistance in draft- ing the illustrations many thanks to James Bennett and for grant-in-aid to the Ahmanson Foundation.
For the final shape of this book deepest grati- tude belongs to my editor Joan Marler and to the editing and design staff of Design Office and HarperSanFrancisco.
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CONTENTS
Preface: What Is Civilization? vii
The Beginnings and Spread of Agriculture The Neolithic Cultures of Southeastern and Central Europe
The Climax of European Civilization: East-Central Europe, 5500-3500 B.C.
The Neolithic Cultures of Northern Europe
Neolithic Cultures of the Adriatic and Central Mediterranean The Neolithic of Western Europe
The Religion of the Goddess
The Sacred Script
Social Structure
The End of Old Europe: The Intrusion of Steppe Pastoralists from South Russia and the Transformation of Europe
Notes 404
Glossary of Cultures and Major Sites 418
Glossary of Technical Terms 431
Chronologies 436
Tables and Plots of Radiocarbon Dates 437
Illustration Sources and Credits 498
Bibliography 503 ’ Index 512
11
5]
125
PGS
183
ae]
307
323
351
PREFACE
What Is Civilization?
y purpose in this book is to bring into our awareness essential Mt aspects of European prehistory that have been unknown or simply not treated on a pan-European scale. This material,
when acknowledged, may affect our vision of the past as well as our sense of potential for the present and future. We must refocus our collective memory. The necessity for this has never been greater as we discover that the path of “progress” is extinguishing the very conditions for life on earth.
This book examines the way of life, religion, and social structure of the peoples who inhabited Europe from the 7th to the 3rd millennia BC., which I have termed Old Europe, referring to Neolithic Europe before the Indo-Europeans. During this period, our ancestors developed settled agricultural communities, experienced a large growth in population, and developed a rich and sophisticated artistic expression and a complex symbolic system formulated around the worship of the Goddess in her various aspects.
Substantial evidence for a rapidly growing Neolithic culture that began in the middle of the 7th millennium B.C. exists in the Aegean area, the Balkans, and in east-central Europe. A second area of focus is the central Mediterranean world. In the western Mediterranean coastal zone, the transition from hunting and food gathering to agriculture took the entire 7th millennium for a full transition. In western Europe, the transition from food gathering to agriculture took place only in the early 5th millen- nium BC.
The first half of this book is dedicated to the definition, distribution, and chronologies of culture groups throughout the period of c. 6500- 3500 B.C. (in western and northern Europe, somewhat beyond 3500 B.C.}. - Regional groups reveal a surprising variety of styles, inventiveness, and imagination in the arts and architecture. Subsequent chapters discuss reli- gion, script, and social structure. The last chapter focuses on the decline of these cultures, the intrusions of alien people with a totally different economic, social, and ideological structure that gradually changed the face of the Old European world. These events not only explain the disinte- gration of the civilization of Old Europe but define the transition to
viii/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
patriarchal and belligerent societies. As interdisciplinary research (archeo- logical data, linguistics, mythology, and early historic data) confirms, this transition coincides with the Indo-Europeanization of Europe.
The use of the word civilization needs an explanation. Archeologists and historians have assumed that civilization implies a hierarchical polli- tical and religious organization, warfare, a class stratification, and a complex division of labor. This pattern is indeed typical of androcratic {male-dominated} societies such as Indo-European but does not apply to the gynocentric (mother/woman-centered} cultures described in this book. The civilization that flourished in Old Europe between 6500 and 3500 B.C. and in Crete until 1450 B.C. enjoyed a long period of uninterrupted peace- ful living which produced artistic expressions of graceful beauty and refinement, demonstrating a higher quality of life than many androcratic, classed societies.
I reject the assumption that civilization refers only to androcratic war- rior societies. The generative basis of any civilization lies in its degree of artistic creation, aesthetic achievements, nonmaterial values, and freedom which make life meaningful and enjoyable for all its citizens, as well as a balance of powers between the sexes, Neolithic Europe was not a time “before civilization’ (used as the title for Colin Renfrew’s book on Neolithic and Copper Age Europe, 1973). It was, instead, a true civiliza- tion in the best meaning of the word. In the 5th and early 4th millennia B.C., just before its demise in east-central Europe, Old Europeans had towns with a considerable concentration of population, temples several stories high, a sacred script, spacious houses of four or five rooms, pro- fessional ceramicists, weavers, copper and gold metallurgists, and other artisans producing a range of sophisticated goods. A flourishing network of trade routes existed that circulated items such as obsidian, shells, marble, copper, and salt over hundreds of kilometers.
All of this was not ex nihilo. Next door, in Anatolia, a multitude of temples appeared in the town of Catal Hiyik which had wall paintings of extraordinary richness and sophistication a thousand years earlier than the high-level architecture, wall paintings, sculptures, and ceramic art of Europe. Before Catal Htiiyiik, there were three more millennia in which the evolutionary transition to agriculture and a settled civilized life took place. The rich display of religious symbolism which flowered in central Anatolia and in Old Europe is part of an unbroken continuity from Upper Paleolithic times.
It is a gross misunderstanding to imagine warfare as endemic to the human condition. Widespread fighting and fortification building have indeed been the way of life for most of our direct ancestors from the Bronze Age up until now. However, this was not the case in the Paleolithic and Neolithic. There are no depictions of arms (weapons used against other
PREFACE §/ix
ee _ —_ —_
Hamangian Stiff Nude, clay figurine from the Cernavoda graveyard, c. 4800 BC.
|
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x/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
humans} in Paleolithic cave paintings, nor are there remains of weapons used by man against man during the Neolithic of Old Europe. From some hundred and fifty paintings that survived at Catal Hiytk, there is not one depicting a scene of conflict or fighting, or of war or torture.
Old European village sites are not remarkable for their defensive posi- tions but were chosen for their convenient setting, good water and soil, and availability of animal pastures. Hill forts in inaccessible locations are not known to Old Europe, nor are daggers, spears, and halberds. Neolithic villages were occasionally encircled by ditches but seldom by palisades or stone retaining walls. Earthen ramparts and other defensive structures occur only in later Neolithic and Copper Age settlements when measures were taken to protect villages from an influx of human intruders. These changes became visible in central Europe only toward the end of the Sth and during the 4th millennium B.C.
The focus on religion is also significant here. Previous books on Neolithic Europe have focused on habitat, tool kits, pottery, trade, and environmental problems, treating religion as “irrelevant.” This is an incomprehensible omission since secular and sacred life in those days were one and indivisible. By ignoring the religious aspects of Neolithic life, we neglect the totality of culture. Archeologists cannot remain scientific materialists forever, neglecting a multidisciplinary approach.
A combination of fields—archeology, mythology, linguistics, and historical data—provides the possibility for apprehending both the material and spiritual realities of prehistoric cultures. Furthermore, Neolithic social structure and religion were intertwined and were reflections of each other.
Archeology of the last half of our century is plagued by extremes. “A bal- anced amalgam is needed,” reminds James Mellaart, “one which combines the best of both schools (i.e., digs ‘for rubbish’ and digs ‘for temples’) and does not promote sectarian rivalry between the ‘art’ and ‘science’ based approaches to archaeology.”
The primordial deity for our Paleolithic and Neolithic ancestors was female, reflecting the sovereignty of motherhood. In fact, there are no images that have been found of a Father God throughout the prehistoric record. Paleolithic and Neolithic symbols and images cluster around a self-generating Goddess and her basic functions as Giver-of-Life, Wielder- of-Death, and as Regeneratrix. This symbolic system represents cyclical, nonlinear, mythical time.
The religion of the Goddess reflected a matristic, matrilineal, and endogamic social order for most of early human history. This was not necessarily “matriarchy,” which wrongly implies “rule” by women as a mirror image of androcracy. A matrifocal tradition continued throughout the early agricultural societies of Europe, Anatolia, and the Near East, as well as Minoan Crete. The emphasis in these cultures was on technolo-
PREFACE
gies that nourished people's lives, in contrast to the androcratic focus on domination.
The Old European social structure was in direct contrast with the Indo- European system that replaced it. As archeological, historical, linguistic, and religious evidence shows, Old European society was organized around a theacratic, communal temple community, guided by a queen-priestess, her brother or uncle, and a council of women as the governing body. In spite of the revered status of women in religious life, the cemetery evi- dence throughout the 5th and most of the 4th millennia B.C. does not suggest any imbalance between the sexes or a subservience of one sex to the other. It suggests, instead, a condition of mutual respect. The primary grave goods for both sexes are symbolic of the sacred cycles of regenera- tion, although burial goods also honor personal achievements in the arts, crafts, trade, and other professions.
The Old European society lacked the centralized structure of a chiefdom of the Indo-European type. However, it was not simply composed of small- scale segmentary societies throughout the millennial duration of the Neolithic and Copper Age. The Old European society grew from small agricultural village communities in the earliest Neolithic, to expanded composites of social units in the 5th millennium B.C. East-central Euro- pean settlements were larger than the largest proto-urban tells in the Near East. The Late Cucuteni culture, c. 4000-3500 B.C., reached an urban stage with towns of up to 10,000 inhabitants at the center of a district sur- rounded by medium and smaller size villages. |
Note: The chronology used in this volume is radiocarbon, calibrated with tree-ring counting. The dates for each culture group from the 7th to the 3rd millennia BC. are given in the appendix. (B.C. indicates a calibrated date, b.c. an uncalibrated date, while B.P. refers to years before the present.}
Ixi
2/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
The retreat of the last ice age brought a warming of the world’s climate which stimulated a rich abundance of wild plant and animal life and an increase in human populations. The transition from hunting and gathering to perma- nent settlements and the domestication of plants and animals was a gradual development between c. 9000 and 6500 B.C. The milder conditions of the Boreal period during the 8th millennium B.C., resulting in a dramatic rise of sea
level, had a strong influence on plant and food resources for humans and animals. In the coastal regions and along inland lakes, marshes and peat areas were created that spawned a rich habitat for fish, molluscs, shellfish, and water birds. These concentrated food supplies and the spread of deciduous oak forests attracted humans toward a more settled life. In the Mediterranean region rose the exploitation of legumes and frutts.
Not all animals and cereals were domesticated at one time nor in the same region. The dog had already been domesticated from the wolf in central Europe by the Magdalenian period of the Upper Paleolithic.! Sheep were domesticated in the hilly flanks of the Zagros Mountains (Iran, Iraq) and in the Taurus Mountains (Turkey) before 7000 B.C. where they had previously been hunted in the wild. Cattle and pigs followed between 7500 and 6500 B.C. in Anatolia and domestication continued locally in Europe from 6500 to 5500 B.C.2 The domesticated horse was unknown to the Near East and east- central Europe before the end of the Sth millennium B.C.
There were three domesticated grains on which the early agriculture was based: einkorn wheat (Triticum mono- coccum), emmer wheat (triticum dicoccum), and two-row barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. distichum). These were domesticated during the 8th and 7th millennia in settlements between southeast Europe and Afghanistan. To this day wild wheat, both einkorn and emmery, is found between Greece and Afghanistan, and wild barley still grows between the Aegean basin and Baluchistan.?
Settled village life was also a gradual development. The precursors of seden- tary farmers lived as semisedentary food gatherers several millennia before agriculture developed, providing a transitional link between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. Such were the Natufians who lived in caves as well as in open air settlements along the eastern Mediterranean coast, 10,000- 8,000 B.C.
Natufians were biologically modern human beings, similar to modern Mediterraneans,* who harvested and stored the plentiful wild wheat and barley. Numbers of mortars and stones for grinding grains and seeds, and many toothed sickle blades of flint were found in their settlements. There were also tools made of bone: awls, needles, spatulae, reaping knives, fishhooks, and harpoons—tools that for millennia to come would typify Neolithic inven- tories. Their animal sculptures of bone represent a continuity of Upper Paleo- lithic traditions, while dentalium shells used for beads, imported from the Medt- terranean and Red Seas, indicate their navigational communication with distant areas. They hunted gazelle, deer, and pigs, and kept domesticated dogs but no other domesticated animals.
By 8000 B.C. cereals were fully domes- ticated in the eastern Mediterranean area, and the Natufian culture was followed in the east Mediterranean and Anatolia by Pre-Pottery Neolithic (food- producing culture without pottery).
By 7000-6500 B.C., the Near East and southeast Europe were sharing a full agrarian complex wherein all commu- nities were dependent upon a rich variety of cereals, legumes (peas and lentils), sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle.
It was in this period that the production of ceramics was discovered. Because it is virtually indestructible, pottery remained the most abundantly recorded fossil throughout the Neolithic.
The Spread of Agriculture in Europe
Several Theories
“Revolution”
The hypothesis that a ready-made agricultural complex was imported to Europe from the Near East is no longer acceptable. It was fashionable, in the days of V. Gordon Childe, to consider the introduction of agriculture as a “revolu- tion,” but the Neolithization of Europe is now seen to have been much more complex. The process was long and not uniform, and was dependent upon vari- ous geographical and natural conditions.
A Biological Model of Diffusion
Another hypothesis also became par- tially obsolete due to intensive research of Mesolithic and Early Neolithic strata in the western Mediterranean zone.
In 1936, geneticist R.A. Fisher proposed a biological model of diffusion which was promoted by the book of A. J. Ammerman and L. L. Cavalli-Sforza entitled, The Neolithic Transition and the Genetics of Populations in Europe (1984). Its thesis sought to explain the spread of agriculture as a diffusionary process brought about by population growth and displacement. This model proposed that it is not the idea of farm- ing that spread, but the farmers them- selves. The authors stated that if an increase in population coincides with
a local migratory activity, a wave of population explosion will ensue, pro- gressing at a constant radial rate that can be measured mathematically. The distance of the migratory activity is taken to be eighteen kilometers for each generation of twenty-five years, or one kilometer per year. Although this method is theoretically sound, espe- cially when population increases are associated with migratory movements, it cannot be applied in practice to all parts of Europe. We must base our views, instead, on actual archeological data combined with radiocarbon dating.
The Conversion of Food Gatherers to Agriculture and the Spread of Migrating Farmers
The earliest signs in Europe of a transi- tion from hunting-gathering to a food producing economy are found in the Mediterranean area. The process of Neolithization took place in two ways: through the conversion of local food gatherers to agriculture in the western and central Mediterranean region; and through the spread of agriculture with migrating farmers from southeast to northwest in southeastern and central Europe in combination with the conver- sion of local populations.
Western and Central Mediterranean Zone
Gradual Adoption of Domestication by the Mesolithic Population in Southern France and Spain
For a long time it was believed that the Neolithic of this region started with the spread of Cardial or Impresso pottery (pottery impressed with the edge of cardium edule shells, widely found in the central and western Mediterranean area} from the east Mediterranean. In the 1980s it became clear that the Neolithi- zation of coastal regions of the western Mediterranean was accomplished by a gradual adoption of domestication by the local Mesolithic Castelnovian culture in eastern Spain and southern France. In addition, a rather specialized proto- agricultural exploitation of pulse crops and greens began in southern France some 10,000 years ago. The use of legumes including lambs lettuce, lentils, peas, bitter vetch, grass peas, and chick peas is evidenced in several Mesolithic sites in Provence and Languedoc.® The presence of sheep and goats and the use of legumes and greens as well as the con- tinuity of Upper Paleolithic industries indicate no major dichotomy between the hunter-gatherers and incipient agriculturalists. The excavation of strati- fied cave and rock-shelter sites, in com- bination with radiocarbon dating in eastern coastal Spain and southern France, has shown that this process took place during the 7th millennium BC.
1/THE BEGINNINGS AND SPREAD OF AGRICULTURE /3
(see discussion in chap. 6}. Many factors played a part in this process: the amelio- ration of climate, the increased seden- tism of fishermen and shell gatherers, and the natural environment.
Evidence from Iberia and France has shown that the domestication of animals began considerably earlier than the cultivation of cereals and the use of pottery. Sheep and even pigs and cattle appear in aceramic strata in the early 7th millennium BC., and perhaps earlier. Pottery and grains are well attested in the strata dated between 6500-6000 B.C. Lithic complexes in these Mesolithic, or more accurately proto-Neolithic, layers indicate a gradual continuity with no breaks. Thus, the sum of accumulated data suggests that the western Mediter- ranean Neolithic was the result of a development by means of self-contained cultural mechanisms.
Although gradual cultural develop- ment cannot be disputed, influences from the East cannot be denied. Domes- ticated sheep and goats that are found in Mesolithic strata do not have direct local predecessors. The sheep are related to the Near Eastern mouflon and the goats developed, not from the local Capra ibex or Capra pyrenaica, but from the Near Eastern Capra aegagrus. This leaves archeologists in the realm of hypothesis. It is for future research to establish when and how these species arrived. One guess is that the caprovines arrived through the central Mediterranean coastal regions from the Aegean area and not directly from the Near East. It is known that the navigators with early pottery and caprovines from the Aegean area reached the islands west of Greece (the island of Corfu; see chap. 5). In the west Mediterranean zone, caprovines never achieved the high economic importance that they had in the Near Eastern, Aegean, and in‘all of southeast European Neolithic.
4/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
The Gradual Adoption of Agriculture in the Circum-Adriatic and Central Mediterranean
The circum-Adriatic region was settled by the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic food gatherers whose lithic industries show no break of tradition up to the beginning of the Pottery (“Impresso”) Neolithic.* The importation of agricul- ture from the Near East or even the Aegean area is here also quite unlikely. Corsica and Sardinia were settled by pre- Neolithic groups no later than during the 8th millennium BC. (the earliest radiocarbon dates of Corsica are from Strette 9140 B.P. and from Araguina Sennola at Bonifacio, 8650 B.P.). There, the Neolithic culture with pottery is dated to the end of the 7th millennium B.C. Soon thereafter, Sardinian obsidian was discovered and traded widely, becoming a true catalyst for the commu- nication between the western central Mediterranean and the Adriatic regions (see chap. 5).
Southeast Europe
A food producing economy was estab- lished in the Aegean basin before the middle of the 7th millennium B.C. We do not know yet to what extent the Neolithic economy was spread by new immigrants or if these ideas were passed on from Anatolia over a period of genera- tions without large scale migrations. Were the Mesolithic populations absorbed? The evidence suggests that all of these factors may have contributed to some extent. It is generally true that by this time the predominant farm stock animals, sheep and goats, were already fully domesticated in the earliest south- eastern European Neolithic sites. The exceedingly high ratio of domesticated animals to wild fauna in the earliest known Neolithic sites argues for an initial intrusion from outside Europe of both stock and peoples. Unfortunately, the period prior to the Neolithic is poorly represented in the archeological record. The climatic warming which accompanied the post- glacial period caused a rise in sea level which may have submerged many Mesolithic deposits on the Aegean
islands and coastal regions. Mesolithic and Neolithic habitation layers have been found only at Franchthi, a cave in the Argolid region of the Peloponnese, although, even here, a continuity of cul- ture is not clear. Skeletal material found in the cave reveals two possibilities: the early population is either from local Mesolithic stock or is of eastern origin.’
Heterogeneous Physical Type
The physical anthropological material from farther north, from the Nea Nikomedeia site in Greek Macedonia, is taxonomically heterogeneous. According to Angel, several types were present:
the Dinaric-Mediterranean and the so-called Basic White type with Cro- Magnon characteristics. This variability is explained in terms of gradual inter- mixing, over the centuries, of the farm- ing populations with hunter-gatherers. The heterogeneous physical type is
also attested in the Staréevo culture in the central and northern Balkans (see chap. 2).
In the Iron Gate region of the Danube, cultural continuity is evi- denced from the Upper Paleolithic and through the Mesolithic shown by the continuous local European Cro-Magnon population, lithic industries, religion, and art. This is called “the Balkan- Danubian Epigravettian and Mesolithic culture” or “Lepenski Vir culture” (Lepenski Vir is one of the fourteen other excavated sites famous for its shrines and sculptures to which we shall return in chaps. 2, and 7). A food produc- ing economy appeared here only with the arrival of central Balkan (Staréevo] Neolithic people around 6000 B.C.8 The robust Cro-Magnons in this region were either replaced by the gracile Mediterraneans coming from the south or progressively merged with the newcomers.?
Navigation and Trade— Decisive Catalysts for the Rise of Culture
Navigational skills, trade, and barter creating increased human contact seem to have been very important catalysts for the unprecedented rise of Neolithic cul- ture. From the 8th millennium B.C., even before the Neolithic, there is evidence of
trade in flint and obsidian.!° With the beginning of a food producing economy, a constant growth of communication is indicated by imported obsidian, marble, colorful stones, and spondylus shells. Obsidian—volcanic glass formed from silica rich lava—was ideal for sickle blades and other cutting tools. It was, therefore, in great demand and is found hundreds of kilometers from the original source areas. The principal source of obsidian for the Aegean area and for all of Greece was the island of Melos in the southern Aegean.!! The sources for the central Mediterranean, the circum- Adriatic, and inland western Yugoslavia were Sardinia (Monte Arci) and the Lipari volcano north of Sicily. The source for the Carpathian basin and the Danubian lowlands were the Carpathian Mountains in northeastern Hungary and northwestern Romania. Marble, used for bowls, dishes, ornaments, and figurines, was available from many sources, but the Paros and Skyros islands in the southern and northern Aegean may have been the main suppliers since Neolithic sites have been found there. Aegean spondylus shells were in demand for the manufacture of beads, pendants, and bracelets. These were diffused in large quantities from the Aegean Sea north- ward to Bulgaria and Romania and
then along the Danube to central Europe.!? Shells from the Adriatic
spread to western Yugoslavia and to southeastern Italy.
A Full-fledged Neolithic Economy in Greece by 6500 B.C.
By 6500 B.C., coastal Greece and the nearby inland plains supported a full-fledged Neolithic economy that produced ceramics as well as domesti- cated sheep, goats, cattle, pigs, and dogs. A complete set of domestic fauna occurred here about five hundred years earlier than in southwest Asia. Wheat, barley, vetch, lentils, peas, and flax were cultivated. Emmer wheat, bread wheat, and sheep had presumably been imported from Anatolia, while cattle and pigs were domesticated independently in southeastern Europe. Agricultural tools included hoes of stone and antler, sickles of wood or bone set with
1/THE BEGINNINGS AND SPREAD OF AGRICULTURE /S
obsidian, chert, or flint teeth (FIGURE FIGURE 1-1 , ; a sca 1-1), and grinding stones, mortars and . FIGURE 1-1 (1) Antler pestles. sickle handle from tell
The spread of Neolithic technology into east-central Europe was relatively rapid after a Neolithic economy became established in the Aegean and the Medi- terranean zone. The Mediterranean climate of that time was wetter than it is today, creating favorable conditions for agriculture.
Azmak, Central Bulgaria. Karanovo | period,
c. 5900-5800 B.C. Length 30.8 cm.
(2) Obsidian blades as they were inserted in a wood sickle handle. From Achilleton, Thessaly,
c. 6200 B.C.
The Spread of Agriculture from Southeast to Northwest
The advance of agriculture in Europe as co shown on the map (FIGURE 1-2) indi- | cates that seaways were crucial for the accelerated diffusion of Neolithic ideas. Navigation across the Aegean and
Adriatic Seas and along the Mediterra-
nean coasts was not difficult. The trade
in obsidian and shells testifies to this.
Inland, communication was slower. It
took about 500 years for agriculture to
spread from the Aegean to the Danube,
and another 500 years from the Middle
Danube basin to eastern France and
Holland. Northern Europe between Den-
mark and Lithuania was converted to
agriculture only around 4000-3500 B.C.
Neolithic Towns in Anatolia (Turkey)
he earliest Neolithic culture in 2 southeast Europe is tightly bound with that of Anatolia. Settlements in both areas have yielded similar tools, jewelry, statuary, and a related temple-building tradition with the same deities worshiped using the same symbolic language. In Anatolia, as in the east Mediterranean area, the developmental stages from the semi- sedentary Natufian to the Pre-Pottery , Neolithic are well recorded, whereas we lack this information for southeast Europe. Although contact between j Greece and Turkey must have started during the Pre-Pottery period, around 7000 BC. or before, western Turkey is little explored and the direct points of ‘ contact are not as yet known. The most important Neolithic settlements are in
6/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 1-2
4500 B.C.
yy, 3500 B.C. 4200 B.C.
5500 B.C.
4 5500 B.C. C
\ Same, \
5500 . a
5500 B.C. , A | i MM ON 5500 8.
6000-5500 B.C.
6500 B.C,
5 eV
iti es
j | © 7000 B.C.
KEY
Upper Mesolithic
Castelnovian Mesolithic with incipient animal domestication
Mesolithic (Pre-Roucadur) of central France
os Dniester-Bug (Grebeniki)
Kukrek and Crimean Murzak Koba
Neolithic 5500ec. Dates marking spread of agriculture
—_— Extent of Neolithic with pottery
Ce ee FIGURE 1-2 Spread of farming In Europe. Dates shown (based on radio- carbon and dendro- chronology) are for full-fledged Neolithic with pottery. In the west- ern Mediterranean zone animal domestication began about a millen- nium before the transi- tion to fully developed agriculture. In southeast- ern Europe, the Neolithic Started with a full- fledged agricultural complex (with cereals and all domesticated animals except the horse),
central Anatolia, 300 to 600 km from the Aegean Sea. In spite of the distance inland, it is clear that there is a general similarity of culture.
The earliest towns of Anatolia devel- oped an amazingly high cultural level as seen in the two most important: Catal Htiytik, dating from the end of the 8th to the end of the 7th millennia B.C., and Hacilar, from the end of the 7th to the early 6th millennia BC.
Catal Hiyuk
The excavation of the 7th millennium B.C. town of Catal Hityiik by James Mellaart in 1961-63 and 1965 has revolu- tionized our views on the prehistory of Anatolia and the entire Old World." Catal Hiytik consists of two riverside mounds situated on a dry plateau 1000 meters above sea level on the Konya plain in south-central Turkey. The larger mound occupies about 32 acres (16 hec- tares}, one acre of which was excavated. The breathtaking discovery of thirteen building levels with houses, temples, murals, reliefs, sculptures, trade items, and other finds was an eye-opener to the level of Neolithic culture that existed in the 7th millennium B.C. The close cultural similarity of the southeast European Neolithic with that of Anatolia makes it indispensable to look first at Catal Hiyuik, a monument of concentrated information that sheds light on many aspects of Neolithic life: economy, trade, architecture, house and temple furnishings, religion, and art. The Konya plain was an especially rich part of the Old World, one that abounded in wild cereal grasses and domesticable animals. The town that developed there and continued for more than a thousand years is dated in calibrated chronology to c. 7250-6150 BC. (in uncalibrated chro- nology, 6500-5750 b.c.; the latter dates were used in books and articles pub- lished by Mellaart and other authors before 1989). Catal Hityik did not emerge out of a vacuum. Below it was another mound with twelve levels of an aceramic culture. The bottom levels belonged to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and Late Natufian which yielded mate- rials related to cultures in Syria and
1/THE BEGINNINGS AND SPREAD OF AGRICULTURE /7
Palestine. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A level contained a temple model, figurines, loom weights, limestone plaquettes with a rich decoration, and fragments of poly- chrome wall painting. The late Natufian (bottom level) included wooden plaques with designs, shale plaques, geometric microliths, and other finds.'* These preceding levels at Catal Hiiytik express the long development of a single culture from the 10th to the 8th millennia BC. During these early millennia, experi- ments in local domestication of cereals and animals, especially aurochs, must have been made. The inventive spirit of these early people is reflected by a vari- ety of designs on plaques and the poly- chrome painting of walls. Religious objects, models of temples, and figurines found here continue throughout the whole Neolithic sequence.
Catal Hiiytik was an orderly settle- ment that reflects a remarkable stability of social organization throughout many hundreds of years. It is the largest town of the Early Neolithic period in the whole of the Old World, and it is esti- mated that up to 7,000 inhabitants could have lived there at one time. (The famous Jericho in the Jordan valley, as it is now estimated, could have housed no more than 400-900 inhabitants).'s
The houses of Catal Hiiyiik were densely grouped; many were built against existing structures and open courtyards occurred randomly. (FIGURE 1-3) Houses were timber framed and built of mud brick with flat roofs. There were no doors, and people entered their homes through openings in the roof. Lack of debris or remains of meals inside these houses suggest that the occupants kept their houses scrupulously clean. Interiors were sparsely furnished and raised mud platforms served as seats and beds. From the size of the houses, some 25 square meters, and the number of beds, Mellaart guessed that none of the excavated houses could have accommo- dated more than eight persons. Kitchens occupied about a third of a house’s total floor space and ovens were set low in the walls. Storage rooms contained plaited baskets for grain, tools, and other uN supplies.
8/
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
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The townsfolk cultivated three types of wheat and one of barley, and grew or gathered a wide range of green and root vegetables and fruits. While cattle provided them with most of their meat supply and with dairy products, they also kept goats and hunted deer and wild pigs.
Throughout the existence of the town there was a continuous trading activity in obsidian and flint. Obsidian was obtained from Hasan Dag volcano and other places in central Anatolia. This volcanic glass was used not only for cut- ting tools, but also for mirrors which they were able to polish without any scratches. Calcite and alabaster (used for jewlery and figurines) probably came from the Kayseri region, and fine white marble from western Anatolia. The western hills beyond Konya, rich in brightly colored iron oxides, may have provided a number of pigments for paint- ing. The copper ores, hematite, limonite, manganese, galena, and lignite were probably from the Taurus Mountains. Shells were imported from.the Mediter- ranean Sea, while rock crystal, carnelian, jasper, chalcedony, and other rocks used for beads whose sources are not clearly known were very likely imported from distant places. Trade must have con- tributed appreciably to the wealth and prosperity of Catal Hiyiik, and indus- tries flourished with specialized workers in obsidian carving, metallurgy, weaving, wood carving, and other disciplines. Many artifacts display the highest stan- dard of craftsmanship.
It is clearly evident that the practice of religion was integrated into people’s daily lives. Temples were found within the area of habitation .in houses similar to those in which people lived. From 300 excavated rooms, 88 had painted walls. Each painting was from 12 to 18 m long. (Sketched reconstructions of many of these were published by James Mellaart in The Goddess of Anatolia, vol. 1, 1989.) The eastern and northern walls in which platforms were found were painted above with ingenuity and an amazing diversity of designs. These were emphasized with plaster reliefs and bucrania (bull heads or skulls}.
The colors used were yellow and brown ochres (from iron oxides), bright blues and greens (from copper ore}, deep and bright reds (from mercury oxide and hematite], mauves and purples (from manganese), and lead gray (from galena). Mica dust was used to provide the pig- ments with a glitter effect. Mellaart observed that these wall paintings had a ritual function and that when a painting had served its purpose, it was covered over with a layer of white plaster. Later, as the need arose, a new picture would be painted on the clean background.
The main theme of these wall paint- ings and reliefs revolves around the Goddess of Regeneration portrayed as a frog-shaped woman giving birth. She is associated with animals, and around her are both the vulture, representing the death aspect, and the bull head, representing regeneration. There is also a myriad of accompanying symbols rhythmically lined out along the edges, framing the panels. Most of these sym- bols are abstracted representations of horns, triangles, rhombs or double tri- angles, or hourglass shapes and butter- flies. Symbols are duplicated, triplicated, multiplied, juxtaposed, shown in reverse, and in positive and negative designs. The variety of these combinations of motifs is virtually endless. In addition, there are also some half-naturalistic portrayals of deer hunts, women carrying fish nets, mountains, plants, and water with fish. (We shall return to the tem- ples of Catal Htiyiik in chap. 7; see plates 38 and 39 for examples of wall paintings; for temples with vultures, see fig. 7-26, for bull heads and horns see figs. 7-51, 7-52).
The dead were buried under platforms in the houses after their skeletons had been excarnated (stripped of flesh and internal organs through exposure to birds, probably in open-sided towers). Burials of women painted with ochre were found under the floors of temples and under wall paintings. The rich burial of a woman interred with three tusked lower jaws of wild boars arranged around her head, was found under the largest temple (in E VU, 14). The largest painting which it contained portrayed a town
(presumably Catal Htyiuk itself) with a volcano erupting behind it. The size of both the temple and the wall painting, as well as the unusual symbolic grave items, suggests that this woman had a respected position in the society, perhaps as a queen-priestess. The prominence of older women or girls is similarly dis- tinctive in European burials found under the floors, near the house, under long earthen mounds, or in cemeteries, as discussed in chapter 9. There are no male graves with such extraordinary symbolic items. |
The physical anthropological study of nearly 300 skeletons found at Catal Hiiyiik as yet is not completed. The preliminary reports divide the peoples into long-headed Eurafricans (54.2 per- cent}, long-headed proto-Mediterraneans (16.9 percent}, and short-headed (Brachy- cephalic) Alpines (22.9 percent). The most numerous group resembles Upper Paleolithic Combe Capelle humans from southern France, described as the Medi- terranean version of Cro-Magnon. The point to be emphasized, as Mellaart has remarked, is that the bulk of the popu- lation was still close to its Upper Paleo- lithic ancestry.
Hacilar and After
Hacilar, located 220 km west of Catal
Hiiyiik, also excavated by Mellaart, was a smaller town of about 50 houses.’* Its
beginning is contemporaneous with the -
end of Catal Hiiyik and it continued throughout the first half of the 6th millennium B.C. It is contemporary with the rising Neolithic culture in south- eastern Europe—Sesklo, Staréevo, and Karanovo groups—while having its own style of pottery and sculptural art.
After Hacilar, Anatolian Neolithic is not well known, whereas the culture of southeastern Europe flourished and reached its climax between 5500 and 4500 BC. The two areas diverged and local cultural entities were formed in different ecological and geographical zones. In the next chapter we shall describe these areas in some detail beginning with the Aegean area and the Balkans and ending with central Europe.
1/THE BEGINNINGS AND SPREAD OF AGRICULTURE /9
As it is seen from the temples with their wall paintings and statuary, the Anatolian Neolithic was a Goddess civi- lization characterized by the dominance of the worship of the Goddess imbued with mysterious generative power, the importance of temples that functioned as social foci and catalysts for creativity in arts and religious expression, and by the balanced matrilineal social struc- ture. From around 6500 B., the same features of culture are found in south- eastern Europe and later in most of Europe up to the time of the demise of this civilization, between 4500 and 2500 B.C. However, in the Mediterranean islands such as Crete and Thera this civilization flourished until the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C.
Even if we admit the presence of Anatolian influence on southeast Europe during the 7th millennium B.C., we cannot see it as a transplantation like a tree at a certain time, rather this influence affected the European conti- nent as a gradual flow of a river. Further- more, we cannot equate this matristic and art-loving civilization with a proto- Indo-European culture (a cradle of Indo-European speakers) which is reconstructed by means of comparative Indo-European linguistics and mythol- ogy as a patriarchal, patrilineal, warlike, mobile (horse-riding) culture, and having a pantheon of dominant male gods. This equation, as proposed by Colin Renfrew in 1987,!” is based on a misconception of cultural structures and goes against the evidence of Indo-European studies.
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Neolithic Cultures of Southeastern and Central Europe
12/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
Southeastern and central Europe contains the most outstanding Neolithic cultures of Europe. While many tradt- tions are shared with Anatolia and the East Mediterranean, these cultures are remarkable for their own creativity in art and architecture, and for their ability to explore and adapt to a variety of environmental conditions.
There is a strong cultural inter- relationship between the Aegean area (Greece) and Anatolia (Turkey). A strong connection also exists between the southeast and the Danubian plain, and with the region north and west of it. The stream of agriculturation moved up from the southeast to northwest, branching off to the east and west. It flowed like a river, following fertile lands and stopping at or avoiding the mountains. This flow was in stages:
It first covered the coastal regions and plains of the Aegean and southern Balkans, c. 6500 B.C.; it spread next along the Lower and Middle Danube plain, c. 6000 B.C.; reaching the Upper Danube and the river valleys north of it, c. 5500 B.C.
The Southeast and Central European Neolithic is known from hundreds of excavated sites—unlike the Anatolian, which is known from only several. It is therefore possible to speak of the distri- bution of culture groups and to pursue the development of their individual features throughout a millennium or more. It is a true blessing and challenge to the students of European prehistory to explore this great variety of cultural material instead of the monotony of uniformity.
Within this diversity was an expres- sion of the way of life, the belief system, rituals, symbols, and the social struc- ture which was more or less the same during this period between the Aegean and Central Europe. The interrelation- ship between the various culture groups within this territory is the result of a gradual influx of peoples from the south and their influence on and intermixing with local hunter-fishers who survived in such areas as the Upper Tisza basin, the Iron Gate region, and the Dniester- Bug basins.
Six groups will be introduced, starting with the Aegean area in the south and ending with the Dniester Bug basins in Moldavia and the Ukraine.
1. The Sesklo culture in northern Greece with the fertile region of Thessaly as its bread basket. Excava- tions began here in the very beginning of the 20th century and continued throughout the second half of this century.
2. The Starcevo (Kérés, Cris) culture, distributed over the continental Yugo- slavia, southeast Hungary and south- ern Romania. This culture is still vaguely researched, although informa- tion from excavations has markedly increased during the last three decades.
3. The Karanovo culture in central Bulgaria, much related to the Starcevo, discovered in the late fifties and sixties through the intensive excavation of large tells (mounds).
4. The Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture of central Europe, between France and Romania. This is the most widely distributed culture, which has also been the best explored throughout our century by teams of archeologists from France, Holland, Germany, Czech- oslovakia, Poland, and Romania.
5. The Bukk culture in the Upper Tisza basin (northeast Hungary and eastern Slovakia), known by its sacred caves in the Carpathians, from as early as 1876, and from further explorations and publication in the twenties as well as from work in recent decades.
6. The Dniester-Bug culture in the black soil region, discovered in the fifties and sixties. In this area, the domestication of cattle and pigs and the grinding of wild seeds seem to have started independently from the main stream of agriculturation in southeast Europe, before influences from the Starcevo-Cris culture appeared.
FIGURE 2-1 Tells (mounds of habitation debris) from Thessaly. (1) Argisa tell, west of Larisa, Thessaly, with an accumulation of over
12 mof Neolithic and Early Bronze Age debris. (2) Profile of the Sesklo tell, c. 12 m of cultural deposits, with Early Neolithic (Early Ceramic) at the base and classical Sesklo on the top,
c. 65th-57th cents. B.C. Sesklo is 14 km west of Volos, Thessaly, N Greece.
The Aegean Neolithic: The Sesklo Culture of Northern Greece
he Thessalian and Macedonian
plains are Greece’s richest
agricultural lands. In modern times as well as for thousands of years these plains have served as the bread baskets of Greece. The large Thessalian Plain is drained by the Penneos River and the Macedonian by the Aliakmon River. Their many tributaries flow down from the mountains before merging and flowing out into the Aegean Sea. The earliest Neolithic settlements were founded on natural elevations near a water source—river or stream. This area is within the Mediterranean climatic zone with dry hot summers and cold wet winters. Eighty-five hundred years ago the climate was moister, with lush vege- tation; the river valleys were covered with oak and pistachio groves.
Tells—Mounds of Settlement Debris
The plains of northern Greece are dotted with mounds called tells, “magulas” in Greek, which are mound-shaped layers of settlement debris from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. Going west from the Bay of Volos and across the plain between the modern towns of Karditsa, Trikala, and Larisa, one can easily count hundreds of them, standing five to fifteen meters high. (FIGURE 2~1) These mounds hold the secrets of people who lived there for many centuries between 8500 and 4500 years ago. Mudbrick and layers of clay daub used for house walls crumbled in time and new houses were built over the old ones causing the tells to grow higher, layer by layer. These human-made hills are mysteri- ous and archeologists are often intrigued by a desire to unravel their secrets. I was one of them. This irresistible fascination let to the excavation in 1973-74 of one of the early Neolithic tells on the south- ern edge of the Thessalian Plain. This site, Achilleion, near Farsala, proved to be the key for understanding the chro- nology, architecture, pottery evolution, and religion of the Neolithic Aegean.!
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FIGURE 2-1
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE
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/13
14/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-2 sO orology FIGURE 2-2 Distribution = Prom the hundreds of well-preserved of major Early and tells, only about thirty have been profes- Mingle MEG Stes sionally excavated in this century. The in Greece, c. 6500- - : : 5500 BC. first systematic exploration began in
1901 when Chrestos Tsountas launched his extensive investigation of the mound of Sesklo.2 The name of that site was subsequently given to the culture of Neolithic settlements throughout Thes- saly and southern Macedonia. The Early Neolithic of southern Greece, the Peloponnese, and the Aegean Islands is related to the Sesklo of Thessaly and should be regarded as part of that culture. (FIGURE 2-2) In Tsountas’ time, the Sesklo culture was believed to have begun about 3000 B.C. Radiocarbon dates now verify the earliest stages with pot- tery, domestic animals, and cultivation of wheat, barley, lentils, and peas at 6500 BC. or somewhat earlier.
The stratigraphy of the Achilleion mound in central Thessaly and the forty-two radiocarbon dated samples from this mound have served to deter- mine a chronology of the Sesklo culture with greater accuracy. The gradual succession from one cultural phase to the next is observable from the time habitation began in Achilleion, 6500-6400 B.C. until 5600 B.C.
Only a few of the other excavated sites have been dated by the radiocarbon method. Of these, Sesklo in Thessaly, Elateia in Phocis?, Nea Nikomedeia in Greek western Macedonia’, Argisa’, and the Franchthi Cave in the Peloponnese® have yielded more than one date of similar age. (TABLE 1) Early Sesklo corre- sponds to Early Neolithic (6500-6000 B.C.)’ and Classical Sesklo to Middle Neolithic (6000-5500 B.C.}. Its climax
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KEY was reached by 6000 B.C. (’ > Large plain of Thessaly During the first half of the 7th millen- i el nium BC. there probably existed a pre-
pottery stage, as yet vaguely documented in Thessaly, but evidenced in the Pelo- ponnese by the Franchthi cave, in Crete at Knossos, and on the island of Kythnos.
Architecture
In the Sesklo culture people built their villages of separate houses, a marked departure from settlement patterns of the Near East where communities are clusters of interconnected dwellings with common walls. Sesklo sites of the Middle Neolithic were ringed on the landward side by V-shaped ditches proba- bly for protection against wild animals. In every phase of Achilleion there is evidence of house building, and the fluctuation of climate from cooler and damper (6500-6000 B.C.) to warmer
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /145
(6000-5500 B.C.) was reflected in its architecture. The earliest buildings were pit houses in the mid-7th millennium B.C. which were replaced with rectan- gular houses with pisé walls around 6300 B.C. Timber post houses appeared around 6200 (FIGURE 2-3), and between 6100-6000 there were timber post houses up to six meters long with wattle and daub walls. In the period between 6000-5600 solid rectangular houses of mudbrick were built on stone founda- tions. (FIGURE 2-4]
FIGURE 2-3
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FIGURE 2-3 Timber-post houses with walls of wattle-and-daub, round plastered hearths, and domed ovens with clay platforms in the court- yards. Achilleion tl, near Farsala, Thessaly, 6300-6200 B.C. Reconstructed by
D. Shimabuku.
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16/
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
— a FIGURE 2-4 Stone foun- dations of Sesklo houses in Thessaly from 5900- 5700 8.C., as they can be
seen today,
le a FIGURE 2-5 (1) Artist's reconstuction of the classical Sesklo village. Some 30 houses are surrounded by stone retaining walls including Internal stone walls. Based on Tsountas’s excavation, 1901.
(2) The rest of the set- tlement extends over adjacent slopes, covering 20-25 acres. 5900- 5700 BC.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /17
FIGURE 2-5 The settlement of thirty or more houses at Sesklo, on the central knoll, apart from the scattered settlement on
= Ae see i ir =
ee | adjacent hill slopes, was surrounded by Pe Pern te eats, a ae retaining walls of stone (see artist’s Pees ars) PRATT UN mend FO mini a a ek _ teconstruction based on Tsountas’s i cal ON Eg BGSAL Gita ANA tai? Nat ae excavation, fig. 2-5). Demetrios Theo-
ime alts ‘
charis, who continued excavations at Sesklo between 1958 and 1976 has bee > estimated that the entire settlement mm: ~~~ covered an area of 20 to 25 acres.’ @--2eex" “(For further discussion of Sesklo, see WN x chap. 9.)
ae . The most common houses had only one room, whereas two-room houses, as clarified by excavations at Achilleion, were temples consisting of a temple proper in one room and a workshop in the other (see fig. 7-46). Some houses had two stories or an attic supported by buttresses. Pitched roofs are indicated by miniature temple models of clay. Domed ovens were in the courtyards and had either a rectangular bench attached at one side or a large circular platform in front. (FIGURES 2-6, 1) Figurines of the pregnant-goddess type were found near the ovens or on these platforms (see
figs. 7-48 and 7-49), and grinding stones, grain, stone and bone tools, and pots were found nearby. Food preparation
and other work was done here, which may account for the conspicuous absence of rubbish on house floors and
a tidiness remarkable for this period.
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18/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-6
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FIGURE 2-6 (1) Domed ovens with a bench or circular platform in courtyards of Sesklo villages. Vases, hand milling stones, pestles, and pounders were found nearby. (a) Achil- leion Il, c. 6300-6200 B.c., (b) Achilleion IVa, 5900- 5800 B.c. The cross-section shows sev- eral layers of plastering interspersed with layers of black earth.
(2) Hand-milling stones and axes used for wood- working from Achilleion lV, Thessaly, c. 5900- 5800 B.c. Small axes were produced of greenstone. Triangular miniature axes were frequently never used and seem to have served as symbols, but their butts display damage, probably from hafting.
(3) Tools used for the textile industry. (a) Clay spindle whorls. (b) Clay spools. (c) Bone needles. (a) and (b), Achilleion Ill, c. 6100- 5900 B.c.;
(c) Achilleion Il, c. 6200 B.C.
(4) Clay spoon from Achilleion tb, c. 6300 B.c.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /19
Economy
Throughout its duration, the Sesklo culture was sustained by a stable econ- omy based on the cultivation of wheat (emmer, einkorn, and club wheat}, bar- ley, millet, lentils, vetch, and peas.° The earliest levels are characterized by a mixed crop which was a form of subsis- tence agriculture ensuring that some return was obtained from the land what- ever the climate or soil conditions. These annual crops were cultivated to provide a storable surplus of large edible seeds which could supply starch, pro- tein, and vegetable oils for the commu- nity throughout the year. The fertility of the soil was replenished by intentionally introducing pulse crops with the cereals which activated nitrogen fixed in the root nodules, thus replacing what was leached from the soil during rainy periods.
At first, sheep and goats were the most numerous domesticated animals, followed by cattle and pigs. The ratio of caprovines gradually declined—from 82 percent at Achilleion I (middle of the 7th millennium B.C.) to 70.6 percent in Phase IV (early 6th millennium B.C.)— as the importance of cattle and pigs correspondingly rose. This change indi- cates an increasing reliance of animal husbandry on local resources. There were domesticable wild forms of cattle and pigs in Greece, and the occurrence of transitional forms in occupation deposits is indicative of a small-scale practice of local domestication. The climate, damper than at present, pro-
duced oak groves and forested mountains.
sheltering roe, red and fallow deer, aurochs, wild swine, red fox, hare, wild cat, badger, and ibex. Nevertheless, hunt- ing seems to have been minimal, as only three to six percent of animal bones identified at Achilleion and other sites are those of wild animals. Seasonal fruits, acorns, nuts, and berries added variety to the diet. The harvesting and grinding of grass crops is indicated by large quantities of obsidian and chert sickle blades, hand-milling stones, pestles, and pounders. (FIGURE 2-6, 1} Chisels, axes, and adzes speak for wood- working (FIGURE 2-6, 2) while spools,
spindle whorls, loom weights, awls, and very fine bone needles with pierced eyes indicate textile production. (FIGURE 2-6, 3) A variety of clay ladles and spoons have been found (FIGURE 2-6, 4} as well as fishhooks and harpoon points of bone.
Among the products of Early Neolithic craftsmen are marble, por- phyry, or greenstone vases and dishes; tiny pendants, beads, and figurines of finely worked blackstone, greenstone, marble, or alabaster; and alabaster and clay seals incised with meanders, spirals, triangles, and zig-zags. A seal or gaming board of alabaster with a meandroid design from Achilleion is a good exam- ple of their exquisite craftmanship. (PLATE 2}
Pottery
Pottery is the most conspicuous indus- try, richly represented in each phase starting with the middle of the 7th millennium B.C. Gradually changing shapes and technology are very helpful for the establishment of chronological phases. The painting of symbols on pottery occurred simultaneously with, or shortly after, the inception of ceramics. By 6400-6300 B.C., several motifs—triangles, zig-zags, chevrons, and net patterns—are recognizably dominant. (FIGURE 2-7; PLATE 3}
20/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-7 see 3 FIGURE 2-7 Earliest painted pottery (red on white-slipped back- ground) from Sesklo Ib, c. 6400-6300 Bc. from Argisa, Otzaki, and Sesklo, Thessaly.
Ceres 8 FIGURE 2~8 Early pottery shapes imitated stone vessel forms. (1) Green- stone dish and (2) pot- tery dish, Achilleion la,
c. 6400 Bc.
a FIGURE 2-9 Developmen- tal stages of pottery from the earliest phase, c. 6500-6400 B.c. to the classical Sesklo period,
c. 5800-5700 Bc., based on excavation and chronology of Achilleion near Farsala, Thessaly. Phase Ib and Il, outflar- ing rims, small knobs, and pierced lug handles appear. Phase Ill and IV,
a wide assortment of wares in red, brown, and black clays, some very thin walled and well fired. A high percentage exhibit a fine white kaolin slip beneath designs painted in con- trasting shades of red iron oxides.
| FIGURE 2-10 Red on white painted Sesklo vases from Achilleion with magnificent “flame” designs,
c, 6100-5900 Bc. Achilleion, tllb-Iva, southern Thessaly.
FIGURE 2-8
The rounded shapes and ringed bases of the earliest pottery jars and dishes are clearly in imitation of stone vessels that continued to be produced in the Early Pottery period. (FIGURE 2-8) Changes in pottery reflect a progressive technologi- cal development from simply shaped globular or semiglobular burnished pots with a blunt lip, some with a ring base, in Early Neolithic I, to a wide assort- ment of wares in red, brown, and black clays, some very thin walled and well fired, from the Middle Neolithic (Classi- cal Sesklo}. (FIGURE 2-9) A high percent- age of this later pottery exhibits a fine white kaolin slip beneath designs painted in contrasting shades of red iron oxides. Banded “flames,” triangles, zig- zags, lozenges, and steps characterize the celebrated Sesklo Style of painted pottery. (FIGURE 2-10; PLATE 4}. Orni- thomorphic (bird-shaped) and anthropo- morphic vases were produced. Goddess masks are frequently found attached to the necks of ritual vases. (PLATE 5}
FIGURE 2-9
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE
a é ) “a
Ou Oise t
/21
FIGURE 2-10
22/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
Sculptural Art
The tradition of modeling or carving figurines was inherited from the Upper Paleolithic. In the Aegean area, as in the Near East, their manufacture precedes that of pottery. Clay figurines are known, for instance, from the pre- pottery site at Knossos, Crete. Clay, marble, alabaster, greenstone, and black- stone figurines are documented from the very beginning of the Sesklo series and are evidenced in every phase. In later Sesklo phases about 90 percent of the total number are of clay over pebbles or over cylindrical or round clay cores, while the number of stone figurines decreases. The miniature figurines, some two to six centimeters high, are better preserved than the larger sculptures which are usually found fragmented.
At Achilleion, in an excavated area little more than 100 square meters, more than 200 clay figurines came to light. One hundred thirty-two were found within temples, ninety-nine were in the court- yard near a dais or oven, and others were found discarded in pits. It is safe to say that the majority of figurines were kept in groups on altars within temples
and in courtyards on a dais and at the bread oven. Almost always they were found in association with fine ware, offering containers, lamps, ladles, and handled seals. This site has revealed that certain types of female figurines (Bird Goddess, Snake Goddess, Nurse} were temple or house goddesses. Others, such as the Pregnant Goddess, were wor- shiped in the courtyard at specially pre- pared platforms, with offering pits near the bread ovens (see figs. 7-46 to 7-49}. From the two hundred figurines found at Achilleion, only two fragmented ones were representing a male god, seated on a stool with hands on knees.
Sculptural art was abstract and sym- bolic, produced for religious purposes for the reenactment of seasonal and other rituals, as protective house deities or ancestresses, and as ex votos. Although the Sesklo artists did not seem inter- ested in portraying the human body in naturalistic detail, their masterful abil- ity to do so is nevertheless expressed in certain pieces. (FIGURES 2-11, 2-12, PLATE 1}
FIGURE 2-11
FIGURE 2-11 Seated female figures of clay from the classical Sesklo culture, highly burnished and cream slipped.
c. 5800-5600 B.C.
(1) Nicea near Larisa.
H 5.7 cm. (2) Farsala,
S Thessaly. H 7 cm.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /23
FIGURE 2-12
FIGURE 2-13
FIGURE 2-12 (1) Head (mask) of a large sculp- ture in clay. Soufli tell at Larisa; early 6th mill. B.c. H. 8 cm. (2) Masked head with an open mouth that served as a spout for a large libation vase. Achilleion,
c. 5800 BC. H6 cm, Found in temple.
FIGURE 2-13 Dimini vase from Rakhmani, Thes- saly. Spirals sweep across a striated background, with a chevron on the handle; painted dark brown on cream. Mid-5th mill. B.c.
Continuity into the Late Neolithic
The Sesklo culture continued into the Late Neolithic and is called Dimini in the 5th millennium BC. In contrast to the Danubian basin, very few copper and gold items have been found in Greece. The name Dimini derives from the eponymous settlement, four kilometers west of Volos in Thessaly, excavated in the beginning of this century.!!
Dimini materials, characterized by painted and black wares (FIGURE 2-13}, have been recovered in a series of strati- fied tells in Thessaly overlying Neolithic deposits. Outstanding are the Argisa, Otzaki, Arapi, Soufli, Zarkou, and Rakhmani tells in the area of Larisa.” The Dimini period is a long-lasting, continuous cultural development, placed within 5500-4000 B.C., represented by phases J-vil.!8
In Attica, the excavations of the cave of Kitsos' yielded a series of radiocarbon dates which place the incised and matt- painted pottery, obsidian tools, and other finds into the 46th and 42nd centuries BC. (TABLE 1)
The Cycladic Islands seem to have continued their own Neolithic culture. The excavation at Saliagos near Antiparos (a small island at Paros} in the southern part of the Aegean has revealed a settlement with stone walls and a bastionlike structure. The radio- carbon dates obtained from shells date
_ the Saliagos finds between 5200-4600
B.C. (TABLE 1) The Kephala site on the island of Kea, with analogies in Attica and in the Peloponnese, is placed at the very end of the Aegean Neolithic.’* Its rhyton and marble vessels resemble those of the Cycladic Early Bronze Age.
24/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-14 Se FIGURE 2-14 Neolithic culture groups in the Balkan Peninsula and in east-central Europe, 6300-5300 Bc.
Warsaw Kiev @ Prague Carpathian Mts. a reap, Vienna WN Budapest 10 ° ol 1 ( eek A A ; Seep, Transylvanian Alps A «4 Belgrad . \s inate a eigrade \ Bucharest rn Alps Y awe ) Black Sea STARCEVO 21-23% 2 p° 4
se A. ee
palkaP
o ® 38 Marica
KARANOVO |
Adriatic Sea
IMPRESSO
Catal Hiytik el
ail 0 200 km ee
KEY
Starcevo (K6r6s-Cris) sites
1.
oO
10.
li.
12.
13.
14.
LS.
16.
LY.
18.
13.
20.
Anza, central Macedonia, SE Yugosla- via; stratified settlement with three layers below the Early Vinéa stratum.
. Circea, Lower Danube, SW Romania,
settlement.
. Dévavanya, Kérés group, Hungary,
settlement.
. Divostin near Kraguevac, central Yugo-
slavia. Settlement with Staréevo and Late Vinéa deposits.
. Endréd-Szujésketeszt, district of Békés,
E Hungary. Settlement, K6rés group.
. Galabnik, upper Struma, W Bulgaria.
Settlement of the Struma group. GradeSnica, near Vraca, NW Bulgaria, settlement with Staréevo and Vinéa deposits.
. Gura Baciului, Transylvania, NW
Romania, settlement.
Kopancs, settlement of the Kérés group, SE Hungary. Kotacpart-Vatatanya, settlement of the KG6ros group, SE Hungary.
Let, upper Olt, N Romania, stratified settlement.
Obre I, NW of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Late Staréevo (Kakanj} stratified settlement followed by Butmir settlement in nearby Obre II.
Perieni on R. Prut, NE Romania, settlement.
Porodin near Bitolj, Pelagonia, S Yugo- slavia, tell settlement.
Réske-Lidvar, Kérés group settlement, SE Hungary.
Pernik and Slatino settlements, upper Struma valley, W Bulgaria. Szajol-Fels6féld, Kérés group settle- ment, SE Hungary.
Teci¢c, R. Morava, central Yugoslavia, settlement and graves.
VeluSina tell near Bitolj and Porodin, Pelagonia, S Yugoslavia.
Vr8nik near Anza, distr. Stip, SE Yugo- slavia. Settlement.
21-23. Mesolithic and Early Neolithic
24.
Vlasac, Padina and Lepenski Vir sites in the Iron Gates region, N Yugoslavia (striated area}. The local culture con- tinuous from the Upper Paleolithic Gravettian was ultimately absorbed by the Staréevo population.
Mehtelek, Proto-Bukk (Szatmar) settle- ment; obsidian and flint source.
Sites of Karanovo Culture
1.
ue
3.
4.
Azmak, Stara Zagora, C Bulgaria; stratified settlement tell.
Cevdar, east of Sofia; stratified settle- ment tell.
Karanovo, Nova Zagora, C Bulgaria; stratified settlement tell.
Muldava, Plovdiv, C Bulgaria; set- tlement.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /25
The Starcéevo (K6rés, Cris) Culture of the Central Balkans and the Lower Danube Basin
he Neolithic of Yugoslavia,
not including the Adriatic coast,
southern Romania, and south- eastern Hungary, is represented by the Starcevo culture (FIGURE 2-14), named for the site excavated near Belgrade in 1932.'”7 The northern Staréevo group is called the K6rés culture in Hungary,’ named after the Kérés River, and the Cris culture in Romania after the river Cris (same as K6rés]. Nevertheless, all of these terms refer to branches in some- what different ecological niches of a sin- gle culture, sharing traditions closely related to those of Thessaly and Macedonia.
.The lowlands, inland valleys, and plains of the Balkan Peninsula and the Danube Basin were settled by 6300- 6000 B.C., and the Neolithic in this area continued without major changes for a millennium. (TABLE 2} The inhabitants built their villages on river terraces or on sloping land above streams where the soil was conducive to agriculture, with houses arranged in linear rows facing the river. The area of settled territory cov- ered up to ten acres or extended for almost a kilometer along the river. Staréevo deposits rarely yield a layer of material more than one meter thick. Their timber houses have disintegrated into the soil, leaving little debris. This is why there are no Staréevo tells north of Macedonia.
The Spread of Agriculture from Thessaly and Macedonia Across Central Yugoslavia and Western Bulgaria to the Danube Basin
The diffusion of agriculture and stock breeding to the north of Greece is documented by excavations in central Macedonia, particularly at Anza in Ovée Polje, midway between the Aegean area and the Danubian plain.’ Research at Anza {author's excavation) demonstrates that climatic changes created ecological conditions suitable for the spread of agriculture. When the initial settlement of Anza I was established, about 6300- 6200 BC., climatic conditions were cooler and damper than at present.
Deciduous forests offered a plentiful supply of timber, wild animals, acorns, nuts, cornelian cherries, wild grapes, and berries, while the spectrum of cultivated crops and domesticated animals was generally the same as that of Greece. The people first domesticated sheep and goats, then later cattle and pigs, which altogether account for 96.5 percent of all animal bones at this site. Their principal crop was emmer wheat, supplemented by club and einkorn wheat, hulled six- row barley, peas, and lentils.
In the Vardar-Morava region of central Yugoslavia, no Mesolithic hunter-fisher sites are known at present. The premise that the first agriculturalists in Yugosla- vian Macedonia were immigrants from Thessaly is supported by the analysis of human skeletons which shows that the basic population of Anza was a Mediter- ranean type of the Aegean area. Cultural materials link the colonists of Mace- donia with the Sesklo folk of Thessaly: stamp seals, fine burnished wares with white-on-red painted symbolic designs; greenstone carvings, musical pipes, offer- ing vessels, and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines suggesting similar- ities of ritual and mythical imagery. Throughout the Lower Danube basin, the earliest agricultural settlements demonstrate a surprising uniformity of character. Pottery shapes and designs are remarkably similar between Romania and Macedonia.”°
At this stage of research, the archeo- logical record suggests that food produc- tion technology was carried northward to the Danube basin by migrating popu- lations from Macedonia. Immigrant groups seem to have followed the Vardar and Struma valleys, then up the Morava basin west of the Rhodope and Balkan Mountains to the Danube valley (FiG- URE 2-14, arrows}
“m”
26/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
Physical Type of the Population
The physical type of the population of most sites (Teci¢, central Serbia; Obre, Bosnia; Deszk, southeastern Hungary} has been shown to be the gracile Medi- terranean (small statured; narrow faced}. But some sites in the central Balkans (Divostin}, in Transylvania (Gura Baciului}, the sites of the Tisza Basin, and particularly of the Kords region of southeastern Hungary, have yielded skeletal material that suggests a mixture of dolichocranial Mediterranean with local Cro-Magnon and brachycranial types.2) This heterogeneity suggests the intermixing of the immigrants with the local Mesolithic populations. As already mentioned in chapter 1, the gracile Mediterraneans continued to move north until they entered the Iron Gate region of the Danube valley in northern Yugoslavia and southern Romania. There they were halted by the local Mesolithic populations. These were hunters and fishermen of the massive Cro-Magnon type,22 whose culture is called Lepenski Vir, named after the famous site of more than fifty temples and numerous stone sculptures. (See radiocarbon dates, table 2.}
Economy
Although these immigrants brought an economic pattern which was basically the same as that of Neolithic Greece, it was necessary for them to adapt to this subhumid climatic zone of forests in which hunting and fishing were primary food sources. The abundance of antler harpoons, clay net-sinkers, fish bones, and thick layers of river shells recovered from villages is comparable to the high percentage of wild animal bones, includ- ing red and roe deer, aurochs, boar, bear, lynx, fox, badger, and birds.
Sheep and goats continued to be the predominant domesticated animals, although proof of experimental cattle breeding comes from a number of southern Hungarian sites where a transi- tional form, between the local wild Bos primigenius and the imported domesti- cated Bos taurus, has been identified. In Bosnia, cattle bones constituted fifty to sixty percent of all domesticated
FIGURE 2-15
FIGURE 2-16
Batali
eee Hee wis Sto —ia—4 . os ae - aaa, = RNA is 5 ;
FIGURE 2-15 (1) Starcevo (KOrds) house; recon- struction. Tiszajend,
SE Hungary. (2) Clay model of a timber house (or a temple) with a bull's head on the gable. Roszke-Ludvar,
SE Hungary.
FIGURE 2-16 During the early 6th millennium B.C. spirals become a major motif in ceramic design, enlivening Old European pottery with their fluid dynamism, These early spiral motifs are painted dark brown on orange. Star¢éevo 5800-5500 B.C. (1) Staréevo and Vin- kovci, N Yugoslavia; (2) Anza Il near Stip, SE Yugoslavia.
FIGURE 2-17
FIGURE 2-17 Footed bowls and dishes, characteristic Late Starcevo ware in Bosnia, W Yugoslavia, Obre |, northwest of Sarajevo; approx. 5300 B.C.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /27
bones as shown by excavations at Obre I, northwest of Sarajevo.”* Cattle were raised for meat and milk. The number of pigs was minimal.
Architecture
Throughout the Danube basin, the architecture of the later Staréevo period is characterized by timber frame dwell- ings with wattle-and-daub walls and clay-plastered floors. (FIGURE 2-15) The Late Starcéevo settlement at Obre I in Bosnia indicates that by 5500 BC., the people built houses that were substan- tial rectangular structures up to nine meters in length and seven meters wide, often built on stone foundations and containing round hearths.?5
The actual temples were two-room hceuses, similar to those of the Sesklo culture. Such was the largest house at Obre I out of five houses excavated. This structure differed from the other smaller, one-room residential houses, not only in size but in architectural details. The floor of the main room was carefully covered with stone slabs while floors of other houses were paved only by a com- pact layer of clay. A horseshoe shaped hearth was in the room’s center in front of which were found religious items of exceptional quality—vessels with large ring handles, shallow plates, and footed vessels.2° These items were most likely used by the townsfolk in their collective rituals.
Trade
The main items of trade continued to be Aegean spondylus shells used for the manufacture of bracelets, rings, and beads, and a variety of hard stones including flint and obsidian used for blades, scrapers, burins, points, axes, and adzes.
Obsidian for use in the making tools was imported from at least two sources: Sardinia via the Adriatic Sea, the Dalma- tian coast, and the Neretva pass to Bosnia,”’ and from the Carpathian foot- hills of northeastern Hungary and east- ern Slovakia. The latter supplied the K6rés group. The Mehtelek site in the Szamos River valley, more than 150 kilometers northeast of the main area
of K6rés distribution, is significant.”* Eighty percent of the chipped stone industry of this site was based on obsid- ian which was made into tools at the site as well as traded in a semifinished condition.
Pottery
There is a definite departure from the Sesklo type observable by 5900-5800 B.C. Starcéevo pottery is marked by the appearance of brown-on-orange painted curvilinear designs and fingernail- pinched storage vessels, while the most distinctive products of the Staréevo population are its barbotine pottery (decorated with thin clay paste) and the spherical jars, footed bowls, dishes, and bird-shaped vases found even in the northern and western areas of the Starcéevo distribution. (FIGURES 2-16 and 2-17) Exquisite anthropomorphic and ornithomorphic vases with intricate symbolic decoration and painting in sev- eral colors suggest a highly developed artistic sensibility. (PLATE 6)
28/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-18 [az
FIGURE 2-18 Ceramic forms from three phases of the Staréevo culture as produced by the Stratified site at Anza (Anzabegovo) near Stip, Cc Macedonia.
wR we RE ER RRMA wg
Uy
(1) 6300-5900 B.c., represented by maroon- Slipped and red- burnished thin-walled vases in the earliest (ja) phase, around 6300- 6100 B.c., and white- painted on a ground of red, brown, or black in (Ib) around 6100- 6000 B.c.
(2) 5900-5600 B.c., typi- fied by chocolate-brown on orange slip painted vases. Curvilinear design and “barbotine’ (appli- qué) decoration appear.
(3) 5600-5300 B.c., shapes and utility wares with barbotine and impressed decoration continue. The painted design is more tectonic; converging vertical lines are painted lengthwise from top to foot.
LID @ CU)
FIGURE 2-19
Lael
FIGURE 2-20
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRALEUROPE /29
tae as FIGURE 2-19 Stag with Supernatural antlers. A figure in relief on a large vase from Czépa, the K6rds group, SE Hun- gary, c. 5500-5300 Bc.
EE FIGURE 2-20 Bird-shaped vases of the Kérdés group In SE Hungary, c. 5500 BC. 1 11 erm.
get FIGURE 2-21 Offering containers. (1) Lepensk Vir; (2) Dudesti Vechi, Timisoara, W Romania. c. 5700-5500 Bc.
FIGURE 2-21
The Anza settlement of the Vardar basin in central Macedonia has yielded a yardstick for the chronology and evolu- tion of ceramic forms based on stratigra- phy and radiocarbon dates. (FIGURE 2-18) Exquisitely painted Staréevo pottery—vases decorated with relief figures (FIGURE 2-19), ornithomorphic and anthropomorphic vases (FIGURE 2-20), miniature four-legged offering vessels (FIGURE 2-21), and female figurines—were all produced for ritual purposes. Figurines of clay were more numerous in the south than in the north, where they were probably made of wood and have not survived for posterity.
Influences from Bulgaria and the Adriatic coasts are traceable in the final phases of the Staréevo culture. These stimulated change that resulted in the formation, around 5400-5200 B.C. of the Vinéa, Butmir, Tisza, and Lengyel cultures discussed in chapter 3. In the western part of Yugoslavia, Staréevo traditions continued to approximately 5000 B.C.”
30/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
The Karanovo Culture in Central Bulgaria
veritable land of milk and iA honey greeted the agricultural-
ists who settled in central Bulgaria, probably not later than 6300 B.C. (TABLE 2-3). Massive tells are con- centrated in the Marica basin where fer- tile soils and a mild climate were ideally suited to farming. The long duration of these settlements is demonstrated by great accumulations of habitation mate- rial such as the thirteen meter high mound of Karanovo, whose name is applied to the cultural tradition of this area. Owing to the relative isolation of this region created by the Rhodope and Balkan mountains, the Karanovo culture developed a character somewhat difter- ent from that of the central Balkan Staréevo complex. |
Major Excavations
Decisive information about the Karanovo culture was produced by exca- vations carried out by V. Mikov and G.I. Georgiev in 1936-37 and 1946-57, and continued in 1984-90 by S. Hiller and V. Nikolov at the Karanovo mound
near Nova Zagora.*° Archeologists distin-
guished six successive phases, I-VI, which were substantiated and expanded by the excavation by G.I. Georgiev of the Azmak mound at Stara Zagora in 1960-63. New excavations at Karanovo opened one more layer containing houses below Karanovo I (yet unpub- lished). This will throw new light on the beginning phases of Karanovo I. Subsequent excavations of the Kazanlak tell at Stara Zagora (with eight meters of Neolithic deposit}? and other settle- ments provide a clear picture of the Karanovo lifestyle.
FIGURE 2-22
a we el © RR we
Villages and Houses
Early Karanovo settlements were well- planned communities containing an estimated 300 inhabitants within an area of 3 hectares (a hectare equals 10,000 square meters). Single-room dwellings of six or seven square meters were neatly aligned in parallel rows (FIGURE 2-22, 1}, separated by log-paved streets. The people constructed their houses on a framework of thin wooden poles covered by a lattice work of branches and coated with a thick layer of clay. A total of sixty buildings has been estimated for the basal level at Karanovo. Houses contained massive clay ovens as well as large quantities of ceramics and marble vases. (FIGURE 2-22, 2} Ovens were also built in the spaces between the houses. Inside walls in some houses were painted, suggesting that among the village houses, some were probably used as temples. Among the agricultural tools were quern stones, hand-milling stones, pestles, and antler sickle-handles (see fig. 1-1, 1} Bone spoons of exquisite workmanship were also found. (FIGURE 2-23}
= == 7
FIGURE 2-22 (1) A sche- matized Karanovo | village plan. (2) Interior of a one-room house from Karanovo | period. Muldava tell near Plov- div. Left rear, a beehive oven with an ash pit, To the right of It is an accumulation of vases, loom weights, and stone tools, Early 6th mill B.C.
FIGURE 2-23 Bone spoons or spatulas per- haps used for collecting grain, from Karanovo | tell at Azmak, ¢ Bul- garia. Early 6th mill B.C. Stara Zagora Museum. 31.5cm, 14.4 cm, and 13.2 om.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE
Economy
The distribution of sites in the Nova Zagora region demonstrates that settle- ments were intentionally located on potentially arable soils.*° A cultivated area surrounded the basal village within a two-kilometer radius, while at larger settlements, more than 760 hectares were tilled.3* The longevity of these settlements definitely implies that some form of crop rotation was practiced. It is presumed that half the land was left fallow at all times, or planted to restore nitrogen to the soil. Chief crops were einkorn and emmer wheat, barley, peas, and lentils. Only emmer wheat, barley, and pulses seem to have been fully processed, as indicated by large, pure samples. All Neolithic levels contained. sickles of deer antler with flint teeth millstones and bone spatulas, perhaps used for scraping flour.
Sheep and goats were the predominant domesticated animals, followed by cattle and pigs. However, the amount of graz- ing land along the river was too limited for year-round use, and herds were prob- ably moved to hilly regions in the spring and early summer.
/31
32/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-24 _<--— —-a FIGURE 2-24 Presentative Karanovo | tulip-shaped vases. (1) Painted in white on red in net- patterned hanging trian- gles and dotted bands. H. 17 cm. (2) White-on- red painted, spiral- decorated, standing ona high conical foot. Early 6th mill. B.C. Azmak tell at Stara Zagora, C Bul- garia. H 28.4 cm,
— er) FIGURE 2~25 Semi- globular jar and dish Standing On a ring base with cut-outs, (1) deco- rated around the body with hanging and inverted triangles filled with a net pattern.
(2) decorated with crescents and S-spirals, white-on-red painted. Karanovo | culture, Muldava settlement, C Bulgaria, c. 5800 B.c.
FIGURE 2-25 ~ tine Ge OO md
Pottery
Remarkably advanced, hard, well-fired pottery without any organic admixture is found in the early levels of all syste- matically excavated tells. Distinctive tulip-shaped bowls and.tall jars with hollow ring bases or cylindrical legs were red slipped and white painted. (FIGURE 2-24) Such pottery is far from “primitive” and is certainly not the
earliest to be found in this area. Sophisti-
cated craftsmanship is demonstrated by
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRALEUROPE /33
exquisite footed vases (FIGURE 2-25}, and by a series of small triangular or rectangular vessels. New treatments introduced during the Karanovo II phase are channeled or fluted decorations and black colored fabric as a result of a con- trolled reducing atmosphere. Karanovo Il produced an even greater variety of shapes. Typical of this phase are tall
vases with zoomorphic, doglike handles. (FIGURE 2-26} The typology of Karanovo
I-III pottery is shown in figure 2-27.
<->
FIGURE 2-26 Karanovo Ii vases with dog-shaped handles (1,2) and an ornithomorphic/ anthropomorphic lid handle. (3) Black bur- nished. Azmak tell at Stara Zagora. Mid-6th mill BC. H 14 cm.
FIGURE 2-26
34/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-27 ar
[— ——_ FIGURE 2-27 Typology of
pottery from Karanovo ],
ll, and It, C Bulgaria. TT
L,.¢. S900=5800 B.C, ll, 5700-5600 B.c. lll, c. 5600-5500 Bc.
SS FIGURE 2-28 Distribution of the Linearbandkera- mik culture (LBK) in cen- tral Europe. Shaded areas show concentra- tion of sites. Approx.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /35S
FIGURE 2-28
KEY
OD NAD AWD =
Elsloo
Sittard K6ln-Lindenthal Aldenhoven Flomborn Rixheim
. Lautereck
. Hienheim
. Réssen
. Sondershausen . Bylany
. Olszanica
. Nitra
oS N t werrsaaee ed a
a1 = J
U Cs )_§ Baltic Sea >
\ es = A . er
“Se,
\
~N \ NEMUNAS —— e | “ \ i
™ DNIEPER-DONETS 7 DC rs
/, k
% ~- Dy» : ies a,
DNIESTER-BUG en
Dniester
a
Danube —
{| KARANOVO
Figurines
The repertory and style of figurine types from Karanovo villages are much related to those of Sesklo and Staréevo. Well rep- resented are the Bird Goddess terracotta images with beaked noses and protrud- ing, egg-shaped posteriors; the pregnant goddess type holding one hand over
her pregnant belly; stiff nudes with a supernatural pubic triangle, as well as zoomorphic figurines. The stift-nude sculptures were often carved of white marble,*> an indication that these people traded for marble with the Aegean islands. The predominance of a variety of goddess figurines over an extended geographical area indicates a complex and consistent pattern of religious devo- tion centered around a multifaceted female deity.
The Neolithic of Central Europe: The Linearbandkeramik (LBK)
- Culture
his is the best known culture in central Europe and perhaps the
most classically Neolithic in the ancient world,” said V. Gordon Childe in his Dawn of European Civilization of 1925. After seventy years, we can still agree that this culture, between eastern France and Romania (FIGURE 2-28}, is best known internationally because of excellent excavations during the last decades by the French, Dutch, German, Czech, Polish, 4nd American arche- ologists. Childe called it Danubian I culture; however, since it was not dis- tributed over the Lower Danube River system, the term Danubian creates a problem. Archeologists still continue to use Bandkeramik and the English Linear Pottery.
Vy
4
36/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2~29 Characteris- tic vases of the early LBK decorated with spirals, breasts, bi-lines, horns, and concentric rectan- gles from the sites in the Znojmo area near Brno, Moravia. 5500-5000 Bc.
The presently used term Linearband- keramik is abbreviated to LBK. It should be noted that linear bands do not accu- rately describe this pottery since its design includes spirals, snakes, mean- ders, rectangles, concentric squares, triangles, V’s, chevrons, two lines, three lines, M's, X’s, a.o. (FIGURES 2-29 and 2-30) In addition, there are figures in relief expressing anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images, horns, breasts, and other symbols found on ceramics from southeastern Europe. Pottery forms, fabric, and symbolism of LBK culture are similar to late Staréevo (K6rés), although there is a general lack of painted ware.
Five hundred years elapsed before the Balkan Neolithic (Staréevo} elements and agriculture were introduced into temporate central Europe. Close affini- ties between the Staréevo (Korés) culture and the LBK firmly suggest an actual movement of people from the southeast. The oldest phase of LBK groups in the Middle Danube basin developed around 5600-5400 B.C. directly out of the Starcevo (K6rés} tradition.** Physically, the LBK people are generally related to the small statured gracile Mediterra- neans of the Balkans.?’
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /37
FIGURE 2-30
(Herek eb ee dei te S44 PAC eC EBMeOHCOrcmeene (eeear ae red i Ce ECF CoE FE ee ME Ere (Merete ver ee € ae , e eeaet a ¢ ‘ Pe mene ese: se pig
. ees Ogu
an Fue ced oe a per BARag, A
<a Metedag Pal 6 5 Tae Peper ban, ay re | “14. Ban. Ara. ae»
AAG Ge An
“Tae “a & io oe “F46, TAeaN v a ta. Aen f) "44 aann4a4 y
Pewg t= bold
Waren 9 P ONT tg Oh
en "onan gah? & baal red Pom tewnagune tf
Ad & AAA AOD 4g 4 aon e
” oF AAAN AAAK ae oot
as . Hat roam NARUTO OTE Cog, fr : age a :
& 1 " ° rp PPh aE 4 Cf ODN aH M4 Oa
FIGURE 2-30 LBK vases incised with symbols: snakes, crosses, V's, lozenges, chevrons, double triangles (hour- glass shapes), anda
Saas gga TT frog. (1,3,5) Early;
EAM Si! \ (2,4,6-9) Middle and oo AY » Late; (1, 3, 5) Elsloo, ae IU Holland; (2,4,8,9) Kénig-
3 LAY WY saue; (6) Halle-Trotha:
and (7) Seehausen, E Germany. Scale (1,3,5): 1/2; (2,4,6,7): 1/3; (8,9): 213,
JVaag ae an 199 wn : “ wnt
CMONDE ee - GOO HOG Manan’ .. GF 4 ae ac Ae 1 @CO LE ;
VA de Ag qa aes WC
@ “) anh AK Maears na
38/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
Diffusion, Site Location, and Farming
The agriculturalists diffused as far west as eastern France and the Netherlands, and as far north as the lower Oder basin in Germany and Poland. The area from Hungary to Holland is about 1000 kilo- meters across. The similarity of ceramic style and of lithic equipment within this area suggests that diffusion took place in a relatively short time. The climate of the 6th millennium B.C. was warmer than at present, and central Europe was covered with light mixed-oak forests. LBK groups were moving mostly into an unoccupied ecological niche. Charac- teristically, LBK agriculturalists settled almost exclusively on the loess (wind deposited silt) plains, which were easy to work once the forest cover had been removed, and were offered very little competition from the local Mesolithic population. In their settlements on valley bottoms and on sunny terraces of rivers and streams (FIGURE 2-31A), the LBK farmers cultivated emmer wheat as the principal crop, as well as einkorn, bread, club, and spelt wheat; barley, rye, millet, oat, peas, lentils, opium poppy, and flax. Since emmer does not extract nutrients from the soil as vigorously as other cereals, it could have been grown on loess soils for indefinite periods, although a rotation system may also have been used.*8
The LBK people kept domesticated cattle as their prime source of meat, milk, and manure, as well as sheep, goats, pigs, and dogs. Elk, deer, and boar were hunted but hunting was marginal. Some of the villages of this garden type of civilization were occupied for 400- 900 years.
FIGURE 2-31A
(2 ered FIGURE 2-31A Distribu- tion of LBK settlements in the valley bottom of R. Aisne, E France.
KEY xz Alluvial terraces
Calcarious plateau
Settlements:
. Pernant
. Missy-sur-Commune
. Chassemy
Vailly
. Cys-la-Commune
. Cuiry-les-Chaudardes
. Pontavert
. Berry-au-Bac “Le Chemin de la Pécherie” 9, Berry-au-Bac “La Croix
Maigret” 10. Menneville
FIGURE 2-31B
FIGURE 2~31C
ee ee eee Se
ee ee Ne ee on, ee end
— ee ee eS
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /39
ES Sa FIGURE 2-318 The use of shoe-last celt for wood- working. (Recon- struction).
in ary emt FIGURE 2-31C Typical LBK tools: (1) Wooden sickles with flint blades set in and fastened with pitch (Central Germany). (2) Flint borers (Mohel- nice, Moravia). (3) End scrapers of flint (Sittard, Holland).
The basic tool assemblage of the early LBK was composed of ground stone adzes and “shoe-last” celts for wood working (see fig. 2~36). The flint indus- try continued Staréevo traditions and was composed of microlithic round scrapers, backed knives, sickle blades (for setting into wooden handles}, borers, and burins. (FIGURE 2-31B) Local flint sources were explored and some settle- ments specialized in flint mining .and exportation to the neighboring regions. In southern Poland, for instance, a Juras- sic flint was mined by the people of the Olszanica settlement located nearby.*° Obsidian for sickle blades, knives, and other tools was obtained from the Bikk and Tatra Mountains. In later phases of this culture, flint blades were imported from as far as the Dniester region in the southeast for use in the manufacture of tools.
Villages and Houses
LBK settlements are found in clusters of “settlement cells” and are more dense in some regions than in others. Frequently, enclaves consist of eight to ten sites. In southern Poland, according to a survey | along the Dlubnia River, the density is twenty sites per 25 square kilometers, although the average density of the entire area northeast of Cracow is one per 32 square kilometers.“
Villages range from 125 to more than
500 hectares (about 300 to 1250 acres},
the largest supporting perhaps five hun- dred or more inhabitants. Normally, villages comprised five to eight houses
’ spaced about 20 meters apart. No defen-
sive features such as palisades or ditches are found in the early period of this culture.
VY
40/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-32. | : — ji FIGURE 2-32 Plans of LBK __ el --- eee long-houses with rectan- — ee eee gular enclosures perhaps used as corrals. The 2 . outer walls were daubed with clay, Usually the northern end of the house was ditched, : apparently for reinforce-
@ ® ment. Bylany, east of [PH mete ~ Prague. Excavation by ° B. Soudsky | e ¢ ie oe 8 . y ! e2nOr° By | i i @ ° i f i e° | : bai @® oy | . - ¢ i 2 ° om ; | ee at *@ @ @ q@eoereee® Sr e e c @ Y ‘ Ad o@ © ty . oP ; 53 p 8 e@ @ o% i ¢ @ 8 " : ; : ‘hae °@C@. See ee 5 . 9 e L ; 0 ; r e @ Post Holes ° ‘ ®*eiJe @w Ce ° : ° ‘ .. oumueee = Ditches 8 bd & Cee . ~ ® e3 6 & . e pais ° $38 : 4 g ae es s @ &8 ; e & e «¢ © os : 6 @ e ce oe es § @ 4 : e@ « s e ® © 2 @ ® + Hee T. sU08 es ess FIGURE 2-33 LS
FIGURE 2-33 A longitudi- nal cross-section and a reconstruction of a large
EE SEE EES ee aaa house at Bylany. Excava- tion by B. Soudsky. End 6th mill. B.C. Length c. 45cm,
MY 2: LIM VE beg
| =s5 Ue re aoa LT 1 be ag Tne, . AB pe Zee rnin ane! [gi ee | ee [gee OCW eee | ~ AL is | ie tk SLL i ¥ I
KAM ah PEER
WANG mount Sy a oe ; | ‘ #
e
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /41
The LBK is best known for its long- FIGURE 2-34 , EEE houses built of upright timber, and FIGURE 2-34 LBK grave many have been excavated in Czechoslo- inventory; pot, spondy-
vakia, Poland, Germany, Holland, and France.*! Since prototypes do not exist in the Starcevo culture, a local develop- ment is assumed. Timber was abundant, and it is quite normal to find wooden architecture in central Europe. Dwellings were large, rectangular timber structures, and of the 108 iden- tified as dwellings at Bylany, east of Prague, no more than five to eight were occupied at the same time. Large struc- tures, sometimes 45 meters in length, were surrounded by a fence with a gate, resembling cattle enclosures. (FIGURE 2-32) Houses were generally 5.5 to 7 meters wide and varied in length. Five rows of posts ran the length of each structure; the two outer rows braced
lus arm ring (fragment) and a stone celt (two views). ‘‘Musical note’ decorated phase. Early 5th mill. B.C. Nitra, Slovakia.
inhumation cemeteries, graves were in oval pits with walls covered with clay plaster or stones. The extended or : slightly flexed dead were sometimes \ Gi : buried with one or two pots, stone celts, flint arrowheads, stone palettes for color-
ing materials, and necklaces and arm
rings of spondylus shells. (FIGURE 2-34}
(We shall return to an analysis of grave
goods and how the cemeteries reflect the
social structure of the LBK people in
chapter 9.} ,
ores
oe OS hh oo
wattle-and-daub walls while interior ae - rows supported the roof. (FIGURE 2-33} ee i fii Ng During later phases (Stroked Pottery and ie ae i | Bi Réssen}, houses became trapezoidal in Yt et i er p te re Oe ie Cemeteries | : al oh i ape: The LBK people buried their dead within 3 | ; at Bs i Be 100-500 meters from the settlement | me fe i HH Ht boundaries, practicing both inhumation De if a and cremation. About two dozen ceme- sea iis BE teries have been excavated, some con- ft a Me i taining more than 100 graves.* In an a | i iB | GBB te
ae : & Ba SeSceses 4 re a & ES Re SS BD
— w- . :—— x
————— Se ee ee oer te - = Basaa
eS
{oS ao ep & Tow deity —,
Vy
42/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
|
rims IoOre >. Be EE - l i -§ 6" J
FIGURE 2-35 Middle and Late LBK pottery. (1) ‘Musical note’’ deco- rated bowl. Early 5th mill. 8.C., Bohuslavice, Moravia. (2,3) Stroke- decorated vases from the area of Brno, 47th-46th cents.
o—.
Chronology
The LBK has been subdivided into three main periods on the basis of pottery typology: early—second half of the 6th millennium B.C., typified by the spiral- meander-chevron decorated pottery (see figs. 2-29, 2-30); middle—to the end of the 6th and early 5th millennia BC., characterized by “musical note” deco- rated vases (FIGURES 2-34, top, and 2-35, 1); and late—to mid-5th millen- nium B.C., typified by stroked decoration of pottery. (FIGURE 2-35, 2, 3) (See radio- carbon dates: TABLE 4.}
The maximum expansion of the LBK is traced during its middle period. In the east, LBK sites of the middle period are found north of the Carpathian Moun- tains in the Dniester, Siret, Prut, and Bug valleys of northeastern Romania, and a few sites have been spotted even in the Lower Danube region. The LBK set- tlers in the east had strongly influenced the further development of culture in Romania and the western Ukraine where the Dniester-Bug culture apparently fused with the LBK. In Moldavia and the western Ukraine, the LBK formed a substratum for the formation of the Cucuteni (Tripolye} culture.
Toward the end of the 5th millennium BC., (4300-4200) the central areas of LBK culture—the Middle and Upper Danube, Elbe, Oder, and Vistula basins—were colonized by the Lengyel and Tiszapolgar people coming from the south, probably as a chain reaction to the first Kurgan wave in east-central Europe. The western part of this culture continued, but in the period between the end of the 5th millennium BC. and c. 3500 BC., profound changes occurred. Settlements are now found outside the ecological niche of valley bottoms, with some defended by palisades built of tree trunks. These changes signal the shift from a peaceful, unfortified lifestyle, to one that required protection against invasion.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /43
Recent research in Holland, Germany, and France has revealed a continuity of village life of LBK descendants in the Rhine area and in eastern France (in the Paris basin and in Hainaut} for almost a millennium, up to the middle of the 4th millennium BC. In the Rhine basin, the LBK proper was followed by the Hinkelstein, Grossgartach, Réssen, and Epi-Réssen phases. In the Paris basin and Hainaut, the post-LBK culture (in French known as Post-Rubané}, distinct in its regional character, is known under a series of names given after the major excavated sites. The sequence in the Paris basin mins as follows: Villeneuve- Saint Germain (with three phases}, d‘Augy-Sainte-Pallaye, Cerny, R6ssen III (with influences from the Rhine area}, and Epi-Roéssen. In the province of Hainaut, a somewhat different variant parallel to Villeneuve-Saint Germain, is known as the Blicque group. One of the peculiarities of the Final LBK and post- LBK culture in the west is its pottery tempered with crushed calcinated bones.*8
The Bukk Culture in the Upper Tisza Basin
he name Bukk comes from the Bukk Mountains north of the
Hungarian plains, and is used here to identify the culture of the Upper Tisza basin during the 6th millennium B.C., which is also called Eastern Linear- bandkeramik.“ The first finds of this culture were discovered in 1876 in the cave of Aggtelek at the border of north- erm Hungary with eastern Slovakia. Bukk as a culture name has been in use since 192] after the publication of Hillebrand’s and L. Bella’s book, Der Mensch und die Kultur der Urzeit (Budapest). Substantial information on this culture appeared in Ferenz Tompa’s book, Die Bandkeramik in Ungarn, Die Biikker und Theiss-Kultur (Archaeologia Hungarica V-VI, 1929, Budapest). The finds described here were mostly ceramics of several phases. Settlements, workshops, graves, and caves were systematically excavated only after World War II.
Distribution
In the north, the Bukk people reached the mountains and occupied the source area of obsidian in the region of Tokay.
A distinctive aggregation of sites is found along the Upper Tisza and its tributaries Sajo, Hernad, Eger, Bodrog, and Szamos. (FIGURE 2-36} Five hundred and fifty sites have been reported in east- ern Hungary alone. By combining east Slovakian and northwest Romanian sites, the number is increased to more than seven hundred, indicating that the area was fairly densely settled.
Physical Type of the Population
Most probably, the local Mesolithic hunter-fishers were converted to agricul- ture by influences from the Staréevo (K6rés} culture.*5 This premise of local conversion is supported by studies of skeletal material, indicating that the skeletons from graves in the Miskolc and Borsod areas of northeastern Hungary are of local European (Cro-Magnon] type, which differ markedly from the Mediter- ranean type found in Staréevo popula- tions.** Since settlements from the 8th and 7th millennia BC. are not inves- tigated in this region, the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic cannot as yet be shown by actual finds.
Chronology
The earliest Neolithic complex in the Upper Tisza Basin is known as the Szatmar culture.*”? Radiocarbon dates are not available for this phase, but from
. analogies with the Staréevo ceramic
materials, from symbols and religious figurines, and from analogies with other artifacts such as bone spatulae, the acculturation of the Upper Tisza can be judged to have taken place not later than the middle period of the Staréevo cul- ture, that is, before the middle of the 6th millennium BC. The later phases, Tiszadob and Bukk proper are dated by carbon 14 methods to the second half of the 6th millennium BC. (TABLE 5}
44/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 2-36
NN /\ AN AN Carpathian Mts. A A
AA A . AMAA anf /\ .. anes — AN nA AA AR 4 108 oe . e ® oes. A
Ipel wis AN Ny hore N ‘ e pe A ry
Budapest
LENGYEL
Danube
KEY
1. Domica 2. Ardovo 3. Aggtelek
SEES FIGURE 2-36 Distribution of BUkk sites (Tiszadob and Bukk proper phases) in the Upper Tisza basin, c. 5500-5200 Bc.
/\
/\ /\ /\
A . i
/\
Trade
Obsidian nuclei, flakes, and blades appear in abundance in workshops, and large vases filled with flint blades of uniform dimensions must have been prepared for export.*® The presence of spondylus shells in graves of north- eastern Hungary and eastern Slovakia is also indicative of exchange. It is obvious that the Btikk people controlled the obsidian and flint-chipping industry.
Farming
Farming is suggested by grain impres- sions in house rubble (species as yet unidentified}, quern stones, antler hoes, and flat dishes assumed to have been used for baking. Domesticated animal bones, predominantly cattle followed by sheep, goats, and pigs, constituted 50 to 78 percent (depending upon ecological conditions) of animal bones found. Aurochs, elk, and hare bones indicate forest hunting.”
Open Air and Cave Settlements
Settlements are found in river valleys, usually on first terraces, or on slopes, and occasionally on the tops of small hills and at the bottom of narrow gorges in the Karst region. Remains of wooden structures were discovered at the entrances to caves in the Bukk and Matra Mountains, while traces of habita- tion and religious worship were found even quite deep in their interiors. In the cave of Domica in eastern Slovakia, such traces were discovered as far as 700 meters from the entrance. Caves were habitable since their temperature of 10-12° C was stable.
Caves such as Domica-Aggtelek on the border of eastern Slovakia and Hungary, Borsod in Hungary, and others were occupied for a very long time. Hearths and traces of wooden posts have been found in some of these caves, from which have come the most attractive Bukk pottery. (FIGURES 2-37, 2-38} There is little doubt that caves were used primarily as sanctuaries. Post holes of light structures, 3 by 4m witha hearth inside were excavated in the cave of Domica. In this cave outstandingly beautiful Bukk vases appeared in a large
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRAL EUROPE /45
FIGURE 2-37
- Son Nye es ar. tess ni ME SESS vw Les ANd. %
FIGURE 2-37 An elegant, thin-walled globular vase from the classical BUkk culture. The mirrorlike surface ts incised with a coiling snake motif com- bined with chevrons. Cave of Aggtelek on the border of Hungary and Slovakia, c. 5000 B.C.
H 20cm.
FIGURE 2-38 Extraordi- nary thin-walled vases decorated by very fine incisions, some with encrustation of white, red, and yellow color from the cave sanctu- aries of Domica (1-4,6-10) and Ardovo (5), E Slovakia, c 5000 BC.
FIGURE 2-38
PE SS Wa } PENY,
to a
46/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
hall at the source of a river. Quality clay — Figure 2-39 for pottery was obtained from the pits nearby.°° Traces of similar light struc- tures and fine ware were also found in the cave of Aggtelek. An altar of burnt clay 160 cm long was discovered in a niche 200 meters from its entrance which held four sacrificial pits, one large and three small. Fire traces were in the large pit. The small ones probably held containers with offerings. (FIGURE 2-39} There were many potsherds of fine Bukk ware around the altar.
There are only a few totally excavated open air settlements in river valleys or on slopes. The best example of a village from the early phase (Tiszadob) is Oros II which occupied 1000 square meters and consisted of twelve houses. Eight of these formed a semicircular row with four in the middle. Houses were sub- terranean or semiterranean, about 4.7 by 2. m, and oriented from northeast to southwest. The pit inside the house was 60 cm deep.*! From the later phase (Bikk proper), a village of five houses anaes FIGURE 2-39 An altar was excavated at Boldogkovaralja.” from the cave of Aggte- These houses were aboveground, c. 4.5 lek with one large pit by 2.5 m, oriented from northeast to with fire traces and southwest. No post holes were found. three small pits for the Instead, there were large pieces of house siping EN
"—e containers. BUkk culture, rubble that originally were plastered on - 5000 BC. wickerwork walls. Next to the houses were workshops consisting of large hearths and pits containing obsidian and flint nuclei and blades. A cashe of 567 quartz blades was in a pit west of house No. 5 indicating that the villagers here clearly specialized in preparation of stone tools for export.
Graves appeared in habitation sites and particularly under the floors of structures located at a cave entrance. The dead were equipped with vases, sometimes as many as four or five.
PF OWN JZ ee og ah i Ss Le aa
La 2 2"
- eeRe «| eo” ~Se5et me" Pre AARE Seaee + Megs Be RST SRR < Pi S902 85g i an)
\
| \
it hy AMI
i
| II fly itl
[| i |
hy WANN
i i |
iL tlt iM \
: ; |
Hi
FIGURE 2-40 BUkk figu- rine marked with meanders and other symbols. Vulva ts indi- cated in front. Second half of the 6th mill. B.c. Scale 1:1.
Pottery
Vase shapes originally inspired by south- ern agriculturalists were continued in the Bukk culture: spherical jars, hemi- spherical bowls, round dishes, bottle- shaped vases, footed vessels, and tall “fruitstands” with funnel-shaped con- tainers. This fine ware developed into extraordinary thin-walled pottery, deco- rated by slender incisions, sometimes by encrustations of red, white, and yellow, and by dark brown vertical bands or broad horizontal bands painted around the mouth before firing (see fig. 2-38). Fine ware was frequently slipped or bur- nished and tempered with sand, while crude ware was tempered with chaff.
Figurines
Bukk figurine art, which is distinct in its rigidly abstract forms, frequently reduced the human body to geometric shapes. Symbols were incised on their flat surfaces. (FIGURE 2-40) Meanders, zig-zags, chevrons, tri-lines, and other typical Old European symbols appear on figurines, anthropomorphic vases, and also on cave walls.
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRALEUROPE /47
The Dniester-Bug Culture
he Moldavian region of fertile black soil, northwest of the Black
Sea between the Dniester and Bug rivers, was conducive to farming.
Local Domestication
The sites in this area that have been sys- tematically excavated indicate that there was an extended period of experiments in animal and plant domestication by hunter and fisher groups who had occupied this area from the Mesolithic. Radiocarbon dates have verified a Neo- lithic sequence of three pre-pottery and five ceramic phases at Soroki, lasting from 6500-5000 B.C.* (TABLE 2-6) The
two earliest Neolithic levels lack pottery
but contain bones of domesticated cattle and pigs, wild grass-wheat seeds (Aegilop cylindrica), and small grinding querns.™ Domestication of cattle and pigs was accomplished independently by the Dniester-Bug population, and wild grass- wheat was gathered some 500 years prior to contacts with Star€evo (Cris) agricul- turalists. High percentages of fish bones (roach of the carp family, eels, and pike} recovered from the earliest villages indi- cate that the availability of fish must have provided the initial impetus toward a settled way of life. Throughout the duration of the Dniester-Bug culture, farming was a secondary aspect of an economy based upon fishing and hunt- ing (aurochs, red and roe deer, and boar). The third phase, c. 5800 B.C., contains not only pottery, but einkorn wheat, the most commonly cultivated species in southeastern Europe. Impressions of husks, ears, and grain of emmer and spelt in the ceramics establish the exis- tence also of these species at a number of sites. Further evidence is the use of straw as pottery temper.
Villages, Houses, and Material Equipment
The earliest villages were located on terraces formed by post-glacial floods. In the Atlantic period, damper conditions and increased precipitation apparently influenced the movement of settlements into higher areas. Stone was used in the construction of huts and large long- houses that in earlier phases had been chiefly semi-terranean. Houses above ground were built during the last phase. This period also marks the introduction of elements from the LBK culture of central Europe.
The material equipment of the Dniester-Bug population was notably different from that of Staréevo and Karanovo agriculturalists. Polished stone tools were rarely produced, while antler was employed in a variety of ways, including the manufacture of axes prob- ably used to prepare the ground for planting. A gradual microlithization of flint tools is observed which is opposite to the change in lithics elsewhere. Small trapezoidal chips set in bone or antler handles were used as scrapers and knives. Burins and perforators were also microlithic.
48/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
Pottery FIGURE 2-41 Co TT The earliest coarse ceramics were large FIGURE 2-41 Earliest pot- pointed- or flat-based pots, decorated tery of the me ee with linear incisions of wavy lines and Pe ieed ae : net-pattern designs, constructed of #9 Wlewtne’. Ere he clays tempered with vegetable matter. early 6th mill. B.C. (FIGURE 2~41) Later, influence from the Staréevo culture is seen in the appear- ance of fine, well-fired, plain (gray or buff} and painted wares (see footed vase of Staréevo-Cris type, fig. 2-18, upper row]. Staréevo elements were superseded during phase IV by LBK styles from central Europe. At this time, the original character of the Neolithic Dniester-Bug culture had all but disappeared.
The presence of LBK influence indi- cates a gradual influx of central European people as far as the Dniester valley around 5000 BC. Their presence in Moldavia later contributed to the formation of the Cucuteni culture c. 4800-4700 B.C.
¢, ay
Overview
"ee ea «4 f ° A “eere a cA ote: - e Sie, one ys wet er, & .
n this chapter we have described
the process of Neolithization of
southeastern and central Europe in the period between 6500 and 5500 B.C. An enormous leap in farming economy, trade, crafts, architecture, and art was made due to the favorable climate of the Atlantic period. The presently arid Med- iterranean and Aegean regions were, at that time, lush with vegetation. Central Europe was warmer than in the present and forest and garden trees flourished. Human populations steadily increased in all areas, as expressed by the growth of villages. There is no evidence of ter- ritorial aggression, and the total absence of lethal weapons implies a peaceful coexistence between all groups and indi- viduals. Villages have no fortifications except occasional V-shaped ditches and retaining walls where structurally neces: sary. Villages were usually founded on choice locations near rivers or streams or on lake terraces, and the use of steep hills or other inaccessable terrain for habitation was unknown during this peaceful period.
The achievements that took place during the first thousand years of the Neolithic were not few. Extraordinary progress was made, not only in the domestication of animals and the culti- vation of plants but also in the develop- ment of pottery and house building and in a series of other crafts. Excavations in Greece have revealed a sequence of architectural changes that were deter- mined by the fluctuations of climate. Dwellings from the middle of the 7th millennium B.C. constructed with pisé de terre (rammed earth) walls were replaced, at the end of this millennium, by timber-post houses with wattle-and- daub walls. Solidly built houses with mudbrick walls on stone foundations followed in the early part of the 6th millennium B.C. The earliest pottery
_ appears in the middle of the 7th millen-
nium B.C. The technological progress in pottery production over the first four to five hundred years, from unfired to well- fired and burnished wares, from very simple rounded shapes to a wide assotrt- ment of vases in orange, red, brown, and black clays, some very thin walled, is breathtaking. Pottery painting began
c. 6300 B.C. This period was an age for the flowering of ceramics and must not be seen as simply a “Stone Age.” Stone vases virtually disappeared after the Early Neolithic, in fact, as pottery gradu- ally replaced stone carving, although the carving of figurines, seals, and jewelry continued.
The emergence of great numbers of figurines—anthropomorphic and Zoo- morphic, female and male—as well as anthropomorphic, bird-shaped, and animal-shaped vases, miniature replicas of furniture, stools, tables, and thrones, miniature offering tables and containers, libation vases, and lamps, as well as tem- ple models, coincides with the early ceramic period, that is, the second half of the 7th millennium B.C. All of these items, and the great variety of their shapes, speak of an intensive religious ceremonialism. Masked figurines and larger sculptures, some with indications of ritual costumes and headgear or crowns found in a variety of postures and in specific locations associated with their special functions, represent a
2/NEOLITHIC CULTURES OF SOUTHEASTERN AND CENTRALEUROPE /49
gamut of divine characters expressing the rich Neolithic pantheon of goddesses and gods. A pattern of worship is estab- lished which continues to the end of Old Europe with very few changes. In the southeast, temples are evidenced in the later centuries of the 7th millennium B.C. These are integrated with regular houses and are distinguished by charac- teristic features: an altar of wood or stones (dais} in the larger room and a workshop for the preparation of ritual objects in the smaller room. ‘This tradi- tion continued during the 6th and 5th millennia throughout most of the Balkans and east-central Europe. At the same time, specific locations of worship are evident, which include not only the temples, but courtyard areas with altars and special offering places. As will be shown in the chapter on religion, tem- ples and other places of worship served a variety of functions and were associated with different categories of divinities.
During this millennium, many basic seeds were planted which must be acknowledged for the subsequent stages of cultural evolution to be fully understood.
WH My DS YY AL A i aS, WF DOVE’ IY HA QP GRA NOY of “3 QV ly QD XQ t ty es 4° " YD. > ws y y : P ‘ ~, . a os A, & a A, ®. H af *% : 7 ay ee 2
'
«
Vi \
WY, WNW WASSSSZ/
= <5
oe JN YY} TT. NG
—
_ eT, re @ee
Be- ——
ba he tet sl cS
S2/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
From a relatively homogeneous Neolithic culture, regional traditions developed that were characterized by diverse art styles as well as increased specialization and development in cop- per metallurgy and other crafts. Some settlements of this period amounted to townships. The size and number of villages doubled and tripled, reflecting an absolute increase in population, land-use intensification, and a concomi- tant refinement of social organization.
The appearance of a complex of new traits during this period, particularly of black polished pottery and copper artifacts, has led many scholars in the past to assume that tides of coloniza- tion must have burst through the Balkans. They would have come, it was thought, either from Anatolia or from the eastern Mediterranean. This cul- tural enrichment seems now to have been the product of an essentially local development, since only internal shifts can be observed. An unprecedented diversity and creativity in ceramic art would hardly be the anticipated result of a substantial ethnic movement. From physical anthropological evidence, it appears that the majority of this popu- lation must have persisted from earlier times.
Economic patterns of subsistence economy, predicated on the usual crops and domesticates, continued from Neolithic times with a gradual improve- ment of agricultural and animal-raising techniques. The main innovation in cultivation was a wider use of bread wheat and linseed and a greater specialization in barley production, along with indirect evidence of the use of the plow. A significant increase of cattle and pigs occurred everywhere, while the number of sheep decreased. Between the end of the Neolithic and the end of the Copper Age, the number of cattle in all sites of east-central Europe increased approximately 20 percent.'
Local forests abounded in game.
In some areas, such as Hungary, Moldavia, the western Ukraine, and northeastern Bulgaria, about 40 percent of the animal bones recovered from settlements are of wild species. Among the hunted animals, the auroch (wild bull) was of prime importance because
of its heavy yield of meat, followed by wild swine, red deer, and roe deer.” Frutt, berries, and nuts were also collected where available in the for- ested uplands. Crab apples, cornelian cherries, strawberries, elderberries, gooseberries, hazelnuts, and acorns have been found at a number of sites.
Numerous barbed harpoons, fishhooks, and spear points of bone and antler in the Tisza, Vinca, Karanovo and other settlements attest to the intensification of river fishing. Large fish such as carp, catfish, and sturgeon must have contributed greatly to subsis- tence, as did snails and mussels in the coastal regions.
Copper metallurgy began around 5500 B.C. and intensified throughout the course of the Sth millennium B.C. Copper mines are known from central Yugoslavia (Rudna Glava) and central Bulgaria (Ai-Bunar and others). In the midst of this millennium, gold was discovered and was used for the manu- facture of religious symbols and jewelry. Craft development and trade reached a climax, while ceramic arts and architecture achieved a true artistic flowering. Vases were produced in a magnificent variety of forms and colors. Decorative techniques included poly- chrome painting, encrustation, black polishing, channeling, graphite and gold painting. The use of potters’ wheels and kilns is a technological surprise in the archeological record, while spa- cious, multiroom houses and two-story temples are evidence of architectural innovations. The sheer numbers of temples, temple models, articulate anthropomorphic and zoomorphic sculptures and figurines, many marked with symbols and script signs or with an indication of ritual dress, libation and other ritual vases, and the consis- tent appearance of symbols and script signs on countless sacred objects increase the possibility for the recon- struction of religious beliefs and rituals.
REGIONAL GROUPS AND THEIR CHRONOLOGY
FIGURE 3-1
Within the broad geographic region of east-central Europe a multiplicity of cultures developed, each marked by a certain individuality of habitation _ patterns and ceramic art. [FIGURE 3-1} Eleven cultural areas are briefly de- scribed below, starting with the Adriatic and ending with the Black Sea littoral:
1. Danilo-Hvar on the Adriatic Coast
. Butmir in Bosnia
. Vinéa in the central Balkans
. Tisza in the River Tisza basin
Lengyel in the Middle Danube basin
and north-central Europe
Boian in the Lower Danube basin
Hamangia on the Black Sea coast
Karanovo in Thrace and E Macedonia
. Petresti in Transylvania
. Cucuteni in Moldavia and the western Ukraine
11. Dnieper-Donets in the Ukraine
np wh
OO OND
—_”
A well-rounded picture of each cul- tural group is not available since all have not been equally well researched. There is, however, enough material for insight into their chronology, habitation pat- terns, architecture, art, and religion. Best researched are the Butmir, Vinéa, Tisza,
; Adriatic Sea and Cucuteni cultures.
The Danilo-Hvar Culture in Dalmatia
he culture that emerged along
the Adriatic coast in Dalmatia
around 5500 B.C. (FIGURE 3-2} is remarkable for its trade contacts with the west and east. The Danilo people must have been fine navigators. Al- though no actual remains of boats have been discovered, engravings of sailboats on pottery, such as the one from the Grabak cave on the Adriatic Island of -Lesina, offer evidence that sailboats ‘were used. (FIGURE 3-3] They entered into lively contact with Bosnia as well as areas farther inland as distant as Slavonia and Pannonia, thereby influ- encing the formation of the Butmir and Lengyel cultures. The Danilo people exported spondylus shells, transmitted
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /53
FIGURE 3-1 Culture groups in east-central Europe. 5th mill 8.c.
go
Carpathian Mts.
LENGY EL
Odessa
| i Transylvanian’ o Plateau wo PETRESTT “\
Xo
7 ) BOTAN-GUMELNITA s a HAMANGIA pat
= Bucharest
ps
KARANOVO Black Sea
Balkan Mts.
Maricg
54/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-2.
FIGURE 3-2 Danilo-Hvar sites along the Adriatic and Butmir sites in Bosnia.
BUTMIR
Neboe Kakanj la e @ Obre
Kiseljak @ ®@ Okoliste
Lisigi¢i | he Butmir @M Sarajevo
; Hvar Island
GrapCceva spilja
Koréula Se
PeljeSac Periinsula
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /55
obsidian from Italy, andspreadtheirown FiGURE3-3 ° [—ii..../////sss ceramic products into the Bosnian val- | 3 meee beetle leys. Some agricultural products were ‘elvan’ omaa See is probably imported from more fertile symbol of maritime regions in the east and salt from as far communication
as southern Poland. throughout Old Europe. Grabak Cave, Lesina
Island of the Dalmatian coast, Yugoslavia. 5th mill. B.C.
Settlements
The Danilo people lived in open villages which were surrounded by one or two ditches, 2-3 m wide and approximately 1.5 m deep. These were located in valleys at a water source, some kilome- ters inland from the sea—conveniently located near adjoining fertile land. Large caves on the islands and along the coast were also occupied, some of which pro- duced quantities of very fine painted
pottery from the later period of this FIGURE 3-4 Sea ce —— srs
culture. I suspect these were used as | FIGURE 3-4 Incised and sanctuaries painted vases (in red, ice — ellow, and black) fro
At Smiléié, near Zadar on the Adriatic sails a — a coast, early Neolithic Impresso layers delvietic cone A true are succeeded by the sophisticated departure from the painted pottery of the Danilo culture,’ Neolithic Impresso ware. named for the eponymous site near
c. 5000 to early 5th
Sibenik in Dalmatia.‘ A soil layer devoid mill. B.C. of habitation materials separates the
Impresso deposits from the Danilo
levels (a total of thirteen habitation
horizons).
Pottery
A magnificent variety of shapes and
makes of Danilo pottery are present,
marking a departure from the Impresso
Pottery stage, revealing marked stylistic ne
developments in pottery and chipped “ww NM, or
stone technology. The fine Danilo ware, by \
irish Lue lier parillela worcas oie eG | —\ G8
Adriatic in Italy (Ripoli}, has almost N\ G XS Y ye A
no temper and was white slipped and Lien \ qa ‘Be
painted with black and red patterns Zz Y \ Wy
before firing, then burnished. The Yyy
Danilo type culture may have been ; TLDS LALO Li
introduced by an incoming population Z sas from the south via the Albanian coast.
Unfortunately, the isolation of Albania
for half a century created a visible gap in I SR archeological research; the information : Gy y “ available is insufficient. |
Another type of Danilo pottery was (\
lished and incised with spirals, chev V) VY, polished and incised with spirals, - AW, AWD rons, striated triangles and lozenges, — il) MID Za zigzags, nets, herringbone motifs, a.o. — _ (FIGURE 3-4) Rhytons with a massive
S6/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
ring handle are also characteristic. (FIGURE 3-5) These have bear legs and are usually solidly decorated with the same patterns as other ceramic vases— striations, meanders, and spirals. They must have been produced locally, although the origin of this particular shape is in Greece, where ring-handled vessels are known from the Sesklo culture of the early 6th millennium BC. (dated at Achilleion IV from
c. 6000-5800 B.C.). Apparently used in certain ritual ceremonies, they (or the idea of the shape) spread widely from Thessaly and central Greece to the west, then along the Adriatic coast as far as Bosnia. !
Chronology
Finds from the island of Hvar character- ize the final stage of the Danilo culture known as Hvar.> There are no radio- carbon dates for the Danilo sequence and the final Hvar stage. However, _ Italian parallels and typological compari- sons with the well-dated Late Staréevo and Butmir materials from Obre permit us to place the Danilo culture within the time-span of 5500-4000 BC.
The Butmir Culture in Bosnia
ecause of its early discovery, the Butmir culture is considerably better known than the Danilo- Hvar culture group. The Butmir settle- ment in the suburb of modern Sarajevo was excavated by Radimsky and Fiala in 1893-96, and the results were published in 1895 and 1898 in two luxurious, outsized volumes with many colored plates. Butmir vases decorated with running spirals in painting and in relief greatly impressed the scholarly world of the early 20th century. (FIGURES 3-6, 3-7, 3-8; PLATE 7} For decades, Butmir was considered to be “the cradle of the spiral art” of Europe. It seemed almost unreal to discover such highly attractive and advanced ceramics in the valley of the River Bosna, an area culturally remote and modest in our time.
FIGURE 3-5
ea he aan at
TAY: } s i i ‘ a" bY
AY IF Na i} i Nt ys
HA 4) vith i i tN a " iy *
' ' 7 ' \ 2 ‘ 4 iow \ Oe ent “ a ie mi
e d me
“7 (Rf Ay,
/, Is
Xi
See rere .
€ Av -- "LY¥s 4 Ae RS Bae ~~ ° Oe
ws
FINNS 2 FESS SRA
ae FIGURE 3-S Bear-legged, ring-handled offering vessels, Danilo culture. (1-3) Smildi¢. (4) Bribir near Zadar, Adriatic coast. Scale 1:2.
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION § /57
FIGURE 3-6
FIGURE 3-6 Butmir vase decorated with running spiral motif in relief. Butmir at Sarajevo, Bosnia. c. 4900-4800 B.C, H..20,.5-cm.
FIGURE 3-7
LE iris « ~ d FIGURE 3-7 Spiral- decorated Butmir vases. (1,2) Butmir. (3) Nebo, Bosnia. 49th-48th cents. B.C. Scale 1:2.
Vy
58/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-8 a FIGURE 3-8 Butmir pot- tery typology, based on chronology and stratig- raphy from Obre, north- west of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Yugoslavia. |, 5100- 4900 Bc. Il, 4900-4700 B.C. Ill, 4700-4400 Bc.
yyw VW)
7 €@ cD wo\ Lior
Trade
Seven thousand years ago, however, the lush valleys of the Bosna and Neretva rivers and their tributaries became a highway between the Adriatic and Italy in the west and the Middle Danube basin in the east. The people of this area developed wide-reaching trade relation- ships which stimulated the rise of the Butmir culture. This is indicated by obsidian, spondylus shells, and painted pottery imports.
The obsidian trade which initiated contacts with the west started around 5500 B.C., before the formation of the Butmir culture. Early Danilo influences on the Late Staréevo culture in Bosnia are traced by the appearance of ring- handled religious vessels. Imports of painted pottery from southern Italy emerged in Bosnia in the early part of the 6th millennium BC. and communi- cation with the west continued to increase throughout the end of the same millennium.
Chronology
The key site for chronology is Obre I, 65 km northwest of Sarajevo, which was excavated in 1967-68 by Alojz Benac and the author.’ This site yielded an ideal, uninterrupted four-meter stratigraphy and a series of radiocarbon dates which places the three periods of the Butmir culture (Butmir I, I, Ml} between 5300 B.C. and the later centuries of the 5th millennium BC. {TABLE 7) Butmir I is dated c. 5300-4900 BC.; Butmir II, 4900-4700 BC. The last period at Obre, Butmir I, was not radiocarbon dated, but typologically nuns parallel to Hvar on the Adriatic coast. Its three phases should be placed in the period from
c. 4700 to 4300-4200 BC.
The continuity of culture through three periods can be observed in a very neat sequence of pottery shapes and ornamentation. (FIGURE 3-8} Painted ware banded with red above the black background, with plastic or incised spirals (FIGURE 3-9} is characteristic of Butmir only. The potters’ use of the run- ning spiral motif, as well as a series of other geometric motifs—chevrons, lozenges, striated triangles, zigzags,
FIGURE 3-9
‘Yaa
ae ee: /
GH bal By Fe eeu a
ae ee
oe /
bat i Er SL Pt mz ltd
/
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION
FIGURE 3-9 Butmir |
4900 B.C.
a vo
Naa Pm = laa
LX hs eee
OTT
a ee eee ee
WAZ VUGYV) Lo oe Ora Ue KK AN
{59
vases from Obre II, 5100-
60/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-10 PS =a
FIGURE 3-10 Butmir house of two rooms with a bread oven in the smaller room from Obre li settlement in Bosnia. Walls are of vertically placed twigs in horizon- tal lines between timber posts coated with clay 5-8 cm thick on each side. Vases filled with wheat stood on a wood platform in front of the oven, Flint- and bone- working area left of the oven, loom weights (weaving area) is right of the oven. Groups of large storage vessels in both rooms. Butmir Il, 4900-4700 Bc.
FIGURE 3-11 Di
FIGURE 3-11 Frame of an oven built of twigs fastened with bast cord, foundation of flat Stones. The frame was preserved in charred form or impression in clay. Obre, Bosnia. Butmir Il, c. 4900-
4800 BC. re a EES eS FIGURE 3-12 (1) Recon-
Struction of a vertical loom and (2) loom weights. Jasa Tepe, Plovdiv, C Bulgaria,
c, 5000 Bc. Similar looms were found in all culture groups described in this chapter.
x Sr. om Tet Set? xt PE Pe SPER PSG
== ae ° e
be oy ~ Ry tres oe sF eye . ~ 4
stylized snake heads—began as an influence from the Danilo culture. These were applied in a peculiar Butmir style on large pear-shaped vases or bulbous vases with long or short cylin- drical necks.
FIGURE 3-12
Settlement Sites
The Butmir people occupied valley bot- toms of fertile soil, settling on the widest terraces of rivers and streams. Their settlements occasionally extended over an area of 500 meters along the river bank,® but most of the excavated sites are compact villages delineated
by the natural contours of the terrace : and river bend. Obre Il extended over a i ; surface of 20,000 square meters. Life
continued without disruption at this
location for nearly a millennium, a
pattern we shall see repeated in the
Vinéa and Tisza territories. Obre II was a
village of some sixty dwellings arranged
in lines separated by streets from 3 m to
5 m wide between the rows. 2
HAH GH HT | : ne ; Hi 1 li ‘3 AT UAC
AF aE RARE Pe
(Th My | i Hi ily a Wi ! Pere Sa et
| k
EMMA NY
Architecture
At Obre II, a number of houses of vari- ous habitation levels were exceptionally well preserved. (FIGURE 3-10). The Butmir I village at Obre yielded houses of thin wood construction, stone wall foundations, supporting vertical posts, and compact clay coating on the walls with straw and wood roofs. This building tradition continued from Neolithic Obre I (Staréevo) times. Butmir II houses had thicker vertical posts, and the wood construction of the walls was done in one of three ways: 1) with horizontally arranged twigs bound with bast in several vertical rows between timber uprights; 2) with vertically set twigs bound with bast in horizontal rows; or 3) with vertical, solidly placed split logs. The thickness of the walls depends on the depth of reinforcement. Walls of twig wattle had a clay coating 5 to 8 cm thick on either side, while walls of split- log rows were more heavily coated with clay, 10 to 12 cm thick on either side. Above the timber posts lay thick horizontal beams that carried the roof construction. Floors were coated with clay or were of wooden planks in rooms
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /61
containing the oven. Wall plaster was slipped and decorated with ornaments in relief, such as snake coils. In addition to the regular Obre houses with wattle-and- daub walls supported by wooden posts, there were light structures built only of wood, considered to have been auxiliary farm sheds, among which was one with an apsidal end.°
House Furnishings
Within the house, one room always con- tained a bread oven built of branches, covered by a beehive-shaped roof of clay. (FIGURE 3-11) Its clay floor lay over a foundation of flat stones, forming a platform in front of the oven. In one example, groups of loom weights suggest the presence of a vertical loom standing beside the oven. (FIGURE 3-12) Grinding, spinning, and other tasks were probably also performed in this room since quern stones, spindle whorls, and bone and flint tools were found in concentration at the site of the oven. Opposite, along the wall, was an area covered with wooden boards. Storage jars, groups of vases, and braziers with horizontally pierced holes stood on the floor in this as well as in the adjacent room. Beside every oven was an ash pit in which ash of the best quality was collected. In Benac’s opinion, this may have been used as a detergent in washing linen. An unusual find at Obre houses were
large hollow cylindrical ceramic objects
found in the walls, which could have served for ventilation.'° Houses had deep storage pits for food, some of which were
’ two meters deep and about 85 centi-
meters in diameter. These must have been the refrigerators of their times.
62/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-13 es —gurines
FIGURE 3-13 Heads of The excavators of the Butmir site appar- Butmir clay figurines = ently found one or several temples since with neatly combed hair. hundreds of terracotta figurines were
On (1-3) contours of aaah ca ch our unearthed. Some of the preserved heads
BEG Af + 2 RS ‘i AR oan) } We |
ais)
ise I. ay hilt If! "i mA
hy F (4) is one of the most of female figurines from Butmir have os 2. NG See eh naturalistically rendered | masterfully modeled human heads and ‘ \ SN Weel heads of the period. hairdos. The majority, however, have ey 4 ee Butmir at Sarajevo. Early outlines of masks with long noses or oth mill. BC. Scale 1:1. beaks and no human mouth. (FIGURE
3-13) In my opinion, they were produced for the worship of the protective and life- and wealth-giving Bird Goddess, the main deity of household and temple.
The Vinca Culture in the Central Balkans
n the central Balkans, the conti-
nuity of the Neolithic Staréevo
complex is traced throughout the middle of the 6th millennium B.C., but around 5400-5300 B.C. innovations occurred that are most clearly reflected in the ceramics, resulting in a cultural configuration called the Vinéa complex.
Major Site
ff FR The Vinéa sequence is best documented f Lahey ail a, oe ie Wh. tian y at an eponymous (name-giving) site, 14 Ee ng a mC aR km east of Belgrade, excavated by Miloje wie y) Vasié between 1908 and 1934, which 7 yielded seven meters of stratified Vinéa deposits overlying the Staréevo levels." No other site as rich or as well stratified has yet been discovered, and despite the antiquity of the excavation in terms of modern field methodology, this site has remained the backbone for the typology of Vinéa assemblages. Other more exten- sively and recently excavated settlement sites with published results are Anza IV in Macedonia,'? Banjica northeast of Belgrade,!3 Crnokalaéka Bara near Ni§,"4 GradeSnica, Rast,!® Valaé,'” Selevac,}® Divostin,’? and Gomolava.”
The Vinéa complex occupied the cen- tral Balkans northward as far as Banat, westward to northeast Bosnia, and east- ward to western Bulgaria and south- western Romania. (FIGURE 3-14) This distribution covers the territory of the Staréevo culture, except for the periph- eral areas where other local variants formed.
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /63
FIGURE 3-14
Oborin e Ciéarovce
& Berettyo-Ujfalu
e Polgar-Czészhalom
Danube a TISZA
“ Herpaly @ Budapest oar 6ros K ® Vest6 & Oscéd Tiuzkodvés
K6kénydomb Tartarla ©
Turdas
Gorzsa
Battonya Coka ees
Belgrade
le Ye Vinéa ve 3
@ e G. Tuzla Rudna Glava
Selevace) & Grivac @ / Maieninials
Divostin Drenovac
BUTMIR
Sarajevo @ VINCA Ni§
Ploénik e
Fafos PriStina Valaté@ @ ®
Dubrovnik Predionica ®@
Adriatic Sea
Rast 8
7 Crnokalaéka Bara
‘\ \
® GradeSnica
rd
SE FIGURE 3-14 The distri- bution of Vinca and Tisza cultures, c. 5300-— 4300 B.C. The location of more Important sites is indicated. Dashed line shows eastern limit of Early Vingéa.
64/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
A total of nearly 650 Vinéa sites, mostly settlements, are known from excavations and surface collections (listed and placed on the map in a mono- graph on the Vinéa culture by John Chapman, 1981).
Vinéa settlements, which are consis- tently larger than those of the Staréevo, are found unenclosed along rivers. The larger ones occupy a territory of 25-30 hectares and even up to 80 (Selevac) and 100 hectares (Potporanj at VrSac}. In areas of high arable potential, villages developed in one location over several generations, in some cases over 500-600 years, forming tells. In Vinéa itself, ten habitation horizons were distinguished. These tell settlements are restricted in size and occupy from 2 to 6 hectares, but even they are larger than the Near East Early Dynastic towns.”
The varying potential for farming of regional environments became the basis for settlement concentration. Cherno- zems (black earth), brown forest soils, smonicas, and alluvial (flood deposited) soils were especially sought. The largest concentrations of sites are in the fertile regions of the Morava and Middle Danube basins. Settlements are located either on flat river terraces or on the gently sloping foothills, frequently near streams, brooks, or thermal waters considered holy to this day. The size of villages and towns varied: small settle- ments held up to 200 persons, medium ones up to 500, while the largest had from 1,000 to 2,500 inhabitants. The research exploring their interrelation- ship has not yet been done.
Architecture
Vinéa villages were carefully planned. The ground was leveled before building began, slopes were terraced, several rows of posts were implanted. Houses stood aligned approximately parallel to one another, and in some villages house rows were separated by streets 2.5 to 3.5m wide. The Late Vinéa settlement at Divostin in central Serbia had four groups of houses arranged in threes or twos within the excavated area.*4 The space between houses ranged from 26 m to 60 m and their courts were bordered with stones.
Early Vinéa houses consisted of one large room with an antechamber or of two rooms about 8 m long and 3 to 4m wide. House size increased greatly dur- ing the mid-Vinéa period.” Houses of three, four, or even five rooms were unearthed along with two-room houses in a number of settlements. (FIGURE 3-15) The largest houses were up to 20 m long.
Houses were built of timber posts or split-plank frame plaited with twigs then plastered with a thick layer of clay or mud. The use of split planks, about 15 cm wide and 2.5 cm thick, was recorded at the Early Vinéa site of Anza in central Macedonia, dated to c. 5200 B.C.” Floors were finished with smooth lime plaster and had a subfloor of either squared logs or beams, or stones mixed with sherds, or square stone slabs. During the excava- tion of Anza IV in 1969-70, my own crew members were impressed with the solid architecture and refinement of these houses. In contrast, they lived in little comfort in cow-dung sheds in the nearby village of Anzabegovo. Anza is an excellent example of the high level of Old European civilization seven thou- sand years ago and the degradation of culture in modern times as a result of incessant wars by patriarchal societies.
The architecture of regular houses and of temples was closely related, as it was also during the Early Neolithic. This fact seems to have obscured the recogni- tion of temples in Vinéa settlements, and yet there are multiroomed houses that clearly stand out from the rest. These have painted walls, inside and out, with symbolic designs such as chevrons and meanders painted in red, blue, and white. In at least four Vinéa settlements (Vinéa, Parta, Jela, and Kormadin), bucrania were discovered attached to clay columns or walls in the temples. The bucrania consisted of ox skulls coated with a layer of clay, with muzzles painted in blue and a red tri- angle on their foreheads. (FIGURE 3-16] At Parta, southwest of Timisoara, several temples, one above the other, were dis- covered in the 1980s. These yielded altars fenced within clay walls, offering tables, mobile offering hearths, monumental statues, and columns with
bucrania attached. Among the most striking discoveries was a double statue of goddesses with two heads and shoul- ders. A bucranium, with fragments of a bull skull, was found at the statue. The final excavation report on these very important temples has not yet appeared; the information comes from preliminary reports.’
Trade and Copper Mining
Vinéa culture grew fast economically, not only due to farming and cattle rais- ing, but also due to rising trade activities and mining. Obsidian was obtained for sickles and other precision tools from the Upper Tisza region. Alabaster and marble used for sculptures and spondy- lus shell for ornaments must have come from the coasts of the Adriatic and the Aegean Seas. Cinabarite for coloring was mined at Suplja Stena in central Yugo- slavia. Copper mining which started
no later than 5000 B.C. was one of the greatest achievements. The earliest cop- per mine has been discovered at Rudna Glava, 140 kilometers east of Belgrade (see discussion below on metallurgy, trade and crafts).
Chronology
When Professor Vasi¢ first reported the results of his excavation of the Vinéa mound in the I//ustrated London News in 1930, he described the site as “a centre of Aegean civilization in the second millennium B.C.” He believed that this settlement had been continu- ously occupied from the beginning of the Aegean Middle Bronze Age until the area was conquered by the Romans. Vasi¢ was quite firm in this belief, and a final statement issued just before his death asserts that Vinéa was a Greek colony. Credence in this interpretation still persists in some modern histories of the Balkans where it is cited on his authority. Archeological evidence, how- ever, shows otherwise: Vinéa culture formed during the last centuries of the 6th millennium B.C. and continued for a thousand years. Vinéa sites demonstrate convincingly that the development of material culture, arts, and religion was integral and uninterrupted. The archeo-
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /65
FIGURE 3-15 PS |
FIGURE 3-15 Two- and three-room houses from Late Vinca settlement at Divostin, C Yugoslavia. (1) Two-room house (House 17) and hypothe- sized reconstruction of walls and roof; (2) plan of a three-room house (House 14), probably a temple. Northern room was 25.3 m2, middle 37.5 m2, southern,
25.5 m?. postholes (EX SAPP QE SEBS ISS ) CSS ae ea te Ss ae 2 =. SHEE > ey a << <q) <j <J SS = (AS an S/ , XT ° () Nip ws 4 4 ay 2 rT) \ f O ©) ‘ ie) i ‘ V \ ® f' ( V A i "i e) Xx ca i — (@) % @ wii) Soca \v toollipe: Nie a 4 bank of packed O K, — : earth enclosed - ’ by massive A a his clay wall : @ domed oven a 1 A y \ a : X Lee a a a9 ss Mien, \ eee En a Commtic a] P BSS p< OR = {= koo ee Oe pe op < ae “y iOS
4 anthropomorphic figurines @ 3-legged container
fourteen vases
@ biconical bowls aa | P aN twenty ritual vases four vases ©) loom weights c
66/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-16 >
logical consensus today is that Vinéa was an indigenous culture, its eventual efflorescence a result of gradual socio- economic change which became more rapid with the emergence of metallurgy and attendant population increase. The size of settlements virtually doubled over the millennium, while the physical type—the gracile Mediterranean—was continuous from Staréevo times.”8
Radiocarbon dates place the Vinéa cul- ture, on the basis of dendrochronological calibration, between 5400-5300 and 4300-4100 B.C. (TABLE 8). The general classification of this culture is suggested as follows: Early Vinéa, c. 5400-4900 B.C. and Late or Classical Vinéa, c. 4900- 4300 BC. (only in one case is the date later than 4300 B.C.).”? Both periods have subphases, although there is generally one gradual development for more than 1,000 years.
Pottery
The emergence of a new ceramic style around 5400-5300 B.C., dominated by a black burnished pottery, produced specu- lations that a new wave of immigrants must have come from western or central Anatolia bringing their tradition of dark- faced pottery. This new style was actu- ally due to influences from the Karanovo culture in Bulgaria where the fashion- able black pottery started a few centuries earlier and spread over a large area. By the end of the 6th millennium BC., dark wares appeared not only in Yugoslavia but also in Thessaly and even in south- ern Greece.
The transition from Staréevo to Vinéa ceramic style can be observed at Anza, Macedonia, which was excavated by the author in 1969-70.*° The earliest Vinéa materials were found above the late Starcevo layer and are radiocarbon dated to c. 5300-5000 B.C. The Vinéa horizon is typified by a large percentage of well- made black-burnished wares—gray-black burnished or black slipped and hard fired—and by a much greater variety of shapes and handles than during the previous period. These gradually replaced the orange wares of the Staréevo culture. A variety of biconical vessels, carinated and flat dishes, zoomorphic (animal shaped) and ornithomorphic
(bird shaped) vases, and high-footed vases are now the leading forms in the fine ware category. (FIGURE 3-17) The finest piece is black-burnished to a mirrorlike finish inside and out. The majority of vases wete decorated by channeling, produced by burnishing in the pattern. (FIGURE 3-18, 1) This decorative tech- nique as well as biconical shapes (FIGURE 3-18, 2) and a variety of handles and lugs continued throughout the Vinéa sequence. Black-topped ware was also introduced during the Early Vinéa period. Vessels of this style were slipped with brown, buff, or red and then bur- nished. The black color of the upper part was intentional and probably produced by inverting the pot and depressing the rim into ashes during firing while the rest of the pot was oxidizing.*!
Sculptural Art
The art of Vinéa developed its own unique identity,?2 which can be easily distinguished from other cultural groups since thousands of miniature and larger clay sculptures have been preserved. In the name-giving site alone, nearly 2,000 figurines and anthropomorphic vases have been unearthed, representing vari- ous phases of the culture. Six hundred and thirty were published by Vasié in Vin¢éa (vol. 3), and are housed in the Belgrade University and National Museums. Considerable numbers of figurines were found in almost every Vinéa settlement. The most remarkable sculptures are from southern Yugoslavia, particularly from the region of Pristina in Kosovo Metohije (PLATES 8 and 9}, one of the most impoverished regions of our times, inhabited by Albanians. Vinéa figurines, particularly those representing the Bird Goddess, show pre- cious details: a characteristic mask with a large nose or beak with no mouth (FIGURES 3-19 and 3-20); attire such as shoulder straps (FIGURE 3-20}, hip belts, or narrow skirt (see figs. 7-87, 7-89 through 7-94); and the incised or painted symbols of the divinity—V’s, chevrons, meanders, parallel lines, tri- lines, and bi-lines (see fig. 7-14). Not infrequently, her image appears as a vase with a face shown on the neck (see fig. 7-17), or as a mask attached to the vase's
FIGURE 3-16 A bucra- nium (an ox skull plas- tered with a layer of clay) from late Vinca temple (Vinéa, at the depth of 2.89 m). Stylized eyes are shown as engraved spirals with lines extend- ing to the muzzle painted in blue. Above the eyes was a red painted triangle, now faded. Horns broken.
H 44 cm.
FIGURE 3-17 Early Vinca black burnished pottery: biconical vases deco- rated by channeling, dishes, handled vases, a footed vessel, and a large vase with Bird Goddess’s face on the neck. c. 5200-5000 B.c. Anza IV, Macedonia,
SE Yugoslavia.
FIGURE 3-18 (1) A typical Vinéa black burnished vase decorated by chan- neling and by burnishing in the snake coil pattern. Early Classical Vinca, beginning of the Sth mill, B.C. H 14.5 cm,
(2) Black polished jug from Crnokolacka Bara near Nis, S Yugoslavia. Early Vinca settlement, c. 5000 B.C. H 37 cm.
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /67
FIGURE 3-17 é
2 on, e \ $4 hoa %
- = %. S075 a , ee | YAK ee ib SAK SR RO gee :. \ Se a :
. *< o? * Se, or oe 4 Lt S s
Ly N 3S
FIGURE 3-18
me!
68/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-19
FIGURE 3-19 The Bird Goddess from Vinéa wearing a beaked mask. (1) Early 5th mill. B.c. (2,3) Mid-5th mill. B.c.
SSS) FIGURE 3-20 Characteris- tic Vingéa figurine with a large pentagonal mask with semicircular eyes marked with horizontal tri-lines and groups of striations under the lines. Black straps bor- dered with white color over the shoulders. VitoSevac-Luki¢ski Breg near Nis, SE Yugoslavia. 5000-4500 B.c. H 13 cm.
neck. {FIGURE 3-19, 2) Bird vases with human masks are true masterpieces of this art. The portrayal of masks is universal on all articulately produced sculptures in which divine images are expressed. The Bird Goddess and other divinities of the Classical Vinéa period wear pentagonal masks with molded semicircular eyes. (FIGURES 3-19, 3-20} Later Vinéa sculptures wear masks with almond-shaped eyes. (FIGURE 3-21) The flat surface of the mask was used for engraving symbols. Monumental life- sized masks have been discovered in southern Yugoslavia. (PLATE 11]
From the predominance of its image, we gather that the primary divinity worshiped in temples of the Vinéa site was the Bird Goddess. There are, how- ever, other deities represented, such as Snake Goddesses, Madonnas (mother figures with a bear or bird mask holding a baby (see figs. 7-5 and 7-6). Zoomor- phic figurines such as snakes, frogs, hedgehogs, dogs, and fish, and anthropo- morphic male figures wearing ram or he- goat masks constitute about 20 percent of the figurines. Of great interest are the centaurs found in southern Yugoslavia, in which a masked human head is grafted onto the body of a bull. (PLATE 22) Typical of earlier Vinéa art are owl- faced lids of large biconical vases, most likely used for religious rites as liquid containers. (PLATE 10) Some zoomorphic and anthropomorphic sculptures were carved out of marble, alabaster, and opa- lite, of which the heads of dogs carved from light green opalite and white marble are particularly fine examples. Offering tables and containers and oil lamps that are frequently found with figurines had anthropomorphic or zoomorphic legs incised with symbols or painted in bright colors. (PLATE 13}
Realistic masterpieces and schema- tized versions of larger sculptures were present in each phase of Vinéa culture as they were one thousand years earlier in the Sesklo culture. The majority of schematized or miniature figurines marked with symbols and inscribed with signs appear in great numbers during the Early Vinéa period. Most of these inscribed figurines were probably ex votos.
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /69
FIGURE 3-20
tifss 2 WG rliip
Koo; : so 7S &
s qf, a i Ut ay, Win, TSS i ’ Staal } If wy f
Yt | \" Syn, eC
1 PN | 4 Ith f, WA hy
=<“ ~~ <= . CROSS
hy
ra \
SY a i | uf wy = ne
ay % a INRZ
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70/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-21
Ay
4 0 ', 4, ”
1h, % ae sa “hy \ H a MH
‘wy,
ESS FIGURE 3-21 (a) Vinéa Bird Goddess in the shape of a vase with a pentagonal mask shown in relief. Fine light-brown fabric with channelled surface (burnished with pebbles). (b) Three views. Chevron design was executed in front and back in channelling technique. Classical Vinéa, early 5th mill. B.c. H 32.5 cm.
I would like to mention here an exam- ple from my own excavation of an Early Vinéa township at Anza, Macedonia. Alongside the regular small-sized figu- rines, one of the houses, apparently a destroyed temple, yielded a huge vase, 92 cm tall, decorated with a red triangle and chevrons, with a Bird Goddess face incised on the neck (see fig. 7-17}. Another vase of a waterbird was 60 cm long (fig. 7-18) and a life-sized sculpture of a pig was unearthed nearby.* The size and detailing of sculptures naturally depended upon the purpose for which they were produced.
The range of aesthetic accomplish- ment expressed by Vinéa ceramics and sculpture inspire a new appreciation of the artistic traditions of Old Europe. Here is an art which is not only infused with mythical values, but is grounded in a technical facility which allowed abstracted, schematized expression as well as finely crafted realism. Certain Vinéa torsos, for example, compete with those of Ancient Greece in their perfect rendition of the female body. (FIGURE 3-22)
The Tisza Culture of the River Tisza Basin
he name of this culture derives from the River Tisza which rises in the Carpathian Mountains and flows through eastern Hungary and northern Yugoslavia into the Danube. (see fig. 3-14, above). Settlements on alluvial mounds above the flood plain abound along the Tisza, Maros, and K6rés rivers. These are clustered in three groups bearing three appelations: the Gorzsa group near Szolnok in southern Hungary, the Herpaly near Debrecen in eastern Hungary, and the Csészhalom near the town of Nyiregyaza in northern Hungary.
Like the Vinéa, the Tisza culture descended from the Staréevo (Kérés} culture which is shown by the predomi- nance of the gracile Mediterranean (Staréevo) physical type. Its divergence from the Vinéa culture is due to specific ecological conditions in the River Tisza
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION § /71
FIGURE 3-22 basin, and its emergence as a separate FIGURE 3-22 Seated = die unit is correlated with the appearance female terracotta figure. | of tell settlements and tell-based Classical Vinca from economies.
Carsija, C Yugoslavia. Approx. 4700-4500 B.C. Discovery and Major Sites
The discovery of the Tisza culture started with the excavation at Coka (Csoka}, now in northern Yugoslavia, by E Mora from 1907 to 1913.%* Large scale excavations by J. Banner at the enor- mously rich tell of Kokénydomb near Hédmez6vasarhely in southeastern Hungary from 1928 to 1944 provided a truly scientific basis and impetus for the investigation of this culture.** Sub- sequently, the excavations of Szegvar- Tuzkéves at Szentes by J. Czalog between 1955 and 1964, continued in the 1970s by J. Korek, placed the Tisza culture on the map due to the discovery of very impressive ceramic sculptures and anthropomorphic vases. (PLATE 12} Both Kékénydomb and Szegvar-Tiizkéves produced outstanding and unique pieces of sculptural art. These included enthroned goddesses in the shape of anthropomorphic vases, richly decorated with symbolic geometric designs in panels (FIGURE 3-23}, and male gods, of which the so-called Sickle God from Szegvar-Tiizkéves (a male figure holding a sickle-shaped object over his shoulder} is the most famous.*
FIGURE 3-23 Enthroned goddesses in the shape of anthropomorphic vases decorated in panels bearing chevrons, Zigzags, striated trian- gles, bands of lozenges and X's, and script signs. Bracelets and arm rings are indicated (right, sec- ond band). K6kénydomb, SE Hungary. Classical Tisza, early 5th mill. B.C. (1)H 33 cm; (2) H 24cm; (3) H 23 cm.
FIGURE 3-23
a, ‘h
KG
Cc ! M
72 THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
ie) {
FIGURE 3-24 Groundolan and recorstruction Ci 2 house comprex. The Outer and inner walls of the room with the side entrance end the largest even (upper, nght) were cecoreted with Inased and red-nainted mean- Ger bends. Gorzsa, S Hundary. Classical Trsza; c. £500 3.c
[ FIGURE 3-25 Reconstruc- TON OF a two-story house (temole?). Herpaly, level & house 17.5 Hungary, 48th-—46th centunes 3.C (See radio- carbon dates, table 4.) Three rooms on the first floor were packed wath vases. Truncated pyramid sheoed ovens were in Dao rooms on the noni, woth a round basin in the left room. Two large basins were on the uoper ‘floor with vases ncentrated on the
if ¢
a) ©)
~~
lam 1% - “eo
Te)
Chronological Subdivision
The 1970s and 1980s saw further exca- vations of tell settlements rich with cultural debris from Early and Classical Tisza. Among these sites are Veszto,> Battonya,* Herpaly,” and Gorzsa.* About sixty radiocarbon dates from various tells place this culture between 5400 and 3700 BC. (TABLE 9 This sequence includes the Early Tisza period called Szaka4lhat, 3400-3000 B.C.; the Classical Tisza, 3000-4400 B.C., sub- divided into three subphases, Tisza I, I, I; and the Tiszapolgar period, 4400- 3700 BC., mainly known from ceme- teries, not tells. An excellent survey of very intensive recent excavations has been published in English as the collec- tive work, The Late Neolithic of the Tisza Region (1987} edited by Pal Raczky.
Tell Settlement
The precondition for the emergence oi tell settlements was an architecture based on the combination of mud and wood. Settlements range from 1.5 hec- tares {KOkénydomb) to 11 hectares Szegvar-Tuzkéves|. The largest northern- most tell is Csdészhalom with five suc- cessive occupation levels.) All tells lie on elevations rising above flood plains in areas suitable for grain cultivation. Settlements are classified into three main forms: those which are 3-4 m high, which were densely settled; 1-2 m high, which were less densely settled villages which covered a larger horizon- tal area; and single-layer settlements with loosely scattered houses. These three distinct forms often occur side by side forming one complex of settle- ments.** Houses were closely spaced and formed smaller clusters of four to six or larger clusters of ten to thirteen, usually surrounded by an open area.
Architecture Tisza architecture is outstanding al its multiroomed and two-story buildin FIGURES 3-24, 3-25). The el houses were up to 18 m long i2s at Gorzsa’ with tripartite divisions, and were timber framed with pisé taut walls. Timber uprights reinforced the a and supporiec the pitched r oof. Vattling between posts was of inter- bara twigs, branches, anc reeds subse- quently daubed with clzy on both the inside and the outside. Floors were of plestered clay, often covering a raised wooden substructure which preservea the imprints oi reed or rushwork mat- ting. The Tisza people decorated the walls with painted or incised designs, and gable omaments in the form of ani- mal heeds modelled trom clay heve been preserved in a number of settlements KOkénydomb, Gorzsa, Herpaly’. Each room contained an open, domed. or truncated pyramid-shapec clay oven. A characteristic feature ot Tiszz houses is the large rectenguler or rounded clay bins for grain storage. These were either plestered onto the oor o r stancing on legs. Occasionally, wooden chests end baskets were preserved tet Hetpaly.
3 THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION
73
74/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-26
FIGURE 3-26 Tentative reconstruction of the building with ceremonial assemblage: clay table, rectangular containers,
a bird headed lid (see fig. 3-27), vases, kernos (right) with horns and small offering containers attached to the rim, and a sculpture in the shape of an enthroned god- dess (in hypothetical reconstruction). Vészto- Magor, E Hungary.
c. 5000 B.c. or earliest centuries of the 5th
mill. B.C.
FIGURE 3-27
) - rey : :° cS 4 1”. i ed fr “aS Cath Pa er .
ai, Of) SOETT oe eee E BACAR) sad A.
al eet , ‘ r.* eA rater. Aye. Es > pe ares eat nee oe eV eTE ty get pes A te ered a 2a. 04 me ae Ome
FIGURE 3-27 Bird-headed terracotta lid found on the clay table in the shrine (see fig, 3-26), decorated in panels of incised nets, Zigzags and lozenges. Double- notched handles on both sides, Vészt6- Magor, E Hungary.
H 19.7 cm. 5000-
4800 B.c.
Clusters of clay loom weights witness the existence of vertical looms near the ovens. Among the internal furnishings of richly equipped rooms, as at Veszt6 of the Classical Tisza period, were portable table-like altars, basinlike bowls set on a quadrangular base, a bird-headed lid of a large vase, ornamental bull heads applied onto the walls, offering pits, and kernoi (ceremonial footed dishes consisting of many small containers for various offer- ings}.“3 (FIGURES 3-26, 3-27) These finds speak of ritual activities, and if these rooms were not communal village tem- ples, they were at least domestic shrines.
Temples and Ritual Vases
As elsewhere in southeastern Europe, the temples of the Tisza culture were in the shape of regular houses. The illus- trated two-story house from Herpaly (fig. 3-25) was very likely a temple with workshops on the ground floor and a ceremonial room above. One of the rooms of a multi-roomed complex at Gorzsa (see fig. 3-24, room top, right} had decorated walls and a separate entrance, in addition to rich internal fur- nishings, a large pyramidal oven, and a number of vases. This, too, may have served as a shrine. Tisza houses suggest that worship was intertwined with everyday activities.
Quantities of pedestalled bowls, amphora-shaped biconical vessels, dishes, jars, and rectangular vessels have been found in Tisza houses. They are often decorated with meanders, which are the most frequent image appearing in a multiplicity of variations, as well as chevrons and other motifs. These are elements of a symbolic language associ- ated with the sphere of the Life-giving Goddess. Typically, these motifs incised on vases are framed into aesthetic com- partments. (FIGURES 3-28, 3-29, 3-30) Outstanding among the ritual ceramics are small containers or lamps with ram head protomes. (PLATE 13)
FIGURE 3-28
FIGURE 3-29
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /75
De ee ed i COTA Reed
a | FIGURE 3-28 Pedestalled bowl decorated with panels of meanders and dotted lines over the bowl, chevrons and dots over the pedestal. In
its Interior is a fourfold sign painted in white, Classical Tisza culture. Szegvar-TlizkOves,
SE Hungary, c, 48-47th cents. B.C. H 29.7 cm,
== FIGURE 3-29 Footed vase typically decorated with incised meanders in pan- els. The front panel has smatier meanders and six dots above and below. Szegvar-Tuzk6ves, SE Hungary. Classical Tisza, c. 48-—47th
cents. BC.
76/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
tg Sel atl FIGURE 3-30 Two anthro- pomorphic footed vases from Classical Tisza. The Goddess’s visage Is flanked with chevrons (1) and tri-lines (2). Panels of meander and zigzag designs cover the body. The decoration Is engraved and encrusted with white. Szeqvar- Tuzkoves, SE Hungary.
c. 48-47th cents. B.C.
2
&
FIGURE 3-31 A coffin burial of the Tisza cul- ture. Vészto-Magor, E Hungary. Early 5th mill. B.C.
FIGURE 3-31
In pottery technology, chaff was no longer used for tempering, as during the Neolithic, so differences between coarse and fine wares practically disappeared. A new type of ware appeared, typical of the Classical Tisza period, in which vessels were coated with bitumen into which straw or chaff was embedded, cut into small pieces and arranged into pat- terns.“* Another widespread ornamental motif is black painting with wide bands.
Graves
Within the Tisza territory almost four hundred graves have been excavated, both within and outside the settlements. During the Classical Tisza period, wooden coffins were used for burial. The Veszt6 site yielded coffins built of wooden planks with protrusions in the upper corners for carrying (FIGURE 3-31), which are the first of their kind found in Europe. Eighteen coffin burials deposited in four layers were found within the limits of habitation.
The Last Phase
The Tiszapolgar complex in eastern Hungary, eastern Slovakia, and adjacent Transylvania marks the end of the Tisza culture and the extension of its eastern and northern limit up to southern Poland. Radiocarbon dates place this stage between the 44th and 39th centu- ries B.C. (TABLE 9) Its last stage, Lazn’any, is known only from cemeteries of inhu- mation and cremation graves in eastern Slovakia and represents a dying, isolated culture with diminished copper and obsidian industries and a diminished ceramic style.** The most likely explana- tion of the cause of its demise is the consequence of the First Kurgan Wave described in chapter 10.
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /77
The Lengyel Culture of the Middle Danube Basin and Northern Central Europe
| he Linearbandkeramik culture
| of central Europe in the Middle
Danube basin was supplanted by
the Lengyel culture, a complex with quite different architectural, technologi- cal, and artistic traditions. Lengyel set- tlements, surrounded by wide V-shaped ditches and containing the typical painted piriform vases and fruitstands, have analogies with the Danilo and Butmir complexes. Its formation from a Starcevo core in Slavonia, Syrmia, and Pannonia was due to intensified relations with the west, Bosnia, and the Adriatic coast, a process parallel to the formation of the Butmir group.“ Obsidian and spondylus shell trade continued, probably in exchange for salt and agricultural products. From the early 5th millennium BC. the popula- tion west and north of the Middle Danube became a clearly distinct cul- tural group with its own artistic style.
The name-giving Lengyel site and the large settlements of Zengdvarkony and Aszéd are located in western Hungary. Other Lengyel sites are distributed over a large, low-lying territory of fertile loess plains which include northwestern Yugoslavia, eastern Austria, Moravia, western Slovakia, and southern Poland.*’ (FIGURE 3-32} These sites did not form tells, but were extensive horizontal settlements of wattle-and-daub houses.
78/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-32
FIGURE 3-32 Distribution of the Lengyel culture.
vp aad
: ey “im. Y NRX CUCUTENI
&,
Ys
Lye
—
GUMELNITA ,
iN 2, BUTMIR ; Y. VINCA
Danube
Adriatic Sea
KEY Uy Core area, c. 5000-4500 B.C.
| | | | | Diffusion north and west after the | middle of the 5th mill. Bc.
. SS Tisza culture and its spread to SY S Poland during the Tiszapolgar period, end of the 5th mill. BC.
Major Lengyel sites: 1. Zengévarkony
2. Lengyel
3. Stielice
4. Svodin
5. Luzianky
6. Aszéd
7. Brzesé Kujawski
Chronology
Radiocarbon dates from Lengyel sites place the beginning of this culture group around 5000 BC. (TABLE 10) Stratigraphy and ceramic typology denote five phases, Lengyel I-V.*® The early Lengyel culture within the first half of the 5th millen- nium B.C. is characterized by richly painted pottery. As in the Butmir and Danilo groups, spirals, meanders, and other motifs were first incised, then painted in red, yellow, and black. The bright brick-red color of hematite pig- ments predominates. Warts and buttons on four sides of the belly of biconical vases and fruitstands became charac- teristic elements of the Lengyel style. (FIGURE 3-33A) Pottery of the next stage, in the middle of the 5th millen- nium B.C., was mainly white painted and during the end phases of this culture was unpainted. The general typology
of Lengyel ceramics is given in figure 3-33B.
FIGURE 3-33A
1 Py HiT Yes) tntfy
cies y
Gj t
fi
An mk x | ntl:
by:
fi
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| ‘
7 | [ sae ) : ; SS | = te ‘ Ss
i}
THN
\ i re ! SS Sa w
mL
f fh
Ay) 4] ff
ig at mit
eh #
19238, eS
wee \S ; Ps AN
ef m/
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /79
Pers d FIGURE 3-33A Classical Lengyel painted pottery of c. 4900-4600 Bc:: lids, rounded or biconi- cal pots, pedestalled bowls (‘‘fruitstands’’), and a vase with a long cylindrical neck. Painted in bright brick-red (the pigment ts hematite) on gray background. All vessels are from graves excavated near houses of the settlement at Zengdévarkony, county of Barabya, district of Pécs, W Hungary.
¥ f th (4
i i
D ft) Ha 1 7 4
riff: ain ’
5 ARS _< ~
a |
. TRON
80/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-33B
———— FIGURE 3-33B Lengyel pottery typology. |, Early: including painted pot- tery (red, yellow, black designs), 49th—46th cents. B.C. Il, Middle: less colorful, designs painted in white, middle of the 5th mill. B.c. lil, Late: unpainted pottery,
c. 43rd—39th cents. B.C.
Lengyel finds do not occur 1n western Hungary or in western Slovakia after the Lengyel V phase, for this culture is replaced by a Balaton complex from the south. Lengyel V ceramics emerge, however, within the milieu of the west European Cortaillod and Michelsberg, as well as on the Upper Danube, Elbe, and Oder rivers. In Bavaria, central Germany, and western Poland,*? the Lengyel expan- sion to northern central Europe was synchronous with the Kurgan I infiltra- tion into the Lower Danube basin. This northward movement may have been caused by a chain reaction to events in east-central Europe which started the disintegration of the Karanovo and Vinéa cultures and caused the exodus of their people to the west and north.
Settlements and Architecture
A series of systematically excavated set- tlement sites with published results in Hungary and Czechoslovakia serve as backbone information for the classical Lengyel culture. Among these are: Zeng6évarkony in western Hungary,*° Aszéd settlement and cemetery north of Budapest,*! Luzianky graves and set- tlement,*? and Svodin (the largest settle- ment with over 1,000 houses),** both in western Slovakia. Settlements are found on naturally protected, large terraces near a water source. The Aszdd settle- ment occupied 20 to 25 hectares, and its minimum population is guessed to have been 300. How large the villages were at a single time cannot be calculated with accuracy, however, since only small areas have been unearthed. In Aszdd, for instance, only five houses were fully excavated, and a final report on Svodin is not yet available.54 Houses were of timber uprights daubed with clay, about 8 m by 5m, or 6m by 4.5 m with pitched roofs. Architectural details can be seen on miniature models of clay.
In one example, the wide entrance with a ram or bull head on the gable suggests that it may be a replica of a temple. (FIGURE 3-34}
Systematic investigations of Polish lowlands have shown that the subsis- tence and settlement patterns of the Lengyel culture differed markedly from those of the LBK. In this area, the Lengyel culture began permanent, year- round village farming. Large settlements are found on patches of rich black earth along lakeshores and meandering streams in Kuyavia, western Poland. The most characteristic aspect of these settlements is their trapezoidal long- houses. At Brzes¢é Kujawski, more than fifty houses have been identified, and many have been excavated over the course of the last fifty years by Polish and American archeologists. (FIGURE 3-35) A number of other sites, such as Krusza Zamkowa, have fewer houses but are similar permanent villages. There is
FIGURE 3-34
3/THE CLIMAX OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION /81
wee
a Se FIGURE 3-34 Clay model of a Lengyel house or temple which infers an actual house; walls were timber uprights inter- spersed with wattle covered with clay daub An animal head decorates the gable of the pitched roof sup- ported by five massive central and side beams. Stfelice near Znojmo, Moravia. Animal figu- rines from the same site. Early 5th mill. 8c.
vy
82/ THE CIVILIZATION OF THE GODDESS
FIGURE 3-35 a | FIGURE 3-38 (1) Brzes¢ Kujawski settlement in W Poland with trapezoi- a 1afO-/ t Sean dal long-houses. Excava- tions of the 1930s ey pred Area destroyed by gravel digging by K. Jazdzewski and
by P. |. Bogucki and CY- Neolithic house plans R. Grygiel in the 1970s.
(2) Hypothesized recon- struction by K. Jazdzew- ski. (3) Plan with traces of post holes and ditches at northern end. Con- tours of pits along the walls. The right side
of the house was de- stroyed. From the Lengyel village at Nowa Huta near Cracow,
S Poland, c. 4300- 4100 BC.
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abundant evidence of grain cultivation and a reliance upon larger numbers of pigs, sheep, goats, and cervids. The exploitation of birds, fish, molluscs, and turtles is also greater than previously found.** Lengyel settlements are central- ized around multiple long-houses in which trapezoidal buildings 15 to 40 m long (most more than 20) were built using the bedding trench method of con- struction. Smaller sites occurred within an approximate 5 km radius. Three dis- tinct types of settlements have been distinguished: large, with multiple long-houses, single long-house sites, and temporary sites with no traces of perma- nent architecture.*’ As in the Tisza area, there was clearly a hierarchy of site S1ZeS.
Art
It was the art, the painted pottery and highly individualistic rendering of female figures, that attracted the atten- tion of interested laymen to this culture in the early decades of the 20th century. One of the early excavators and art lov- ers was Fr. Vildomec of Znojmo in Moravia who amassed a great amount of classical Lengyel material, mostly from his excavation at Stfelice and other sites around Znojmo. Most of it remained in his private collection in a nearby village, and is still there. Other impressive collections of Lengyel art are in the archeological museums of Brno, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Pecs, and others.
Lengyel sculptural art differs from that
of all neighboring groups. As elsewhere, the majority of figurines are schema- tized, having biconical heads, arm stumps, and large buttocks. Rarely are faces or masks indicated, although some show eyes, eyebrows, pointed noses, and even hairdos and necklaces. The usual type is a standing figurine with weight concentrated in the lower part of the body, while the upper part is reduced, with breasts hardly indicated. (FIGURES 3-36, 3-37) A number of female figures are shown seated on a stool. In addition to the regular type of figurines produced in quantities, there are exceptional pieces of art remarkable for their inven- tive shapes. Among these are vases
bs 2 | FIGURE 3-36 Typical Lengyel figurines: (1) Fig- urine with a biconical amorphous head, arm- stumps, small breasts, and a massive lower body. (2-4) Heads with hair, eyes, and nose indi- cated. Early Lengyel, 49th-47th cents. B.C. Strelice at Boskovstejn near Znojmo,