by Chris Fowler
During this initial, expansive form of subsistence strategy, time was conceived of in both horizontal and linear ways, respectively reflected in patterns of dispersed settlement networks and diffuse village plans in south-eastern Europe. These settlement forms facilitated mobility on a micro (household) and macro (community) scale. Variability within the house–hamlet–village system (Chapman 2008) offered a spectrum of adaptative possibilities and different mobility levels under divergent environmental conditions. One may also presume subsistence forms relying on different and complementary degrees and types of mobility (Halstead 2005, 45–49). As in the Near East, the basis of this system was the household unit, defined by its physical, economic, social, and ideological integrity (Flannery 1972, 2002; Tringham 2000b; Steadman 2000, 167–174; Borić 2008; Souvatzi 2008).
Following this expansive ‘settling in’, tells emerged in the southern Balkans during a residential consolidation phase within the context of the Protosesklo–Karanovo I–Kremikovci–Anzabegovo–Vršnik cultural complex (Runnels 2003, 127–129; Tringham 2000b, 116–120). Tells represented a new attitude towards built space and time, stressing the vertical dimension. These artificially erected communal structures, often in strategically important positions, accentuated distinguished geographical loci, thereby construing the external, physical web for the common mentality of communities, upon which cohesion within the controlled region could be based (Chapman 1997b; Gheorghiu 2008, 87–88). Each tell formed a horizontally defined, tightly aggregated system of houses. Their proximity to each other expresses a new form of self-definition, a special habitus on a community level or levels, beyond the household. The time depth of neighbouring house plots, which added authority and value, is expressed by the appreciation of earlier buildings, reconstructed on the same spot (Hodder 1998; Borić 2008). Using Sherratt’s (1997, 22) term, tells are ‘habitation monuments’. Specially arranged buildings with uncommon functions offer the clearest evidence for action at a communal level, for instance the 9 by 9m building from Tumba Madjari tell near Skopje, which yielded an artefactual assemblage indicative of a communal–ritual place (Sanev 1988). Similar buildings, for example at Nea Nikomedeia in Greece and Rakitovo in Bulgaria (Pyke 1996, 32, 48–49; Matsanova 2003), indicate that this was a general development in the Balkans at the time.
The relatively (?) mobile and adaptive ‘house society’ of the early Neolithic thus became integrated into the framework of the ‘tell society’ characterized by sedentism and a certain perception of time-depth. Therefore, a duality in attitudes to space and time may be reconstructed for, respectively, horizontal and tell settlements, a duality already present in the ‘Neolithic package’ of food-producing economies (Sherratt 1997, 22; 2005, 143). It is possible that the tell/non-tell dichotomy is also reflected at the level of buildings, respectively constructed as above-ground wattle and daub houses on the mounds and less permanent, semi-subterranean dwellings in horizontal settlements (Lichardus and Lichardus-Itten 2004).
The expansion of early food production in the Balkans was mediated by the Starčevo culture and its communities, who encountered specialized foragers of the local Mesolithic Lepenski Vir culture in the Iron Gates Gorge of the Danube. Their characteristic trapezoidal houses and anthropo/ichthyomorphic stone sculptures were discovered at the riverbank sites of, among others, Lepenski Vir, Padina, and Vlasac. They reflect specific cultural responses to and relations between humans and their particular microregional environment between 9500 and 5500 BC within a closed ecological zone (cf. Borić 2008). There were interactions between the thinly spread local Mesolithic populations and immigrant, sedentary food-producing communities, but the Lepenski Vir settlement tradition eventually dissolved without trace into the early Neolithic Starčevo culture, without influencing subsequent cultural development (Tringham 2000b, 33–55; Kaczanowska and Kozłowski 2003, 228–231).
CULTURAL PATTERNS C. 5500–4600 BC
Between 5500 and 5100/5000 BC a clear north–north-west expansion of tell settlements took place throughout the Balkans. Mounds began occurring along the Bosna, Sava, Drava, and Maros rivers, beyond the Lower Danube and into Transylvania (Fig. 12.1). This is first apparent for the Dimini–Vinča–Kakanj–Karanovo III–IV cultures. Life at Vinča also began at this time (Chapman 1981, 6–32; 1998). At enclosed tells, houses were arranged in a strict order, often separated by very narrow alleys, making it difficult to access houses at the centre of the site (Chapman 1990). This offered an opportunity to mark the distinguished position of certain households. Meanwhile, the increasing concentration of houses limited the space in which individual and communal social interests could be played out, perhaps resulting in an increasing appreciation of living outside the tell and in the expression of prestige and status in a new arena outside the tell. This tendency may explain the creation of communal cemeteries, new places for negotiating individual and group interests (see Borić, this volume). Most tells were enclosed by a combination of ditches, earthworks, and walls. Some, for instance Parţa in Romania (Lazarovici et al. 2001), have buildings dedicated to special communal functions, indicated by atypical artefactual assemblages. The Vinča culture system of tells and numerous horizontal settlements continued the tradition of communal mentality as it developed in the southern Balkans. The broad geographical network of stabilizing food-producing economies and increasing social complexity were the likely driving forces.
By approximately 5100/5000 BC, the northward spread of settlement mounds reached the southern Great Hungarian Plain (Fig. 12.1), where the Tisza and Herpály cultures (Figs 12.2 and 12.3) include tell, tell-like (e.g. Tisza: Hódmezővásárhely-Kökénydomb, Hódmezővásárhely-Gorzsa, Vésztő-Mágor, Szegvár-Tűzköves, Öcsöd-Kováshalom; Herpály: Berettyóújfalu-Herpály) and horizontal settlements (cf. Tálas and Raczky 1987; Link 2006). The Polgár-Csőszhalom tell and its 34–35ha external horizontal settlement are located some 100km north of the main block of Tisza and Herpály tells (Raczky and Anders 2008). Its extreme size makes this site a special phenomenon in the late Neolithic of the region. A 3.5ha tell is surrounded by a multiple enclosure and palisade system, usually known from settlements in hilly Transdanubia (western Hungary) and the central European Lengyel culture (Trnka 2005; see Petrasch, this volume). The site is located at the meeting point of two major cultural regions and may represent a symbolic synthesis. Activities within the tell differed from those dictated by daily life in the horizontal settlement. Most likely, the tell and its external settlement reflect different attitudes towards space and time (Raczky and Anders 2008, 39–49; 2010). Sherratt’s conclusion that this mound was an ‘ersatz Tell’ seems correct: Polgár-Csőszhalom functioned as a continuously constructed communal monument, rather than an ordinary habitation mound (Sherratt 2005, 142–143).
FIG. 12.2. The tell settlement of Berettyóújfalu-Herpály with excavation trenches from 1977 to 1982.
FIG. 12.3. The tell settlement of Berettyóújfalu-Herpály. Detail of a north–south section showing the stratigraphic sequence.
New forms of spatial patterning, such as orthogonal street layouts with very narrow alleys, emerged within southern Balkan tells, among the later Dimini–Karanovo IV–V–Boian–Maritsa–Poljanica–Sava–Vinča-Pločnik–Sopot–Butmir cultures (e.g. Ovčarovo, Goljamo Delčevo, Poljanitza, Sava: Todorova 1982). The production of clay house models (tectomorphs) was interpreted as a token of continuity between subsequent household units and an active component of maintaining social stability through time (Bailey 1990). At Ovčarovo house 7 (layer IX), a special assemblage of clay figurines and a house model indicates symbolic/sacral activities on a community level (Todorova 1982, 67–67, 135–136; Trenner 2010). Houses in tell communities were thus not simple dwellings but became symbols for household units (Tringham 2000b; Souvatzi 2008). Within late Neolithic tell communities, social interactions were realized on the level of household clusters. The periodical horizontal and vertical redefinition of houses implies the redefinition and/or reinforcement
of community structure in a more abstract, social space. A strong ideological motivation may therefore also lie behind the cyclical and apparently intentional burning of houses at tell sites, an activity always followed by rebuilding (Tringham 2005).
The physical limitation of tells, however, also defined tight social spaces for household units within a community, eventually leading to the erection of multi-storied buildings on some tells (Fig. 12.4). They emphasized the significance of certain households in yet another vertical dimension (Hiller 2001), illustrating increasing social tension within aggregated household clusters.
FIG. 12.4. The tell settlement of Berettyóújfalu-Herpály. Reconstruction of House 11, a two-storey building, with the objects found within.
LATE TELLS AND TELLS IN DECLINE: C. 4600/4500–4000/3700 BC
Occupation at tells in the Great Hungarian Plain, the northern periphery of tell distribution, lasted about 500 years, ending abruptly around 4600/4500 BC. The subsequent Tiszapolgár culture is characterized by a dispersed settlement pattern in the area between the Maros and Körös rivers (Parkinson 2006). The complex enclosures at the Polgár tell were filled in during a single major communal action, marking the symbolic end of the local community before the tell was abandoned. Similarly, there was a break in the southern region of early tell formation, including Thessaly and Macedonia, at several late Neolithic tells (Alram-Stern 1996, 90–101; Todorova 1998). At the same time, tell-forming communities continued in the central Balkan Kodžadermen–Gumelniţa–Karanovo VI (KGK)–Varna, Vinča-Pločnik, and Krivodol-Sǎlcuţa cultures (Todorova 1995; Hansen and Toderaş 2010). There was also an expansion of the Balkanic way of life into Moldova, with sporadic stratified settlements supporting a more sedentary Eneolithic economy (Chapman 2010).
In the central Balkans, tell plans show the tight arrangement typical of the previous period. At Durankulak, Hamangia culture layers were covered by oblong megaron-type houses on stone foundations between layers VI and III. The excavators reconstructed a number of sanctuaries and a central ‘palace’, the latter dated to phase III of the Varna culture (Todorova 2002). This diversity of buildings must, to some extent, reflect underlying economic, social, and ideological differences. However, grave goods from the associated cemetery show that social differences were primarily expressed in burials, a new arena for displaying prestige and social status (Renfrew 1986; Chapman 1991; Slavchev 2010). Whilst some cemeteries are associated with tells, the large Varna burial ground could not be connected to any (Lichardus 1991). Possibly this cemetery, with its unusual quantities of high-prestige copper, gold, and Spondylus shell objects, was used by high-status individuals from several communities, with outstandingly rich graves amidst groups of more modest burials. The Varna cemetery thus represents a new, external space contrasting with individual tells and their communities (Renfrew 2003, 142–143; Higham et al. 2006). In this context, the appreciation of special individuals and their communities is realized through new artefact types, material representations of a new system of values (Manolakakis 2007) and new networks of procurement well beyond the earlier small, regional scale (Strahm 2007; Hansen 2009; Chapman, this volume).
Meanwhile, in the core area of the Balkans, earlier social customs were maintained within an altogether more peaceful development, for instance at Pietrele in Romania (cf. Hansen et al. 2007). Gumelniţa culture tells display a prosperity similar to settlement mounds in the Vedea and Teleorman river valleys (Andreescu and Mirea 2008).
Around 4000 BC, tell cultures ended relatively rapidly in almost the entire area of the Balkans. Some special settlement mounds remained in use until c. 3700 BC, including Galatin in north-west Bulgaria, where a house with stone foundations is indicative of continued habitation. The decline and ultimate disappearance of tell-forming cultures in south-east Europe proceeded from the lower Danube region toward Dobrudja, Muntenia, and north-east Bulgaria. The sudden disruption has been explained by a combination of external circumstances, including the westward expansion of the Kurgan culture from the steppes and climatic change (Gimbutas 1979; Todorova 1998). Recently, scholars have sought a better understanding of a complex system of external and internal factors that would explain the all-encompassing historical change over both south-east Europe and western Anatolia (Parzinger 1998; Nikolova 2003; Hansen 2009; Anthony 2010).
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