by Chris Fowler
Zdravkovski, D. 2006. New aspects of the Anzabegovo-Vršnik cultural group. In N. Tasić and C. Grozdanov (eds), Homage to Milutin Garašanin, 99–110. Belgrade: Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
CHAPTER 33
SPONDYLUS GAEDEROPUS/GLYCYMERIS EXCHANGE NETWORKS IN THE EUROPEAN NEOLITHIC AND CHALCOLITHIC*
JOHN CHAPMAN AND BISSERKA GAYDARSKA
INTRODUCTION
The two marine shells, Spondylus gaederopus Linné (spiny oyster) and Glycymeris glycymeris Linné (dog-cockle), have become famous in global prehistory as prestige exchange items which look very attractive as ornaments and, very occasionally, tools. In the middle Holocene (6500–3000 BC), the Black Sea was too cool and insufficiently saline to support either species (but see Todorova 2002), but both occurred throughout the Aegean, the Adriatic, and the central and western Mediterranean. The paucity of Spondylus ornaments from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic in the two latter regions indicates that the only sources of living shell were the Adriatic and the Aegean (but note finds on coastal sites in Sicily and Malta (Chilardi et al. 2002), peninsular Italy (Borrello and Micheli 2011), and Iberia (Álvarez-Fernández 2011)). Fossil Spondylus shells, which were brittle and pallid, were only occasionally used in prehistory. Despite limited sources, Spondylus and Glycymeris shells and products in archaeological contexts indicate an extensive long-distance exchange network covering much of Danubian Europe and beyond, over distances of up to 3,000km (Fig. 33.1). Less widely appreciated are the dynamic changes in the nature and extent of these exchange networks over three millennia (6500–3500 BC).
FIG. 33.1. Map of Spondylus deposition in Europe, with numbered sites as follows: 1. – Dimini; 2 – Sitagroi; 3 – Dikili Tash; 4 – Danilo; 5 – Obre; 6 – Orlovo; 7 – Varna; 8 – Durankulak; 9 – Omurtag; 10 – Hârşova; 11 – Vršac group; 12 – Battonya; 13 – Nitra; 14 – Emmersdorf; 15 – Aiterhofen; 16 – Bernburg; 17 – Cys-La-Commune; 18 – Brześć Kujawski. Symbols: open circle – grave; open square – settlement or cave; star – hoard; filled diamond – stray find; R – unworked shell.
(After Müller 1997, Abb. 2; re-drawn by Yvonne Beadnell.) Re-drawn by Yvonne Beadnell.
Previous approaches
The history of trade and exchange studies in prehistoric research is dominated by cyclical peaks and troughs, with a decline in interest particularly among post-processualists. More recently, a revival in material culture studies has stimulated new research, which integrates personhood and identity with traded and exotic objects and their relationships to local persons.
Pioneering culture historical studies into Spondylus distributions defined the long-distance movement from the Mediterranean into Germany and France. Whilst Buttler (1938) discussed shell sources and defined the main ornament types, Clark (1952) maintained that the LBK expansion necessitated trade to satisfy a social need established in an earlier phase of their history. Known Spondylus finds were mapped and regionally specific ornament types defined (Vencl 1959; Willms 1985; Séfériadès 2003).
In the 1970s, Renfrew (1975) set the processualist agenda for trade and exchange with four claims: the objects of trade could be identified, their sources determined by modern analytical techniques, and quantitative methods permitted generalizations about distribution patterns, leading to inferences about social organization. Shackleton and Renfrew’s (1970; Sherratt 1976) isotopic analysis of Spondylus objects demonstrated an Aegean or Adriatic origin. Renfrew (1975) identified Spondylus exchange as prestige down-the-line exchange for social purposes at special ceremonies, maintaining its separation from other exchange cycles.
Three spatial scales dominated processualist studies: the site, the region, and the pan-European. For the eastern LBK cemetery at Nitra (Pavúk 1972), Spondylus ornaments were presented as key exotic goods preferentially buried with mature males (see also Nieszery 1995). Studies of settlement assemblages were rarer, but include Benac’s (1973) report on Obre in Bosnia and Tsuneki’s (1989) operational chain for Spondylus bracelet production, as well as his identification of shell workshops at Dimini. The most detailed report is for Sitagroi, Greece, with operational chain data and a wide series of comparanda (Miller 2003; Nikolaidou 2003; cf. Dispilio, north-west Greece: Ifantidis 2006, 2011, cf. the reports on the Hamangia cemetery at Cernavoda: Kogalniceanu 2012; Mărgărit 2012).
Regional syntheses appeared from the 1980s, including Chapman’s (1981) discussion of Balkan exchange strategies and a complex Spondylus route in the Vinča culture. Jeunesse’s (1995, 1996) research into French LBK burials provided an alternative to the Nitra ‘gerontocratic’ model by identifiying two traditions of status communication—one reliant on Spondylus imports, the other on axes and pottery. The Hungarian material was presented and analysed in four studies (Kalicz and Szénászky 2001; Séfériadès 2003; Siklósi 2004; Siklósi and Csengeri 2011), the third in the wider context of Neolithic prestige goods economies.
At the pan-European scale, Müller (1997) estimated the peak Spondylus demand of the western LBK at many thousands of shells per annum, mostly for mortuary gifts—a demand met by Adriatic sources via Hungary. Séfériadès (1995) recognized that Spondylus shells were valued in central Europe because of their origin in the south-eastern ancestral lands of the LBK communities.
The neglect of trade and exchange in post-processual writing in the 1980s and 1990s stemmed from Hodder’s (1984, 26) challenge that it was ‘impossible to test whether prehistoric artefacts moved from source to destination by exchange from person to person or whether […] individuals went directly to the source’, implying that trade could not be related to social structure. Trade and exchange studies have been partially reconciled with interpretative archaeology, as in Helms’ (1993) research into long-distance specialists and the importance of the exotic in creating local cultural values. The operational chain (chaîne opératoire) has been integrated with artefact biographies, in which the birth, life, and death of objects are related to the persons to whom they are enchained in an extension of individuals’ identity (Skeates 1995). Yet a third strand focuses on the practice of deliberately fragmenting objects (including Spondylus ornaments) and later re-using their broken parts (Chapman and Gaydarska 2007). Analyses of the Varna and Durankulak cemeteries in Bulgaria, and the settlement at Dimini, Greece, show the differences in the nature of relationships denoted by shell fragments in these contrasting contexts. This more flexible attitude to objects and their relations to people and places suggests that trade and exchange can find their place in an interpretative archaeology—as summarized by Broodbank (1993, 315): ‘Trade may represent only one of several conjunctures between power, distance and knowledge but it provides an invaluable insight into a wider discourse.’ It is to this wider discourse (Broodbank 2000) that we now turn.
PRODUCTION
Spondylus shell procurement is like no other material extraction. The spiny oyster lives at 4–20m depth, and detaching it from its rocky habitat is dangerous and difficult. And yet it was a fairly routine activity as early as the mid-seventh millennium BC for experienced divers. Trawling for Glycymeris is somewhat easier but no less dangerous, since the dog-cockle lives in a sandy, muddy habitat 10–40m in depth. Shell-collecting was a seasonal and communal activity, during which divers collected the shells and helpers, perhaps women and children, in boats or shallow waters sorted them and carried them to the beach.
Valued for their shining white colour, Spondylus and Glycymeris ornaments derived from brown or reddish shells. Undoubtedly, removing their dark and often spiky ‘skin’ to reach the light core was a process of revelation full of symbolic connotations. Although white is the preferred colour, there are numerous ornaments with residual red, yellow, and even green. Other natural features were also an integral part of ornament aesthetics, with deliberate burning used to show off striking natural lines and garlands against the dark burnished background (Chapman and Gaydarska 2007).
Producing Spondylus ornaments was technically demanding (Trubitt 2003). Tsuneki (1989)
identified five basic techniques of shell ring production: cutting, grinding, polishing, perforation, and faceting. Since the two valves of the Spondylus are of different thickness, protrusions, and colour (Tsuneki 1989), the larger right valve is used either for massive rings (Fig. 33.2/7) or for beads and pendants, and the smaller left ring mostly for fine rings of varying size (Fig. 33.2/8). Other researchers have developed Tsuneki’s scheme to cover the whole range of Spondylus ornaments (e.g., Tables 33.1–33.2).
FIG. 33.2. Principal ornament types made of Spondylus shell. Earrings: 1 –earring; Beads: 2 – disc bead; 3 – short cylindrical bead; 4 – long cylindrical bead; 5 – faceted bead; 6 – curved bead; 7 – barrel bead; 8 – star-shaped bead; Rings (bracelets, annules): 9 – broken ring; 10 – ring made from thin left valve; 11 – ring made from thick right valve; Pendants and appliqués/plaques: 12 – pendant blank; 13 – V-nick pendant; 14 – button-shaped pendant; 15 – triangular pendant; 16 – oval pendant; 17 – clover-leaf pendant; 18 – appliqué; Buttons and toggles: 19 – V-perforated button; 20 – toggle; 21 – conical button.
1, 2, 9, 17, 18, 19, 20: Orlovo Chapman 2010, figs. 3.11–3.12 – 3, 5, 21: Čoka hoard (Raczky 1994, fig. 4) – 4, 12, 13: Aiterhofen (Nieszery and Breinl 1993) – 6: Varna cemetery (unpublished) – 7, 8: Sitagroi (phases V and II; Nikolaidou 2003, fig. 9) – 10, 11: Durankulak (unpublished) – 14: Rhodochori cave (Rodden 1964, pl. 8A) – 15: Cernica (Comşa and Cantacuzino 2001, fig. 8) – 16: Danilo (Korošec 1959, T. LI/5).
Table 33.1 Generalized operational chain for shell ornaments (after Chapman & Gaydarska 2007)
1. Unworked raw material
2. Partially worked, unfinished objects (blanks, partial smoothing or grinding, half finished perforations, perforations on Stage 1 objects) or the debitage from working
3. Complete artefacts
4. Fragmentary artefacts (viz., complete artefacts that have subsequently been broken)
Table 33.2 Miller’s operational chain for Spondylus shell beads (source: Miller 2003)
Step 1 a bead blank is chipped from the shell
Step 2 the faces of the bead blanks are ground flat
Step 3 the blanks are perforated using bow drill with a chert drill tip
Step 4 the sides of perforated blanks are ground to circle, individually or in groups
Step 5 Polishing
Unworked and partially worked shells (stages 1 and 2) point to possible on-site production and/or storage for further exchange. Complete stage 3 artefacts are certainly the most beautiful, but rarer in archaeological contexts. Stage 4 are the commonest—mostly broken rings, but also the reuse or repair of other stage 3 types.
Finding all four stages of the chaîne opératoire is a strong indicator for an ornament production site. This is well documented for the Aegean coast, in contrast to the Adriatic, weakening the claims for a source for LBK Spondylus there. The most prominent production sites in Greece are Dimitra (Karali 1991), Dikili Tash (Karali-Yannacopoulous 1992), Dimini, Sitagroi, and Makriyalos (Pappa & Veropoulidou 2011). Apart from Theopetra cave (Kyparissi-Apostolika 1999) and Dispilio, with hundreds of pre-forms (Ifantidis 2006), most of the Greek production sites are within 30km of the sea. A workshop for Spondylus ornaments is now claimed for the middle Neolithic levels of the Arene Candide cave, north Italy (Borrello and Micheli 2011). The initial processing of the fresh shell perhaps took place near the beach, where water and abrasives are plentiful. Moreover, there is some evidence that Spondylus was used for food (Karali 1999). Seasonal seafood feasting may have celebrated the successful completion of the dangerous yet prestigious fishing and diving. Stage 4 activities may have been performed where raw material was scarce or Spondylus was perceived as part of a constant process of transformation and revelation.
So far, only four claims have been made for Balkan production of Spondylus ornaments. The first is the Chalcolithic tell of Hârşova, where a burnt house contained a copper chisel, four awls, and 43 Spondylus items (Galbenu 1963), namely the non-conjoinable fragments of at least 19 bracelets—all broken before deposition—and 20 bead rough-outs. Galbenu (1963) interprets the find as a bead-making workshop, using copper tools to recycle shell bracelet fragments. This has not yet been tested by trace-wear analysis, but the beads are too large to derive from the rings; the alternative is a hoard of fragmented ornaments. Similar fragmented Spondylus items were found with flint blades, a pumice stone, and bone tools in the Omurtag hoard, north-east Bulgaria (Gaydarska et al. 2004), but there were no traces of working shell on the ‘tools’.
A stronger case for Spondylus production is the south-east Bulgarian Orlovo settlement, 50–100km from the Aegean depending on the route (Chapman 2010). Over 700 ornaments, one-third Spondylus, were recovered from the surface; the remains of all four production stages strongly indicate local production. Battonya in south-east Hungary has been suggested as the northernmost production site (Kalicz and Szénászky 2001), but no stage 1 or 2 remains are present, confirming Willms’ (1985) conclusion that no site in central Europe shows evidence for Spondylus working debitage.
Despite the minimal evidence of inland production, there are many pendant blanks—shells with a rough surface and small perforations (Fig. 33.2/11)—that could equally be stage 2 or 3 objects. They are found at Obre (Bosnia) and Sopot (middle Danube basin), in the Carpathian Basin (Siklósi 2004), and on LBK sites in Bavaria (Nieszery and Breinl 1993) and the Paris Basin (Jeunesse 1995; Kirk 1998). Their minimal transformation could have occurred near their source or at their destination. This ambiguous type leads us into a discussion of the three diachronic stages of Spondylus distribution.
DISTRIBUTION
In a general study, it is impossible to grasp the entire variety of Spondylus ornaments across Europe (Fig. 33.2 and Table 33.3). There are, however, some obvious preferences and systematic avoidances, resulting in a striking time/space pattern of distribution (Fig. 33.3). The Spondylus exchange network has three distinct phases (Fig. 33.4). In phase 1 (6500–5400 BC), Spondylus use is sporadic. The earliest known ornaments are disc beads and fragmented rings from Greece. After 6000 BC, fragmentary rings appear in the Balkans, Hungary, and the Adriatic coast, later to become the most common Spondylus find alongside the disc bead (Fig. 33.2/1).
FIG. 33.3. The regional and chronological distribution of the main types of Spondylus ornament.
FIG. 33.4. Phases of Spondylus consumption by region. The vertical axis schematically represents the relative quantities of shell consumption by region.
Table 33.3 Types of Spondylus ornaments
In phase 2 (5400–4900 BC), Spondylus is widely distributed in Hungary and the east Adriatic. In Serbia, Romania, and the LBK, consumption peaks in this phase. The LBK peak has been explained by the elaboration of ancestral origin myths symbolized by the exotic, south-eastern origins of Spondylus (Séfériadès 1995; Whittle 2003). Similarities between ornaments from the LBK, Serbia, and Romania do support this link, whilst the importance of the Vršac settlements (north-east Serbia) in channelling Spondylus into the middle Danube basin supports an Aegean source. There are pendant blanks (Fig. 33.2/12), complete and fragmentary rings, and cylindrical beads (Fig. 33.2/2–3, 9–11). V-nick pendants, disc, and short cylindrical beads are present in the LBK (Fig. 33.2/1, 2,12); east Adriatic communities preferred appliqués (Fig. 33.2/17). The deposition of some ornament types (Fig. 33.3) indicates regional preferences in shell distribution.
Phase 3 (4900–3500 BC) marks a U-turn from the ‘pan-Danubian’ model of distribution, and a reversion to inter-regional exchange. Post-LBK, there is little Spondylus in western central Europe (Müller 1997). Deposition equally declines in Romania and Serbia, with use continuing into the fourth millennium BC (Fig. 33.4). The situation in the east Adriatic is still unclear because of limited excavation data. This demonstrates that the LBK Spondylus network ended before the start, rather than the end, of the east Balkan late Copper Age Spondylus network (contra Müller 1997).
After 4800 BC, Spondylu
s distribution increases dramatically in Greece, Bulgaria, and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), and more modestly in Hungary and Bosnia. There are changes in the types and sizes of ornaments in late Neolithic Hungary, where beads diversify, thin left-valve rings replace thick right-valve rings, and pendants are modified (Fig. 33.2/8–10, 14–16). Bosnian sites contain fragmented rings, pendants, buttons, disc beads and, interestingly, the now ‘archaic’ pendant blank (Fig. 33.2/1, 11, 13, 15). The diversity of Spondylus ornament types in Greece, Bulgaria, and FYROM is comparable to the diversity of new personal skills characterizing new types of individuals (e.g. miners, metallurgists, cheese-makers, etc.) emerging in this period (Chapman and Gaydarska 2011). Some forms are found in all three areas (Fig. 33.3), but star-shaped and trefoil beads are exclusive to Greece (Fig. 33.2/5, 8), whilst other pendant types and toggles characterize Bulgaria and FYROM (Fig. 33.2/16–22). Unique types found only in the latter two areas are the curved and faceted beads (Fig. 33.2/6–7: also made in carnelian, Kostov 2007), the climax of Balkan late Copper Age ornament production, probably carried out by specialists.
Only few Spondylus items, mainly from Greece, are not personal ornaments. They include the ‘sceptre’ finial from Alepotrypa cave, redolent with social power (Papathanassopoulos 1996, 228, fig. 45); two bird figurines from Zas (Zachos 1999); figurines from Sesklo and Aegina; a bear figurine from Kitsos cave; round spoons from Sitagroi, Saliagos, and Franchthi; burnishers and spools from early Bronze Age Zygouries; maceheads from Dikili Tash (middle Neolithic), Saliagos (late Neolithic), and Kastri (early Bronze Age); and vases from early Bronze Age Panaghia and Paros (Karali 1999).
