International Conference "Balkan Dialogues. Spatial Boundaries and Cultural Identities in the Prehistoric Balkans" (original) (raw)
Related papers
2017
Spatial variation and patterning in the distribution of artefacts are topics of fundamental significance in Balkan archaeology. For decades, archaeologists have been classifying spatial clusters of artefacts into discrete “cultures”, which have been conventionally treated as bound entities and equated with past social (or even ethnic) groups. The need for an up-to-date and theoretically informed dialogue on group identity in Balkan prehistory is the point of departure for this volume. Thirteen case studies covering the beginning of the Neolithic to the Middle Bronze Age and written by archaeologists conducting fieldwork in the region, as well as by ethnologists with a research focus on material culture and identity, provide a robust foundation for exploring these issues. Each essay challenges long-established interpretations and provides a new, contextualised reading of the archaeological record. Bringing together the latest research (with an intentional focus on the central and western Balkans, i.e. former Yugoslavia), the chapters offer original perspectives on Balkan prehistory with relevance to the neighbouring regions of Eastern and Central Europe, the Mediterranean and Anatolia.
Balkan Prehistory: Incorporation, Exclusion and Identity
Complete volume published in London by Routledge., 2000
The period from 6500 to 2500 BC was one of the most dynamic eras of the prehistory of southeastern Europe, for it saw many fundamental changes in the ways in which people lived their lives. This up-to-date and authoritative synthesis both describes the best excavated relevant Balkan sites and interprets long-term trends in the central themes of settlement, burial, material culture and economy. Prominence is given to the ways people organized themselves, the houses and landscapes in which they lived and the objects, plants and animals they kept. The key developments are seen as the creation of new social environments through the construction of houses and villages, and a new materiality of life which filled the built environment with a wide variety of objects. Against the prevailing trends in European prehistory, the author argues for a prehistoric past riven with tension and conflict, where hoarding and the exclusion of people was just as frequent as sharing and helping. Balkan Prehistory provides a much-needed guide to a period which has previously been inaccessible to western scholars. It will be an invaluable resource for undergraduates, advanced students and scholars.
Archaeology across past and present borders (with M. Pieniazek and S. Votruba)
The objective of our session in Istanbul was to spark theoretical debate on archaeology at the crossroads of the Balkans, Aegean and Anatolia and its interrelationship with social and political life in this historically turbulent region. Modern political borders still divide European archaeology and obstruct research. This is particularly evident in the area of study, where archaeological interaction among neighbouring countries, such as Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, the F.Y.R. of Μacedonia and Albania, is practically inactive. While globalism is increasingly bounding different parts of the world in many different ways, the nationalistic approach in archaeological research is still present in our research region. The wish of the organizers of this session was to challenge national narratives, which often draw arguments from culture-historical methods in regional archaeology and feed into the rising ideology of nationalism. Reception of the past within the local perspectives of modern nation states and changing identities are the focus points: how far can breaks or continuities in the material culture serve as evidence for ethnic continuities, migrations, ethnogeneses, etc., and what is the socio-political background of such approaches? What is the potential of material culture towards defining modern and past identities? In the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, the area encompassing the north Aegean and the Balkans was the stage for fascinating cultural entanglements. Domestic, cultic or public architecture, artefact groups and burial rites have always been employed in the process of describing archaeological cultures or defining prehistoric identities. However, these identities were not static, but rather, underwent constant transformations. How people and objects interacted and how objects and ideas changed their function in time and space were among the questions addressed in our meeting. Despite the fact that the north Aegean and the Balkans are geographically interrelated, they are almost never treated in archaeological terms as a cohesive topic; rather, they are usually regarded as being part of clearly distinct "cultures" that rarely interrelated. This is due to divisions by modern borders and powerful biases that have resulted from the different regional traditions in our discipline: The central Balkans and even north Greece are usually regarded as remote and exotic worlds within the Aegean prehistoric and classical archaeological narrative, while the Aegean is idealized in the archaeology of the Balkans. On the other hand, Anatolia or Asia Minor -the terminology depending on the viewpoint of the researcher -is a terra incognita for Aegean archaeology and vice versa. This traditional division between "Aegean", "Balkan" and "Anatolian" archaeology is especially marked in Late Bronze and Early Iron Age research. The outcome is a certain 'Balkanization' in regional archaeology, which promotes further cultural and political division through the construction of conflicting national-archaeological narratives. Within this division, the north Aegean and the central Balkans are often regarded as the periphery or the back water of neighbouring Aegean and Anatolian cultures, and their cultural contribution is discriminated by being -not always unconsciously -classified as non-innovative, passive and receptive, and often overlooked. Therefore, one important issue in the session was the re-evaluation of the local, "less renowned" cultures and their interactions in the broader cultural milieu. Colleagues representing different scholarly traditions and cultural backgrounds, who work in
Group identities in the Central Balkan Late Neolithic
Documenta Praehistorica XXXIX, 2012
"The final period of Neolithic Vinca culture, which occupied wide areas in the Balkans, is characterised by large settlements, which were built, judging by the most recent investigations according to premeditated plan. What was their purpose? Were they autonomous or part of some wider communities? How large was the territory within which people of that time defined themselves as ‘we’ and where did communities of ‘others’ begin? The objective of this work is to indicate the possibilities for studying the complexity of group identities in the Late Vinca societies. We take as a starting point the micro-region of Drenski Vis in north-western Serbia, where five Late Vinca settlements have been discovered."
Representing people, constituting worlds: multiple 'Neolithics' in the Southern Balkans
Documenta Praehistorica, 2009
This paper considers the diverse iconographic landscapes of the southern Balkans, especially those populated by human figurines. The main premise is that material culture is a resource upon which agents draw to situate themselves in the world. In this way, regional traits are deemed particularly important for the constitution of specific subjectivities, in contrast to a generic ‘Neolithic individual’, and at the same time, for the constitution of specific local worlds as opposed to an all-encompassing world that is merely experienced differently. I attempt to provide an example of such regional traits that would have constituted different contexts for agency during the Neolithic and focus on the differences between two regions within the southern Balkans, regions that do not remain the same in the course of time.