New burial rites at the end of the Linearbandkeramik in south-west Slovakia (original) (raw)
Related papers
In the Anthropologie journal in 2008 (46, 2–3), Marek Zvelebil and an international team of experts presented the results from the Vedrovice bioarchaeology project, which detailed the life-histories of individuals buried at the early LBK cemetery. In combining a range of different bioarchaeological methodologies, this project was able to show that the community buried at Vedrovice was formed of a diverse and heterogenous population, leading lives influenced to different degrees by the transition to farming. Drawing on a similar approach – that of using bioarchaeological evidence fully integrated in its archaeological context – a project called The first farmers of central Europe: diversity in LBK lifeways was begun in 2008 and ran for four years. Sampling sites across the southern distribution of the LBK for isotopic analysis (carbon, nitrogen, and strontium isotopes primarily) and including osteological study, this project concentrated on issues of regional and site-based diversity in diet, mobility and burial. In this paper, we present a comparison of the Moravian and western Slovakian results from this project, including new data from the cemetery and settlement burials at Vedrovice, as well as from the Nitra cemetery and the settlements of Těšetice-Kyjovice and Brno-Starý Lískovec/Nový Lískovec. Like Zvelebil et al. (2008), we find communities formed of heterogenous identities, though we suggest that such diversity was also found alongside evidence for shared practice at different scales of human life.
In the Anthropologie journal in 2008 (46, 2-3), Marek Zvelebil and an international team of experts presented the results from the Vedrovice bioarchaeology project, which detailed the life-histories of individuals buried at the early LBK cemetery. In combining a range of different bioarchaeological methodologies, this project was able to show that the community buried at Vedrovice was formed of a diverse and heterogenous population, leading lives influenced to different degrees by the transition to farming. Drawing on a similar approach-that of using bioarchaeological evidence fully integrated in its archaeological context-a project called The first farmers of central Europe: diversity in LBK lifeways was begun in 2008 and ran for four years. Sampling sites across the southern distribution of the LBK for isotopic analysis (carbon, nitrogen, and strontium isotopes primarily) and including osteological study, this project concentrated on issues of regional and site-based diversity in diet, mobility and burial. In this paper, we present a comparison of the Moravian and western Slovakian results from this project, including new data from the cemetery and settlement burials at Vedrovice, as well as from the Nitra cemetery and the settlements of Těšetice-Kyjovice and Brno-Starý Lískovec/Nový Lískovec. Like Zvelebil et al. (2008), we find communities formed of heterogenous identities, though we suggest that such diversity was also found alongside evidence for shared practice at different scales of human life.
2012
In addition to several thousand archaeological features, forty-three settlement burials were also uncovered on the LBK site at Balatonszárszó-Kis-erdei-dűlő. The majority of the crouched inhumation burials came to light from the uppermost level of the settlement’s refuse pits. The study offers a detailed assessment of the settlement’s Neolithic burials together with the examination of possible patterns in the mortuary rites, as well as an overview of the culture’s graves and mortuary practices in the western half of the Carpathian Basin, i.e. in Hungary and Slovakia. The findings are compared to the treatment of the dead in other regions of the LBK distribution in Europe in order to identify possible local traditions in the light of similarities with and divergences from the general patterns in the mortuary rites practiced by LBK communities.
Anthropology of the Neolithic population from Nitra-Horné Krškany (Slovakia)
Neolithic people of the Linear Pottery or Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture buried their dead in the cemetery on the area of today's city of Nitra (Slovakia) at the end of the 6th millennium BC. This article aims to present a detailed description of skeletons along with a basic anthropological analysis. The material comprised of 77 individuals, including 28 juveniles, 19 males, 27 females and 3 indeterminable adults. Females were dying more often at the age under 35 years, males at an older age. The average stature in males reached 165.0 cm, in females 155.2 cm. Population from Nitra was dolichocranic, moderately robust with platymeric femurs. Distinct muscle topography, enthesopathies and other alterations on bones associated with long-term workload were noted in skeletal material. The health status of the population was affected by numerous dental caries, inflammations occurred, including one case of tuberculosis. Cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis and Harris lines demonstrate stressful periods during the life of some individuals from Nitra. Violence among the first farmers is ilustrated by cranial trauma in five individuals.
On the basis of the characteristics of Neolithic and Early Eneolithic mortuary practices in the area of North Carpathian Basin it can be argued that the existence of graveyards is an isolated phenomenon. Various rituals were involved in disposing of the dead. In this article, we focus on (un)usual burials which are singled out into two major categories: cremation and inhumation. Special emphasis is given to cremation as a mortuary practice: arguments for cremation; interpretation possibilities; examples of the use of fire and noticed phenomenon. IZVLE∞EK -S pomo≠jo zna≠ilnih neolitskih in eneolitskih pogrebnih praks v severnem delu Karpatske kotline sklepamo, da so pokopali∏≠a izoliran pojav. S pokopi so bili povezani razli≠ni rituali. V ≠lanku predstavljamo (ne)obi≠ajne pokope, ki sodijo v dve glavni kategoriji: se∫ig in pokop trupel. Poseben poudarek je namenjen se∫iganju kot pogrebni praksi: argumentom, interpretacijam in izbranim primerom.
Ritual practices in the Neolithic and Eneolithic in Slovakia
In Emília Pásztor. Shamanism and nature worship. Past and present. Baja: István Türr Museum., 2019
Cult practices go through almost all aspects and activities of human life in Prehistory. Therefore it is almost impossible to separate everyday life from ritual practices. Nearly all artifacts preserved up-today are in some way connected with spiritual belief. The terms ‘ritual find’ and ‘sacred belief’ (and their derivatives) will be used to characterize artifacts and phenomena, which are unique or unusual and probably fell outside everyday life, as well as finds related to Prehistoric art (Kalicz – Raczky 1987, 22). Changing climate conditions after the last ice age slowly paved the way for new subsistence strategies in the Neolithic – agriculture. However, these significant changes were preceded by the most fundamental one. It was the radical change of thinking, which enabled the spread of a new ideology that connected Central Europe with the Balkans and further with the Near East. In the center of sacred belief was fertility, regular rhythm of natural cycles and an infinite alteration of life and death closely connected with it. Ritual practices changed in the Eneolithic. This transformation reflected new situation in society and economy, in which man becomes a central element. Maternity cults are gradually pushed into the background as new components emerge (Podborský 2006, 201; Neustupný 2008, 11). Individual examples of ritual practices were chosen in order to illustrate a very diverse and manifold belief system of a man 7 500–4 300 years ago. Since most of finds and find circumstances with possible ritual context are known from settlements, the presented text will mainly focus on this aspect of human activities.
MAGICAL, MUNDANE OR MARGINAL? Deposition practices in the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture. , 2020
In our contribution, we offer several interpretative models for discussing the individual categories of finds and finds contexts from the Late Neolithic site of Vchynice in north-west Bohemia (Czech Republic). Here, the remains of a Neolithic rondel ditch were uncovered in 2008. The site formation processes that took place at the settlement during its active use and long after its demise were certainly complex. However, among other finds such as sherds, lithics and animal bones, the analysis of daub from the rondel ditch and from the contemporary features in the vicinity indicates the possibility that the settlement witnessed a larger conflagration at a certain time. This can be explained as an accidental catastrophe, an attack by foreign communities or as due to ritual reasons, for instance during the abandonment of the site.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2013
Bioarchaeology is a powerful tool in the examination of prehistoric collections of human skeletal remains. Application of a few bioarchaeological techniques (ancient DNA, carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes, and dental micro-wear) to the human osteological remains from the Early Neolithic LBK settlement of Vedrovice (Moravia), has allowed us to reconstruct not only broad cultural patterns but also the life histories of the individuals with insights into diet, migrations, ancestry, personal identity, social position and life experience. Vedrovice acted as a gateway settlement for a farming community with close ties to western Hungary and northeast Bohemia. The individuals showed clear differences in status and migration histories, giving glimpses of more complex social practices and patterns than could have been determined through the traditional culture-historical studies.
Evidence of social structure of a Neolithic community in Svodín, Southwest Slovakia.
2015
The period after initial development of Neolithic society in Central Europe, known as the Post-LBK era, is marked by an influx of new cultural stimuli from the South and the emergence of formalization in monumental architecture, resulting in a cultural diversification while maintaining significant common traits across different regions. An important part of understanding the process of this change is understanding the development of social complexity during the transition. This study addresses this question by examining variations in burial rite coinciding with the age or sex of the deceased or the spatial distribution of 106 graves from the Lengyel Culture settlement in Svodín, dated around 4800 cal BC. The concept of exceptionality rather than richness of burials is introduced. It is based on the composition and spatial distribution of inventories within graves and contrary to the traditional deductive approach does not depend on prior selection of attributes of prestige. Principal Component Analysis is used to assess exceptionality based on ceramic shapes, decoration and non-ceramic grave goods. Resampling tests using a Monte Carlo algorithm are employed to assess the significance of connection of specific attributes with exceptional burials and age, sex or spatial groups. This approach enables us to study social differences in regions and time periods where prestigious materials such as metal are not yet present. New conclusions are drawn about social stratification in the Post-LBK era and confronted with results of existing studies dealing with status and prestige. The image of a vertically differentiated society with middle aged men assuming the highest rank in the community emerges, showing complex social relations both between and within different kinships on the settlement. Observations of diachronic development of social differences indicate a gradually evolving society, foreshadowing the emergence of elites in the following Aeneolithic period.