Antler Industry Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Summary: The site of Gomolava is located on the periphery of the village of Hrtkovci, on the left bank of the Sava, not far from Ruma. Systematic archaeological excavations were carried out in several campaigns the second half of the 20th century, revealing a rich site with archaeological remains from multiple periods: Late Neolithic – Vinča culture, Chalcolithic – Kostolac culture, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, La Tène, the Roman period and the Middle Ages. The Neolithic stratum was 1,30 m thick and had two habitation horizons. The earlier one contained pits, pit-dwellings and above-ground houses, and belongs to Vinča B phase. The later stratum was represented by houses with several rooms, and belongs to Vinča C phase. Portable material was rich in both horizons and included pottery, figurines, ceramic weights, lithic and osseous artefacts, etc. The bone industry, however is one of its insufficiently explored aspects. Major part of the material is being kept at the Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad, and a smaller part in the Regional museum in Ruma. The assemblage from the Regional museum in Ruma was analysed by the author and it comprises about 100 artefacts – awls, needles and heavy points made from bone, antler punches, few objects of special use and ornaments, and particularly interesting are several fish hooks made from antler, including one semi-finished item.
Fish hook Gml 25: Fragmented hook, from antler segment; the body (shank) is preserved, but the point is missing. At the basal part it has an extension and shallow groove immediately below. On most of the outer surface traces of scraping with a chipped stone tool tool are visible, only small portion has traces of burnishing. The entire artefact has slight polish from use/handling.
Fish hook Gml 26: Fragmented hook, made from antler segment; the entire pointed part is missing. It has finely modelled head on the basal part of the body, with shallow groove below it. The head itself was shaped by cutting and also on the outer surface it has traces of cutting and scraping with a chipped stone tool. The entire artefact has slight polish from use/handling.
Fish hook Gml 41: Fragmented hook, from long bone segment, probably from larger animal. L-shaped; the body is preserved, but the point is missing. At the basal part it has an extension and shallow groove immediately below. On most of the outer surface traces of scraping with a finely retouched chipped stone tool are visible, only small portion has traces of burnishing. The entire artefact has slight polish from use/handling.
Fish hook Gml 100. Preform for a hook, from piece of cortex, from red deer antler beam. It has clear traces in negative from small pieces of material removed by scraping and cutting with a chipped stone tool.
This preform, along with the manufacturing traces preserved on the hooks, enabled us to reconstruct the technological procedure: first an elongated plate was extracted from red deer antler beam segment. The blank was then modified by cutting with a chipped stone tool until it reached the general hook shape. After that, the blank was further modified by scraping with a chipped stone tool, judging from the traces, probably finely retouched until it reached the final form – a body (shank) with circular cross section, curved mesial part also with circular cross-section, and a point. Unfortunately, points are all fragmented – probably due to intensive use – and we have no data whether the points were simple or barbed (both variants are present in the material that is being kept in the Museum of Vojvodina).
The finds of fish hooks are very important since they provide indirect evidence on the importance of fishing and on the fishing techniques that were practiced. Some of the fishing equipment cannot be identified unambiguously (for example, ceramic weights), or is simply not preserved in the archaeological record (rare archaeological finds and ethnographic examples suggest the possibility of using traps, baskets, etc. made from wood). The site of Gomolava was situated on the river Sava, on a high loess terrace near the flooded area of southern Pannonian plain. Fish was present in the faunal record, but in very small amount, however, this due to the taphonomy but also recovery methods.
Fish hooks are not frequently found on Vinča culture sites, in fact, only Gomolava and Vinča-Belo Brdo yielded somewhat larger number of objects. These finds from Gomolava show that fishing was not sporadic activity. Fish hooks were not ad hoc objects, but carefully made, and into their production a relatively large amount of time and skill was invested, suggesting that fishing was an important activity. The find of a preform is important for studying the organisation of production of bone objects among the Vinča culture communities.