Noelithic economy and macro-lithic tools of the Central Balkans

Abstract

Having worked on my master thesis on the macro-lithic tools from the Neolithic sites of the central part of Serbia or so-called Middle Morava valley, we noticed that there is not enough interest in this archaeological category in the central Balkans. The short research tradition and the small number of researchers have resulted in an insufficient number of published research results. This situation limits the implementation of new methodological approaches, such as those developed in the other parts of southern and central Europe, and weakens the advance in the archaeological knowledge on prehistoric economies. In order to overcome these problems, we have examined 2174 macro-lithic tools from the 12 Neolithic settlements (~ 5900 - 4650/4600 BC cal) from the Central Balkans. Thus, we have applied economic theory as the theoretical background of the geological, morpho-technical and functional analysis of macro-lithic artefacts (chapter 2). The study presents settlements, the archaeological context in which the analysed artefacts were found, paleo-environmental and geomorphological settings of the Central Balkans. One part of the thesis displays the results of the petrographic analysis of raw material from other Neolithic archaeological sites from previous studies, and samples from geology outcrops from the Central Balkans. The same part presents the results of our geoarchaeological survey related to macro-lithic artefacts from Motel Slatina and Turska česma, Slatina. The petrographic analysis of the studied artefacts also allows us to identify the location and the distance from which raw materials derived, the exploitation method and the existence of territorial borders between supply areas. Functional analysis has revealed for the first time, an appearance of standardized macro-lithic tools. This result has defined high volume production and characterized economy of the Late Neolithic. These results allow us to observe technological changes among the Early and Late Neolithic macro-lithic societies and economic differences between settlements and regions during the Late Neolithic.