Vučedol culture
Geographical range | North-west Balkans, Pannonian Plain |
---|---|
Period | Chalcolithic, Bronze Age |
Dates | c. 3000 BCE – 2200 BCE |
Major sites | Vučedol, near Vukovar, Croatia |
Preceded by | Baden culture, Hvar culture, Coțofeni culture, Yamnaya culture |
Followed by | Nagyrév culture, Cetina culture, Bell Beaker culture, Somogyvár-Vinkovci culture, Vatin culture |
The Vučedol culture (
Location
Following the Baden culture, another wave of possible Indo-European speakers came to the banks of the Danube. One of the major places they occupied is present-day Vučedol, located six kilometers downstream from the town of Vukovar, Croatia. It is estimated that the site had once been home to about 3,000 inhabitants, making it one of the largest and most important European centers of its time. According to Bogdan Brukner, proto-Illyrians descended from this wave of Indo-European settlers.[4][ISBN missing]
The early stages of the culture occupied locations not far from mountain ranges, where copper deposits were located, because of their main invention: making tools from arsenical copper in series reusing double, two-part moulds.
The Vučedol culture at its peak completely or partially covered 14 of today’s European countries – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania and one settlement has even been registered in Eastern Greece.
Cultural phases
The Vučedol culture developed from two older eneolithic cultures: the
, so the primary region of Vučedol development is eastern Croatia and the Syrmia region.The archaeological stratigraphy of the Vučedol culture can be divided into four phases:
- Preclassic period A
- Early classic period B1
- Classic period B2
- Period of expansion with regional types, C:
- East Croatian (Slavonian-Syrmian type)
- West Bosnian (Hrustovac type)
- South Bosnian (Debelo Brdo type)
- North Serbian (Đurđevačka Glavica type)
- Slovenian - West Croatian (Ljubljana Marsh type)
- Transdanubian (Pannonian Hungarian type)
- East Austrian-Czech type
The Vučedol culture is the final eneolithic culture of the region, displaying characteristically common use of the
The rise of a dominant hunter-warrior class is a preview of the changes that will be characteristic for the east and middle European early Bronze Age.
Social organization
Compared to earlier and contemporary cultures the Vučedol culture exploited a diversity in food sources: the Vučedol people were hunters, fishermen and agrarians, with some strong indications that they cultivated certain domesticated animals. Thus the culture was more resilient to times of want.
The community chief was the
It was a society of deep social changes and stratification that led to the birth of tribal and military aristocracy. Also, Vučedol people had enough time to express their spiritual view of the world.
Ceramics
In modern times, Vučedol ceramics have become famous worldwide. A very characteristic bi-conical shape and typical ornaments evolved, in many cases with typical "handles" which were almost non-functional, but were key to understanding ornaments that had symbolic meanings, representing ideas such as "horizon", "mountains", "sky", "underworld", "sun", "constellation of Orion", "Venus", et cetera.[9]
The Vučedol dove
One of the most famous pieces of Vučedol is the ritual vessel made between 2800 and 2500 BCE, called by the speculative attribution of M. Seper, who found it in 1938, the "Vučedol Dove" (vučedolska golubica). The latest interpretation, however, is that the vessel is in the shape of the male partridge, a symbol of fertility, whose limping defensive behavior against attack by predators on a partridge nest on the ground linked it to the limping shaman-smith, according to the recent interpretation by Aleksandar Durman of Zagreb.[8] The figure is a remarkable example of artistic creation and religious symbolism associated with a cult of the Great Mother.[10] The "Vučedol Dove" is a 19,5 cm high ritual vessel made from baked clay. Three symbols of
The ritual vessel was depicted on the reverse of the Croatian 20 kuna banknote, issued in 1993 and 2001.[12]
Astral calendar
Among the most famous pieces is a piece of ceramics dated to 2600 BC with an astral calendar, the first one found in Europe that shows the year starting at the dusk of the first day of spring.[15]
It is based on an Orion cycle, shown by precise sequence of constellations on a vessel found in an Eneolithic mound in the very center of the modern town of Vinkovci. The climatic conditions in that latitude bring about four yearly seasons.[Note 1] The simple explanation of the Vučedol Calendar is that each of the four lateral bands on the vessel represent the four seasons, starting with spring on the top. Each band is divided into twelve boxes, making up 12 "weeks" for each season. Each of the little boxes contains an ideogram of celestial objects that lie at a certain point on the horizon right after twilight. The place of reference on the horizon is the point at which (in those days) the Orion's Belt disappeared from view at the end of winter, which meant the beginning of a new year. The pictographs in the boxes represent: Orion, the Sun, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, Gemini, Pegasus, and the Pleiades. If the box is empty, it means there was nothing visible at the reference point during the corresponding time.[Note 2][citation needed]
Lifestyle and religion
People of the Vučedol culture lived in thatched wattle-and-daub houses.[16][17][18][19] Vučedol people lived on hilltop sites surrounded with palisades. Houses were half buried, mostly square or circular in plan with floors of burned clay; the shapes were also combined in mushroom shapes; there were circular fireplaces.
The houses at the Vučedol site were also places of birth and burial. A number of
Trade with other cultures
Some researchers of the Vučedol culture[who?] have claimed that there was regular trade between the territory of the Vučedol culture and the Helladic culture to the south.
Cultural elements found of the B2 phase of the Vučedol culture appear to have originated in the first phase of the middle Bronze Age of the
Origin
The excavated settlement of Vučedol provides a base for the stratigraphic structure of the whole culture.
No final conclusions about the linguistic character of Vučedol can be made, such as the inference that its people were linguistically Indo-European, or to what extent they mixed with native European populations, in regions of the eastern
Gallery
Archaeogenetics
A February 2018 study published in
See also
Notes
- Blytt-Sernanderpost-glacial climate phase in question is the Subboreal.
- ^ About the archaeoastronomy in the wider area read also Kokino and Miholjanec.
References
- ^ Dating as in Ian Shaw, ed., A Dictionary of Archaeology, 2002, and elsewhere; dating methods are discussed in Aleksandar Durman and Bogomil Obelić,Radiocarbon dating of the Vučedol culture complex, 1989.
- ^ S2CID 251843620.
- ^ Celestial symbolism in the Vucedol culture - Aleksandar Durman Department of Archaeology, University of Zagreb, Croatia
- ^ Bogdan Brukner, "Balkan i srednja Evropa u praistoriji - sličnosti i razlike u razvoju", Novi Sad, 1992, page 26.
- ^ "Mala Gruda". Muzeji Kotor.
- ^ A clay model of a deer with a vase on its head, a clay altar and a carefully preserved full skeleton of a deer, suggest the ritual importance of the deer (Zvane Črnja, Cultural History of Croatia, 1962:28).
- ^ "Digital reconstruction of the Vučedol settlement (Vučedol Culture Museum - video)". YouTube.
- ^ ISBN 9789537115043.
- doi:10.4312/dp.28.12.
- ^ "The Vučedol Culture | CROSCI – Croatian Science Portal". crosci.com. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
- ^ "Vučedol culture of Eastern Croatia". Slavorum. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
- ^ Croatian National Bank. Features of Kuna Banknotes Archived 6 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine: 20 kuna Archived 4 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine (1993 issue) & 20 kuna Archived 4 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine (2001 issue). – Retrieved on 30 March 2009.
- doi:10.4312/dp.28.12.
- doi:10.4312/dp.28.12.
- Ministry of Culture (Croatia). Retrieved 23 November 2021.
- ^ The Vucedol Culture, 16 Jan 2010
- ISBN 9780415526883.
- JSTOR 530333.
- ^ The House, Vucedol Culture Museum Archived 19 April 2022 at the Wayback Machine, 12 Feb 2018
- ^ For a full discussion see Marina Milicevic-Bradac, "Treatment of the Dead on the Eneolithic Site of Vucedol, Croatia", The Archaeology of Cult and Religion (Archaeolingua) 2001.
- ^ "Lifestyle of Vucedol People". www.oocities.org. Retrieved 1 July 2015.
- ^ Mathieson 2018.
- S2CID 245509501.
see Excel file Supplementary Table 5: Individuals from Britain, Ireland, and Central Europe included in the time transect analyses (n=2484)
Sources
- Mathieson, Iain (21 February 2018). "The Genomic History of Southeastern Europe". PMID 29466330.
- Durman, Aleksandar; Obelić, Bogomil (1989). "Radiocarbon dating of the Vucedol culture complex". Radiocarbon. 3 (3): 1003. S2CID 131669078.