Monuments and Mobility in SE-Europe around 3000 BC

Paper to be presented at the symposium: "Prehistoric Communication: The first wheels, roads, metals, and monumental architecture" of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeology, Seattle, Washington, USA.

Abstract

Megalithic tombs and Southeast European tumuli overlap in time and share the aspect of visibility. Recent excavations of the tumuli reveal hidden social dimensions and unexpected complexity. Most evident are prominent central graves, a succession of grouped individual burials, or a combination of both. The first tumulus burial horizon in SE Europe is linked with a wave of advance in metallurgy. It was not incipient metallurgy but the start of new techniques and broad-scale use. A web of interaction linked the Black Sea area to the Central Balkans, the Aegean and the Adriatic. Fortified settlements and graves built as markers seem to be mutually exclusive in the landscape.

A. Burial mounds at the interface between sea and land routes

This paper focuses on the following two subjects: the earliest burial mounds of southern Europe on one hand, networks of communication by water and over land on the other. Connections between these topics will be discussed in a geographic range that stretches from the Central Mediterranean to the Black Sea. The time-span involved is around 3000 cal. BC; a step in the radiocarbon calibration curve has to be considered for chronological details.

In the debate on prehistoric sea-faring in the Mediterranean, the connections between islands and coast received more attention than the potential interfaces between the sea and the continental river valleys. This may explain why the Adriatic basin was rather neglected. The Adriatic sea is indeed an ancient crossroads that linked waterways and land-routes. The currents of the sea and the prevailing directions of the wind create a system of two circuits organized clockwise. The merchants of Venice used it extensively and occupied a chain of strategic spots along the Dalmatian coast, which abounds in well protected harbors and was famed as a paradise of pirates. One of the Venetian strongholds was the city of Kotor, situated in the background of a deep bay. Throughout the ages the bay of Kotor was a potentially important junction that could support or block connections in three directions: Through the Strait of Otranto to the Ionian Sea and to Greece; across the Adriatic sea to southern Italy; and over land from the coast to the central Balkans. There is evidence for oscillations in importance; as a general rule, derived from the historical periods, summits of importance coincided with the involvement of external groups in a struggle for power. An analogous scheme may have emerged long before written records started; so, I propose to consider this line of explanation in the context of the prehistoric monuments.

In general, two types of monuments are most visible along the Adriatic coast: Fortified settlements situated on promontories on one hand, and burial mounds on the other. In four seasons of investigation in the bay of Kotor, the Prehistory Department of Zürich University surveyed a very fertile valley for settlement sites. At the request of the cultural heritage office in Kotor an endangered burial mound was excavated with a grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation. The project was unfortunately terminated by the outbreak of the civil war in 1991; the results have since been published (cf. the references).Substantial evidence for a network of communication by sea and over land was found. Settlements were located on several elevated spots in the landscape, and from the investigations of local archaeologists it is known that caves along the land routes were extensively frequented.

Behind the promontory, where relatively small stone barrows of the 2nd and 1st Millenium. BC are lined up, a valley with several freshwater courses connects the bay of Kotor with the open Adriatic sea. On the flat valley bottom, two huge mounds are situated at a distance of 270 m well in sight of the waterfront. Their names, Velika Gruda and Mala Gruda, appear already on the maps of the Austrian empire. The following results of investigation are of interest in a discussion of sea and land routes:

1. The mounds are situated at a crossroads between the coast and the Lovcen pass which leads to the upland plateau of Cetinje, the ancient capital of Montenegro. The opportunities for agriculture are especially favorable in the surroundings of the two barrows; it is evident that permanent inhabitants of the region had good reasons to organize the cemeteries in later periods on less fertile land. Both mounds were constructed of alluvial clay, in distinct contrast to the stone barrows of the 2nd and 1st Millennium. BC, which occur in larger groups on the promontories.
2. The larger mound, Velika Gruda, turned out to have been used and reused in different ways and at different times. A comprehensive set of data could be obtained from a carefully documented stratigraphy, soil samples, pottery analysis and radiocarbon dates. The history of the monument started with a stone cist that was sunk in the original ground. A prolonged burial ritual with post-depositional actions above the central grave was observed. These actions took place in a relatively brief interval - as far as the dates and the pottery indicate. Then, a mound of clay was heaped up; its original summit was 4 m above ground. In the 2nd Millennium. BC, a pit was dug down through the center of the mound, but not deep enough to find the central grave. Subsequently, a graveyard for a community of 125 individuals was superposed in a stone mound. Later-on the Venetians and the Austrians used the top of the mound as a watch-tower, which signals its lasting topographic prominence.
3. The central graves of these twin mounds were in both cases stone cists of identical size. Each of them contained the remains of a single male person. This is certain for Velika Gruda, where an anthropologist was member of the staff, while the Mala Gruda mound was investigated earlier by a Yugoslav group without specialists. They could not save the badly preserved bones, and the teeth permitted only an age determination. This individual was rather old, while the man in Velika Gruda died at the age of 25 years approximately.
4. Both graves were furnished in the same way, but with considerable difference in detail which may be a function of age relations. Metal implements were present to an extent unknown in the early mounds of the east European steppe area. The young male in Velika Gruda had a head ornament composed of 8 gold spirals and was further equipped with two copper/bronze knifes, a copper adze and two boar's tusks. The Mala Gruda burial was furnished with 5 gold spirals, a gold dagger and a shaft-hole ax of a silver-copper alloy. In the regional context this was outstanding; however, some of the early tumulus burials of the Caucasus range were much more sumptuous. It may not be fortuitous that both areas were situated at crossroads between different regions and traditions. Metal equipment similar in quality to Velika Gruda was found to the south of the Strait of Otranto, on the island of Levkas. The famous circular graves of the EH II-period at Levkas are coeval to the Velika and Mala Gruda mounds though completely different in size and layout. In the grave of a young, probably female individual, gold spirals identical to the Velika Gruda specimens were found.
5. The metal implements of Mala and Velika Gruda represent the most important technological innovations of the period, which are: (a) casting in bi-valve moulds with an inserted core; (b) the use of alloys, namely a 7% tin bronze, gold with 5% copper, and a silver-copperalloy. Among the limited evidence for tin bronze at this early period, adagger froma grave in northern Italy is the nearest neighbor in the west. On the other hand, faceted axes as found in the Mala Gruda grave are known from Croatia and Romania. Though they were cast of copper instead of the copper-silver alloy detected in the Mala Gruda specimen, they indicate familiarity with the same technological processes .
6. Even the layout of the Velika Gruda grave furniture recalls a foreign tradition. The three bronze and copper implements were arranged on and around a polished stone in a right angle. This type of layout has parallels in eastern Anatolia and the Black Sea area, but not in the Balkans or the Aegean.
7. Last but not least, the land connection between Kotor and the Danube valley is marked by a distinctive type of pottery which is known from settlement sites and burial mounds. This route passed along the Drina river through Bosnia, where important metal ore bodies are located. I is unknown at present whether they were used during prehistory.

B. Visibility and variation of tumulus burials

The visibility of the monuments is a feature that megalithic graves and burial mounds have in common, while the internal structures reveal a high degree of in-group and between-group variability. In the Adriatic zone of the Mediterranean the first burial mounds had an approximately circular outline and an elevation of 4-5 m above the surrounding plain, while the barrows of more recent periods were normally smaller. An important core area of early burial mounds has been localized in the north-pontic steppes between the rivers Volga and Dnestr, far away from the Adriatic basin. Burial ritual in these steppe mounds was equally based on the single-grave principle with inhumations. In general, the first interment was deposited in a pit below ground, ritual action followed, and in the course of this, a mound of clay was built. Secondary and tertiary burials obtained with preference a concentric layout, but there are also superpositions. Thus, if a mound is huge and large, nobody can tell from external inspection whether it might contain a rich burial or a long succession of interments. In both cases, later generations could not overlook the monument in the flat steppe and were frequently motivated to re-use it.

Beyond the steppe area, there are several regional groups of early burial mounds in a different environment. The most important eastern group is situated in the Caucasus range and the western group in the Balkans. In general, the use of red pigment connects the areas; but there are exceptions. Ochre is present from the Caucasus to the central Balkans, while it was not found in the mounds of the Adriatic coast. The same exclusion was effective for the deposition of wheels or even complete carts in or above a grave. It occurred in a vast area between the southern Urals and Bulgaria, where a case of interest is the association of four wheels to a female individual in a barrow of the Platchidol cemetery. The sum of evidence shows that the mound phenomenon was widespread but not uniform.

There is no unanimity about the social context of burial mounds: In a processual approach, these and other monuments were explained as markers of territorial claims. Indeed, at first sight, artificial mounds seem to be conceptualized as signals in the landscape. An alternative approach would be the permanent demarcation of a ritual area. In the Adriatic group, we find evidence for both aspects. The presence of two bi-metallic sets of metal equipment seems to have a symbolic connotation. This is particularly evident for the gold dagger and silver ax in the Mala Gruda grave, which were assigned to an old individual. This association recalls the stone stelae of the 4th and early 3rd Millenium. BC, where symbolic representations of both weapons are frequent. Some of these stone stelae were ultimately buried in grave monuments, an act that might suggest a cyclical world view. In addition, the alloyed gold dagger recalls Near Eastern written sources. In the archives of the city of Elba in northern Syria, gold daggers were explicitly mentioned as items of symbolic value. Some of them left the royal treasury by unknown reasons and passed in a carefully registered chain of exchange from hand to hand; there is no evidence for a relation to high status in the texts. An extension of this Near Eastern scenario to a distant region with different traditions would not seem convincing, unless we could perceive a high degree of mobility. And this is indeed the scenario I propose. There is evidence for a cascade of innovations in the period concerned. When we evaluate the motivation, we should not forget that links between technological innovations and the display of new weapons were more than accidental events in later periods. The emergence of strongholds in various parts of the Mediterranean area is an other indicator of change, and it was correlated in time. One of the finest examples was certainly the citadel of Troy, others were situated on the islands of the Aegean. In conclusion, the evidence supports a dynamic scenario of mobility. The emergence of a new network of interaction is indicated; it might have stimulated voyages of discovery over land and by sea.

References

Primas, M.

1996 Velika Gruda I. Tumulus burials of the early 3rd Mill. BC in the Adriatic: Velika Gruda, Mala Gruda and their context. Universitätsforschungen zur Prähistorischen Archäologie 32 (Bonn: Habelt).

Della Casa, Ph.

1996 Velika Gruda II. The Bronze Age necropolis Velika Gruda (Ops. Kotor, Montenegro). Universitätsforschungen zur Prähistorischen Archäologie 33 (Bonn: Habelt).