Dating the East Adriatic Neolithic

Abstract

New radiocarbon determinations from Mesolithic, Neolithic, and/or Copper Age contexts at ten sites are presented, bringing the number of absolute dates available for the East Adriatic to more than twice that of a decade ago. The dates show that, from 6000 BC onward, pottery styles (Impressed Ware, Danilo variants, Hvar, Nakovana, and Cetina) emerged, spread, and disappeared at different times, places, and rates within the region. The implications for models of the spread of farming and other features of Neolithic life are discussed. The continued usefulness of the threefold division of the regional Neolithic into ‘Early’, ‘Middle’, and ‘Late’ phases is found to be dubious.

AMS 14C Chronology and Ceramic Sequences of Early Farmers in the Eastern Adriatic

“…This is echoed by recent research on sequences largely from caves and rockshelters elsewhere in the eastern Adriatic (Forenbaher et al 2013), where the utility of traditional divisions of the Neolithic into Early, Middle, and Late phases has been questioned. …”

“…The corpus of 14 C-dated archaeological deposits in the region has grown during the past 10 yr and this study summarizes the available AMS 14 C dates for Neolithic sites in central Dalmatia (Table 1; AMS 14 C Chronology of Early Farmers in Eastern Adriatic Figure 3; see also Miracle and Forenbaher 2006;Moore et al 2007a,b;Forenbaher and Kaiser 2008;Marijanović 2009;Podrug 2010;Forenbaher et al 2013). Our research has focused on sites around the Krka River valley and in particular on the sites of Danilo Bitinj and Pokrovnik (excavated during the "Early Farming in Dalmatia Project"; NSF #0422195, 2004Moore et al 2007a,b), Čista Mala-Velištak (2007-present;Podrug 2010), and most recently the sites of Rašinovac and Krivače (project "Neolithic Landscapes of Central Dalmatia"; NGS#9146-12; directed by McClure and Podrug).…”

Modelling the earliest north-western dispersal of Mediterranean Impressed Wares: new dates and Bayesian chronological model

“…As a comparison, Dalmatia also provided nine ICC sites with reliable SLS-dates (Forenbaher et al 2013;McClure et al 2014;Produg et al 2014).…”

Croatia: Submerged Prehistoric Sites in a Karstic Landscape

“…The transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic at c. 8 ka cal BP involved mainly immigrants from further east bringing new crops and domestic animals. The extent to which the pre-existing huntergatherer population was involved in these new developments remains unclear since there is a chronological gap of at least several hundred years between the Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic (Forenbaher and Kaiser 2005;Forenbaher and Miracle 2006;Forenbaher et al 2013;Moore 2014). What is clear from the distribution of Early Neolithic impresso ware is that the pattern of dispersal followed the coastline and that the immigrants and their crops and animals must have travelled by sea, involving significant seafaring abilities including crossings of the Adriatic between Italy and Croatia.…”