Stone raw materials in the Vinca culture: Petrographic analysis of assemblage from Vinca and Belovode

Abstract

This paper shows the results of petrographic analyses of raw materials used for making the ground stone industry implements in two Vinca culture sites Vinca and Belovode. The assemblages from the aforementioned sites feature a number of specific characteristics. In Vinca, in late strata, a kind of devaluation in the selection of stone raw materials is registered, which is closely related to the decline in quality of stone processing and may be a consequence of territorial narrowing of the Vinca culture per se in its later phases, and of introduction of metallurgy in everyday life. For this reason an analogy with the Belovode site was made, which subsists only throughout the early phase of the Vinca culture and is doubtlessly a metallurgic settlement. Petrographic analyses of the raw materials from which ground stone tools used to be made at the Vinca and Belovode sites are only a part of the commenced petro-archaeological research. They imply that further investigations should focuses on field work, principally in the vicinity of the sites themselves. Primarily by petrographic, and, as applicable, by other analyses of samples brought from the field work, and by comparison of the tools, it could be possible to define more precisely the territory from which the raw materials originated.

Origins of Specialization: The CeramicChaîne Opératoireand Technological Take‐Off at Vinča‐Belo Brdo, Serbia

“…Limestone (some fossiliferous), meta‐granites and orthogneiss (all found locally: Antonović et al . ) were also identified. Fabric 6 includes coarse sandstone, volcanic clasts, spinel and serpentinite.…”

“…Ground‐stone raw material suggests that local sources were territorially connected with copper ore deposits (Antonović et al . , 54).…”

The adze-heads from Plemięta, Grudziądz district (Poland): Alpine jades, Armorican products and very long-distance exchanges

“…Axeheads of similar but not identical dolerites exist in Lower Normandy, but the source of their raw material has not yet been identified. ' To summarise, then, we must accept that the group of metagabbros that includes diabases (an ancient term still used in the USA) or dolerites (the current European term) is widely distributed in Europe, being found and often exploited during the Neolithic in Spain (Gallello et al 2016), in the Armorican massif (Le Gall 1999) and the Limousin in France (Santallier et al 1986;Vuaillat et al 1995), in the Channel Islands (Lees et al 1989), in Great Britain (Clough 1988), Norway (Nyland 2015), central Sweden (Olausson 1983), Thuringia (Germany), the central Alps (Bernadini et al 2014), the Bohemian massif (Přichystal 2013), Serbia (Antonovic et al 2005), the Carpathians, etc. However, there does not seem to be an association between adze-heads of Bégude type and this family of rocks, since in the production zone in Piedmont where such adze-heads were made, the diabases-dolerites are only represented by small outcrops that do not seem to have been exploited (cf.…”

Preliminary archaeometric investigation on Middle Neolithic siliceous tools from Limba-Oarda de Jos (Transylvania, Romania)

“…Several petroarchaeological studies of Vincǎ chipped lithic tools and their raw material provenience have been carried out by Bogosavljević (2001;2017), Antonović et al (2005), Biagi et al (2007), Crandell (2008), andRey-Solé et al (2018). They documented the use of a large range of rock types, most of which were identified as quartzite and chert, i.e., "Banat flint" (Biagi et al 2007;Comşa 1971;Crandell 2008) and "Moldavian flint" (Crandell 2012a;2012b).…”

“…They documented the use of a large range of rock types, most of which were identified as quartzite and chert, i.e., "Banat flint" (Biagi et al 2007;Comşa 1971;Crandell 2008) and "Moldavian flint" (Crandell 2012a;2012b). Obsidian, radiolarite (Biagi et al 2007), greenschist, dolerite, and tuff (Antonović et al 2005) were used as well.…”