Absence of Power

in: Mario Gavranović, Daniela Heilmann, Marek Verčík and Pero Ardjanliev (Eds.) The Mechanism of Power (PeBA 2), 2024

The Bronze and Iron Ages in the Middle and Lower Vardar Rivers are mainly tangible through burial rites, whereby graves represent a valuable source for research into social inequality and power structures in prehistory. In Macedonia, the exceptionally richly furnished women's graves reveal a strong unequal distribution of grave goods in the cemeteries. These individuals are usually considered to have held a special status within the burial community. However, due to the highly standardised rite and the uniform grave construction, it is assumed that the communities in question were not strongly socially differentiated. The recently published cemetery of Dimov Grob (North Macedonia) opens up the possibility of evaluating inequalities within a burial community in more detail. The analysis of the burial rituals and the quantitative and qualitative distribution of objects show that the social and economic differentiation within the burial community did not only refer to single-female-individuals but also to men and children and thus affected the entire community. Cemeteries from the Valandovo and Gevgelija Plain were used to analyse the Iron Age, and the fully published cemetery of Dedeli-Meleznik is suitable for further analysis. By applying the Gini coefficient, an attempt was made to make (social) inequality measurable for the selected cemeteries. With regard to both personal furnishings such as jewellery and vessel burials, there is generally a high degree of inequality in the distribution of grave goods within the Metal Age burial communities. Differentiated according to the age and gender of the individuals, a nuanced picture emerges in which, for example, a particularly high degree of inequality prevails in the grave furnishings of elderly women or children. In contrast, other age and gender groups show less marked differences. These results lead to further questions about the inheritability of status and mechanisms of the distribution of (power) positions within Metal Age societies.

The discovery of the extraordinary finds at the Glasinac plateau and in Trebenishte at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century marks the beginning of the scientific research on the topic of elites and power in the Southeastern Europe. The so-called princely graves of the Balkans have been repeatedly associated to similar phenomenon in the Central Europe and different approaches were used to explain the establishment of these ostentatious burials in the past. Nevertheless, outstanding graves represent only a fraction of the accumulation of wealth. This led to interpretations that focus more on the individual than on the origins of wealth and power

Perspectives on Balkan Archaeology 2, 2024

It is with great pleasure that we present this second volume in the PeBA-Perspectives on Balkan Archaeology series, based on the very successful conference held in Ohrid on 25-28 May 2022. As this is the third meeting of its kind, after Sarajevo in 2016 and Belgrade in 2017, the concept has been stabilised and developed further, while retaining the main ideals of the first meeting: to create and maintain a network of scholarly exchange among archaeologists across modern state and ideological boundaries. The continuing interest in and impact of Balkan archaeology is also reflected in these dynamic conference meetings, where substantial questions about past societies in southeastern Europe are discussed at a high scientific level. The participation of 39 scholars from ten countries at the PeBA meeting in Ohrid 2022 underlines the need for supra-regional networking. After Belgrade, it was decided to meet regularly every two or three years to allow sufficient time to prepare the publication. As it happened, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed everything down, but it also gave us time to strengthen this publication concept, which is anchored in the three institutions involved: the Austrian Archaeological Institute (OeAI) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) in Vienna, the Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich and the Charles University (CU) in Prague. As the editors of the series, we are very proud of the streamlined preparation of the proceedings and are grateful to the volume editors for organising and editing the contributions, to the authors of the individual papers for meeting the deadlines and other requirements, to the external anonymous reviewers for providing welcome feedback, and to Judd Burden for the language editing of the volume. We would like to thank the editorial team, Ulrike Schuh, Angela Schwab, and Jörg Weilhartner, for their professional processing of the book. They have all contributed to the high quality of the volume you are holding in your hands. We would like to thank Bert Wiegel once again for agreeing to include our series in the publication plan of the Verlag Marie Leidorf. Financial support was provided by the institutions of the three series editors.

Spheres of Interaction Contacts and Relationships between the Balkans and Adjacent Regions in the Late Bronze / Iron Age (13th–5th Centuries BCE) Proceedings of the Conference held at the Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade 15–17 September, 2017, 2020

The Late Bronze Age and the so-called Transitional period in Macedonia are characterised by turbulent turmoil, which was one of the main causes leading to the establishment of settlements at new locations in Macedonian regions. All the elements of material culture typical of these two periods are directly connected with this formation, with varied motivations for their creation, the length of existence, and the mode of their development. The presence of this turbulent time can be confirmed by one horizon in all excavated settlements. In the Early Iron Age, people lived in small family or clan communities with diverse habitats, and they moved often. This way of life contributed to forming of settlements with light above-ground architecture or semi-dug out dwellings, such as in the 5th and 6th BCE settlement at Kastanas or of the 14th layer of the third settlement at Vardarski Rid. In all these settlements larger family complexes formed at the end of the 10th century BCE. They had steadier architecture with walls made of stone socle and mudbrick superstructure, including the settlement at Gradishte Pelince or the 13th layer of the settlement at Vardarski Rid, and the 7th settlement at Kastanas, layers 8–5. The economic and social life in these communities in the Early Iron Age was characterised by the appearance and widespread use of a new metal – iron. These new aspects of life during the Developed Iron Age created ideal conditions for very strong and powerful communities, historically well attested. In Macedonia, a new type of settlement emerged as a result of the developed economic power of these communities and the rise of metallurgy, especially marked through the use of iron during the Iron Age. These settlements also offered increased opportunities for the development of crafts, trade and cultural and spiritual beliefs as well. All phenomena from the beginning of the Early Iron Age and during the developed Iron Age thus created excellent conditions for strong communities and the first proto-urban centres. These centres presents a new page of prehistory, enabling further developments that followed in the historical periods.

The Flow, 2025

A new picture of the Late Bronze Age of the Ulanci group has been obtained through the excavations of the cemeteries Dimov Grob v. Ulanci-Gradsko, Vodovratski Pat v. Vodovrati- Gradsko, Mali Dol v. Tremnik-Negotino and Manastir – Chashka-Veles. These excavations provided a wealth of archaeological material, which in turn allowed for initial more detailed studies of the development, distribution and function of individual groups of archaeological objects. Here we will focus on the large number of newly discovered pins, which represent an important corpus of finds, and which were mostly discovered at the Dimov Grob cemetery in closed archaeological complexes-graves. So far, over forty pins have been discovered, the main feature of most of them is that they are part of a large group of pins with a perforated neck. All discovered pins are dated to the Late Bronze Age, and as forms are widely distributed in Central Europe. But there are variants of pins which, despite being typically Central European, no longer have their classical characteristics and form their own local features. It is also important to emphasize that the pins of the Ulanci group represent a border zone, since they correspond to the southernmost borderline of the distribution of the corresponding pin types of northern origin, and temporally correspond to the last phase of their use further north.

Conference: The Things of Life: Resources and Religion in the Metal Ages in Southeastern Europe, 2024

How can we reach an understanding of prehistory? In this discipline, archaeologists reach for the "things" themselves: In other words, material culture refers to the physical objects and artefacts that were created, used, and left behind by prehistoric peoples. The things we find could not exist without access to resources and raw materials which our ancestors exploited for survival. Examining the procurement, distribution, and processing of resources like food, water, and raw materials helps us trace the diverse social and economic changes during the Metal Ages in southeastern Europe – the Chalcolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages. It is precisely these “things of life” which give us insights into prehistory that would otherwise remain completely hidden from us due to the lack of written sources. Through them, topics such as lifestyles, social structures, religious beliefs, and workmanship of these societies become tangible to us. Especially in this context, southeastern Europe proves to be archaeologically valuable, as the region is particularly prominent for its key role in metalworking in Europe. This geographical “bridge region” between the Near East, the Mediterranean, and Central Europe is unique and has always attracted considerable interest as a “crossroads of (pre-)history”. In this light, it might seem surprising that the Balkans remain critically understudied in prehistorical archaeology. The research network “Perspectives on Balkan Archaeology” (PeBA) aims to reduce this gap. It promotes prehistoric sciences in this region by connecting early-career scholars and senior researchers from a multitude of countries and academic institutions through seminars, common publications, and conferences. Part of the series of conferences starting in 2016, the fourth edition was dedicated to the aforementioned “things of life”.

2024

In the early 13th century BCE massive stone terrace walls were constructed on the steep slopes of Bresto turning a previously unoccupied slope into a thriving village. Around 1200 BCE the site burnt down and was immediately rebuilt and fortified with a 1,80-2,00 m wide fortification wall with stone foundations. In the early 11th century BCE Bresto burnt down again and was abandoned. Its remote location between the mountains of Rila, Pirin and Rhodopes in Southwest Bulgaria contrasts with Bresto’s impressive architecture and with the transregional connectedness of the inhabitants evident from the material culture at the site. Here, we offer a synthesis of the architectural evidence from 13th-11th century BCE in Bresto while reflecting on the social structures and their ongoing transformations which might have contributed to Bresto’s emergence, further architectural design and use life. We discuss architecture regarding its power to unite and separate a community by contextualising the evidence from Bresto in the broader region and presenting our thoughts about the interplay of society and architectural development.

The Middle Bronze Age (MBA) in eastern Croatia remains an insufficiently understood period. One of the most critical sites for defining the MBA in this part of Croatia is the village of Lovas, where, in 1939, a valuable hoard was ploughed out. The Lovas Hoard contained gold and bronze finds and a small ceramic vessel of the kantharos type. However, despite the discovery, the area of Lovas remained largely unexplored until recently. In 2017, the Archaeological Museum in Zagreb relaunched a research project and conducted field surveys, trial excavations, and geophysical prospecting. Moreover, the project also focused on a detailed re-examination of the Lovas Hoard. This paper revisits the Lovas Hoard in light of the recent research conducted in Lovas Municipality and questions its identification as a hoard. Due to various contextual evidence emerging from a re-examination of the hoard and the new fieldwork, the paper argues that it could have been the rich grave of a single individual. The paper considers the Lovas Hoard in the context of the habitation patterns documented around Lovas and its role in negotiating social hierarchies and constructing the local elite identities through the conspicuous consumption of valuable goods. The paper highlights the importance of bottom-up analyses of mechanisms of power for grasping larger cultural phenomena.

Perspectives on Balkan Archaeology Volume 1, Spheres of Interaction Contacts and Relationships between the Balkans and Adjacent Regions in the Late Bronze / Iron Age (13th–5th Centuries BCE) (eds. Mario Gavranović, Daniela Heilmann, Aleksandar Kapuran and Marek Verčík) , 2020

M. Gavranovic et al. (eds.), The Mechanism of Power, Bronze and Iron Ages in Southeastern Europe, Perspectives on Balkan Archaeology 2, 2024

This article deals with Iron Age warrior burials between the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. The starting point is the tumulus necropolis of Vergina in central Macedonia, where from the 11 th /10 th to the 8 th /7 th century BCE, the majority of the males were buried with weapons. A large number of graves was furnished with either a sword or a spear/lance. The different weapons deposited in the tombs probably do not reflect the real weaponry used in combat. Rather, they seem to have been determined by social conventions. Individual warriors of different periods stand out from the mass of warriors with their specific weapon combination of sword and spear. Within the population of Vergina and other communities of the Balkans and in the Eastern Mediterranean, a prominent position of power and leadership can be attributed to them over several centuries. Specifically, the sword forms and structurally comparable grave furnishings, and burial rites indicate various supra-regional networks of Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean warrior elites from the beginning of the Early Iron Age until the Late Geometric and Orientalizing period. These outstanding leaders of different Balkan and Eastern Mediterranean communities apparently communicated and acted across local borders on a comparable social and economic level. Der Beitrag befasst sich mit eisenzeitlichen Kriegerbestattungen zwischen dem Balkan und dem östlichen Mittelmeerraum. Ausgangspunkt ist die Hügelnekropole von Vergina in Zentralmakedonien, wo vom 11./10. bis zum 8./7. Jahrhundert v. Chr. die Mehrzahl der Männer mit Waffen bestattet wurde. Eine große Anzahl von Gräbern war entweder mit einem Schwert oder mit einer Lanze ausgestattet. Die unterschiedlichen Waffenbeigaben in den Gräbern spiegeln wohl nicht die reale Bewaffnung im Kampf wider. Sie scheinen vielmehr durch soziale Konventionen bestimmt gewesen zu sein. Einzelne Krieger verschiedener Zeitabschnitte setzen sich in ihrer spezifischen Waffenkombination mit Schwert und Lanze von der Masse der Waffenträger ab. Ihnen kann im Rahmen der Bevölkerung von Vergina wie auch innerhalb weiterer Gemeinschaften anderer balkanischer und ostmediterraner Regionen über mehrere Jahrhunderte hinweg eine herausgehobene Macht-sowie Führungsposition zugeschrieben werden. Speziell die Schwertformen wie auch strukturell vergleichbare Grabausstattungen und die Bestattungssitten weisen vom Beginn der Früheisenzeit bis in die spätgeometrische und orientalisierende Periode auf verschiedene überregionale Netzwerke balkanischer und ostmediterraner Kriegereliten hin. Diese herausragenden Oberhäupter verschiedener balkanischer sowie ostmediterraner Gemeinschaften kommunizierten und agierten offenbar über lokale Grenzen hinweg auf einer vergleichbaren sozialen sowie ökonomischen Ebene. Questo contributo tratta delle sepolture di guerrieri dell'Età del Ferro tra i Balcani e il Mediterraneo orientale. Il punto di partenza è la necropoli a tumuli di Vergina, nella Macedonia centrale, dove dall XI/X all VIII/VII secolo a.C. la maggior parte degli uomini fu sepolta con armi. Un gran numero di tombe era dotato di una spada o di una lancia. I diversi corredi di armi presenti nelle tombe probabilmente non riflettono il reale armamento in battaglia. Piuttosto, sembrano essere stati determinati dalle convenzioni sociali. Singoli guerrieri di epoche diverse si distinguono dalla massa dei guerrieri per la loro specifica combinazione di spada e lancia. All'interno della popolazione di Vergina, così come all'interno di altre comunità di altre regioni balcaniche e del Mediterraneo orientale, è possibile attribuire loro una posizione di potere e di leadership di primo piano per diversi secoli. Soprattutto le forme delle spade, così come i corredi funerari e i riti di sepoltura strutturalmente comparabili, indicano varie reti sovraregionali di élite guerriere balcaniche e del Mediterraneo orientale dall'inizio della prima età del ferro fino al periodo tardo-geometrico e orientalizzante. Questi capi di spicco di varie comunità balcaniche e mediterranee orientali sembravano comunicare e agire oltre i confini locali a un livello sociale ed economico comparabile.