Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T07:08:13.157Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Lepenski Vir conundrum: reinterpretation of the Mesolithic and Neolithic sequences in the Danube Gorges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Dušan Borić
Dušan Borić*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, England, db231@hermes.cam.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper employs new evidence—including new AMS dates—to support a reinterpretation of the stratigraphic and architectural phasing of Lepenski Vir, and links this new evidence with the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the region by critiquing dominant models.

Keywords

Lepenski VirDanube GorgesMesolithicNeolithicAMS dates
Type
Papers
Information
Antiquity , Volume 76 , Issue 294 , December 2002 , pp. 1026 - 1039
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atlas, 1972. The Iron Gates Complex Atlas. Bucuresti.Google Scholar
Bonsall, C., Lennon, R., McSweeney, K., Stewart, C., Harkness, D., Boroneanţ, V., Bartosiewicz, L., Payton, R. & Chapman, J. 1997. Mesolithic and early Neolithic in the Iron Gates: a palaeodietary perspective, Journal of European Archaeology 5(1): 50–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonsall, C., Cook, G., Lennon, R., Harkness, D., Scott, M., Bartosiewicz, L. & McSweeney, K. 2000. Stable isotopes, radiocarbon and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Iron Gates, Documenta Praehistorica 27: 119–32.Google Scholar
Bonsall, C. et al. In press. The Iron Gates prehistory: new perspectives. Oxford: BAR.Google Scholar
Borić, D. 1999. Places that created time in the Danube Gorges and beyond, c. 9000–5500 BC, Documenta Praehistorica 26: 41–70.Google Scholar
Borić, D. In press. ‘Deeptime’ metaphor: mnemonic and apotropaic practices at Lepenski Vir, Journal of Social Archaeology 5(3).Google Scholar
Budja, M. 1999. The transition to farming in Mediterranean Europe — an indigenous response, Documenta Praehistorica 26: 119–41.Google Scholar
Chapman, J.C. 1992. Social power in the Iron Gates Mesolithic, in Chapman, J. & Dolukhanov, P. (ed.), Cultural transformations and interactions in Eastern Europe: 71–121. Aldershot: Avebury.Google Scholar
Chapman, J.C. 2000. Fragmentation in archaeology. People, places and broken objects in the prehistory of southeastern Europe. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cook, G., Bonsall, C., Hedges, R.E.M., McSweeney, K., Boroneanţ, L. BARTOSIEWICZ & Pettitt, P.B. 2002. Problems of dating human bones from the Iron Gates, Antiquity 76: 77–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dimitrijević, V. In press. Lepenski Vir animal bones: what was left in the houses?, in Bonsall, et al. (in press).Google Scholar
Dimitrijević, V. & Borić, D. Formcorning. Animal bones from Padina.Google Scholar
Garašanin, M. & Radovanović, I. 2001. A pot in house 54 at Lepenski Vir I, Antiquity 75: 118–25.Google Scholar
Gimbutas, M. 1976. Chronology, in Gimbutas, M. (ed.), Neolithic Macedonia: as reflected by excavation at Anza, southeast Yugoslavia: 29–77. Los Angeles (CA): Institute of Archaeology, University of California at Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Gregg, S. 1988. Foragers and farmers. Chicago (IL): University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jovanović, B. 1969. Chronological frames of the Iron Gate Group of the Early Neolithic Period, Archaeologica lugoslavica 10: 23–38.Google Scholar
Jovanović, B. 1987. Die Architektur und Keramik der Siedlung Padina B am Eisernen Tor, Jugoslawien, Germania 65(1): 1–16.Google Scholar
Marković-Marjanović, J. 1978. Geologija i stratigrafija, in Garasanin, M. (ed.), Vlasac — mezolitsko naselje u Djerdapu 2: 11–27. Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti.Google Scholar
Meskell, L. 2001. Archaeologies of identity, in Hodder, I. (ed.), Archaeological theory today: 185–213. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Menk, R. & Nemeskéri, J. 1989. The transition from Mesolithic to Early Neolithic in southeastern and eastern Europe: an anthropological outline, in Hershkovitz, I. (ed.), People and culture in change: Proceedings of the Second Symposium on Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic populations of Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: 531–40. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports. International series S508.Google Scholar
Milisauskas, S. 1978. European prehistory. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Pluciennik, M. 1998. Deconstructing ‘the Neolithic’ in the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition, in Edmonds, M. & Richards, C. (ed.), Understanding the Neolithic of northwestern Europe: 61–83. Glasgow: Cruithne Press.Google Scholar
Pluciennik, M. 1999. Archaeological narratives and other ways of telling, Current Anthropojogy 40(5): 653–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Price, D. (ed.). 2000. Europe’s first farmers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Quitta, H. 1975. Die Radiocarbondaten und ihre historische Interpretation, in Srejović, D., Lepenski Vir. Eine vorgeschichtliche Geburtsstätte europäischer Kultur: 272–85. Bergisch Gladbach: Gustav Lübbe Verlag.Google Scholar
Radovanović, I. 1996a. The Iron Gates Mesolithic. Ann Arbor (MI): International Monographs in Prehistory. Archaeological Series 11.Google Scholar
Radovanović, I. 1996b. Mesolithic/Neolithic contacts: a case of the Iron Gates region, Poročilo o raziskovanju paleolitika, neolitika in eneolitika v Sloveniji 23: 39–48.Google Scholar
Radovanović, I. 2000a. The Lepenski Vir culture and its cultural identity, paper presented at the conference The Iron Gates Prehistory: new perspectives, 31 March-2 April 2000, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Radovanović, I. 2000b. Houses and burials at Lepenski Vir, European Journal of Archaeology 3(3): 330–49.Google Scholar
Radovanović, I. & Voytek, B. 1997. Hunters, fishers or farmers: sedentism, subsistence and social complexity in the Djerdap Mesolithic, Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia 29: 19–31.Google Scholar
Roksandić, M. 2000. Between foragers and farmers in the Iron Gates Gorge: physical anthropology perspective. Djerdap population in transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic, Documenta Praehistorica 27: 1–100.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1966. Lepenski Vir, Boljetin. Neolitsko naselje, Arheoloski pregled 8: 94–6.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1967a. Lepenski Vir, Boljetin — praistorijsko naselje, Arheoloski pregled 9: 73–4.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1967b. Lepenski Vir. Iskopavanja 1965–1967. godine, Starinar 18: 157–66.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1968. Lepenski Vir (Boljetin) — predneolitska i neolitska naselja i nekropole, Arheoloski pregled 10: 85–7.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1969. Lepenski Vir—Nova praistorijskakultura u Podunavlju. Beograd: Srpska knjizevna zadruga.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1971. Die Lepenski Vir-Kultur und der Beginn der Jungsteinzeit and der mittleren Donau, in Schwabedissen, H. (ed.), Die Anfänge des Neolithikums vom Orient bis Nordeuropa, Teil 2: Östliches Mitteleuropa: 1–19. Cologne: Fundamenta. Monographien zur Urgeschichte, Reihe A, Band 3.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1972. Europe’s first monumental sculpture: new discoveries at Lepenski Vir. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. 1981. Lepenski Vir: Menschenbilder einer frühen europäischen Kultur. Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. & Babović, LJ. 1983. Lepenski Vir. Guide. Beograd: Narodni muzej.Google Scholar
Srejović, D. & Letica, Z. 1978. Vlasac. Mezolitsko naselje u Djerdapu (I arheologija). Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti.Google Scholar
Stefanović, S. & Boric, D. In press. The new bom infant burials from Lepenski Vir: in pursuit of contextual meanings, in Bonsall, et al. (in press).Google Scholar
Tringham, R. 2000. Southeastern Europe in the transition to agriculture in Europe: bridge, buffer or mosaic, in Price, (ed.): 19–56.Google Scholar
Voytek, B. & Tringham, R. 1989. Rethinking the Mesolithic: the case of southeast Europe, in Bonsall, C. (ed.), The Mesolithic in Europe: 492–9. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd.Google Scholar
Whittle, A. 1998. Fish, faces and fingers: presences and symbolic identities in the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Carpathian Basin, Documenta praehistorica 25: 133–50.Google Scholar
Whittle, A., Boric, D., Bartosiewicz, L., Pettitt, P. & Richards, M. 2001. In the beginning: new radiocarbon dates for the Early Neolithic in northern Serbia and southeast Hungary, Antaeus 25: 1–51.Google Scholar
Willis, K.J. & Bennett, K.D. 1994. The Neolithic transition — fact or fiction? Palaeoecological evidence from the Balkans, The Holocene 4: 326–30.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M. 1986. Mesolithic prelude and Neolithic revolution, in Zvelebil, M. (ed.), Hunters in transition: 167–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M. 1994 (1995). Neolithization in Eastern Europe: a view from the frontier, Poročilio o raziskovanju paleolitika, neolitika in eneolitika v Sloveniji 22: 107–51.Google Scholar
Zvelebil, M. & Lillie, M. 2000. Transition to agriculture in eastern Europe, in Price, (ed.): 57–92.Google Scholar