Project A01 | University of Tübingen

A 01: Resources and the Emergence of Inequality: Raw Materials and Communication Systems in Prehistoric South-East Europe

Project Management: Prof. Dr. Ernst Pernicka, PD Dr. Raiko Krauß

Scientific employees: Petru Ciocani, Dr. René Kunze

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Summary

A most important route, connecting the Near East and the Aegean with Central Europe, leads through South-Eastern Europe. Additionally far-distance contacts between the cultures of the northern Pontic Steppes and Central Europe existed. Their location in between major geographical and cultural regions may be one of the reasons for processes leading to the emergence of complex societies, showing structured settlements and rich burials already during the Chalcolithic period (5th mill. BC) along the coast of the Black Sea. The aim of the project is to study resource use in this region with a long-term perspective. To achieve this, the socio-cultural dynamics of prehistoric societies of two smaller areas, serving as examples, will be diachronically analysed and compared. Deliberately two areas offering very different raw-materials were chosen. The first case study will deal with the Eastern Balkans area, extremely rich in mineral and organic raw-materials (such as metals, flint stone, salt and sea shells). The second will focus on the steppe-like area of the Banat in the Carpathian Basin, offering very fertile soil, but few raw-materials. Chronologically the study will span the time from the first settlements around 6000 BC up to the first millennium BC. During the initial phase of funding the project will concentrate on the developments of resource use during the older periods until the beginning of Early Bronze Age, during the transition from 4th to 3rd mill. BC.

Scientific Aims

The concept of resources, developed for the Collaborative Research Centre will be applied to the analysis of several closely linked problems. Thus it will be studied and further developed by comparing the evidence available in the areas of the case studies:

The changes of resource use in human societies during long periods of time and the mechanisms responsible for this will be analysed. A focus will be on the well-known phases of major interruptions and innovations, such as the transition from Hunter-Gatherer economy to sedentary lifestyle around 6000 BC and the end of the prosperous Chalcolithic societies in the Balkans and Carpathian basin around 3000 BC.

Further, it will be scrutinised which role RESOURCECOMPLEXES, such as a verifiable far-distance exchange and the related transfer of technological, economic and cultural innovation, or intensified exploitation of raw-materials like copper, gold and salt, played in the emergence of social stratification. It has to be studied, whether the natural conditions mentioned above were used as resources and whether this can be used to explain the fact that only in this region of Europe a complex social stratification is detectable during these early periods.

Another period covered by the diachronic analyses is the end of the 5th mill. BC, when the previously visible social stratification disappears again. Comparing our results with those of the projects dealing with somewhat younger periods in the Near East (A 02 – 05), we expect answers to the question why the cultural development of 5th mill. BC South-Eastern Europe was distinctly not leading towards the emergence of state-like structures. For this purpose we define states as institutions, performing control over a territory and the people living therein by the use of specialised means of power (Maisels 2001, 220 – 231). These means may be of military, administrative, jurisdictional or ideological character (compare Engels 1884; Breuer 1990 and others).

The development in the Banat, poor in mineral raw-materials, in the long run is ostentatiously more characterised by continuity, than the development of regions rich in raw-materials. The question arises whether a limited access to raw-materials affects the dynamics of development of human societies and if so, how this works. This connects the project to another central topic of the Collaborative Research Centre: the ‘resource curse’, an attempt to explain, why regions rich in raw-materials frequently develop in a less positive way, than others having limited access to natural resources.

Long-term Perspectiv

For the first phase of funding the project chronologically limits itself up to the beginning of the 3rd mill. BC. This is justified by a historic break in the development at the end of the Chalcolithic, after which the region assumed the role of a recipient of raw-materials imported from the Aegean. This relationship between the Balkans and its southern neighbours is still well-known in later, historical times, when it characterises the interaction between Greeks and the societies living to the North. During the next phases of funding this later development, from the end of the Chalcolithic cultures until the beginning of Greek colonisation in the Black Sea Area during the 1st. mill. BC, will be studied. As results we expect general insights into the relationship between the use of resources, socio-cultural development and geographic conditions in respect to communication and transport. This includes a better understanding of practices in order to control landscapes, trade routes and exchange networks, as well as their role as resources used for technological, economic and socio-cultural processes of change in prehistoric societies. The phenomena analysed by the case studies of project A 01 have the potential to contribute to the construction of models within the Collaborative Research Centre and to further develop the concept of resources, adding specific historic facets to it. The project is distinguished by its long-term perspective, spanning about 3000 years during the initial phase of funding and even about 7000 years as a whole. The chosen regions can be considered as relevant examples because of their very different natural preconditions. While the Eastern Balkans offer an abundance of raw-materials, in the Banat almost none can be found. Their geographical proximity and the focus on the same periods in time facilitates comparisons, offering the chance that the results may prove relevant for other South-Eastern European regions as well. By contrasting the results of the case studies, different ways and possibilities of development will become visible.

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Film about the last A 01 project

A short film tells about the last A 01 project by Dr. Raiko Krauß and his team. The project "Resources and the Emergence of Inequality" is about rural lifestyle and the question when agriculture and cattle breeding prevailed in Europe.

A 01: Resources and the Emergence of Inequality: Raw Materials and Communication Systems in Prehistoric South-East Europe

Summary

Scientific Aims

Long-term Perspectiv

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