Selevac: A Neolithic Village in Yugoslavia.

Selevac: A Neolithic Village in Yugoslavia. Selevac is a very large Vinca Vin��can.A genus of evergreens usually found in the Eastern hemisphere.Vincaplant genus of Apocynaceae family; contains cardiac glycoside; causes diarrhea; includes V. major (blue periwinkle), V. site straddling a shallow valley in thehills of the Sumadija, on the western border of the upper Morava beforeit joins the Danube. The occupation dates to the central portion of thedevelopment of the Vinca culture, with eight radio-carbon dates whichspan 4390-3650 b.c.It is becoming exceptional to be able to afford extensive publicationof results in book form. We must be grateful for this site monograph,which stands among southeast European publications as one of a handfulof substantial and useful descriptive accounts of data recovered duringregional study and excavation. It represents a lot of hard work and willbe a useful point of reference for a long time. The volume gives us apicture of the Neolithic settlement of the Vinca culture at Selevac,with its flora and fauna (large bovids and small sheep), pottery andartefacts.Major chapters are contributed by specialist investigators, notablyChapman on the regional settlement patterns; the Field Report andnon-ceramic uses of Clay by Tringham & Stevanovic; Animals and theEnvironment by Legge; Archaeobotany by McLaren & Hubbard; Fish byBrinkhuizen; Figurines by Milojkovic; Pottery by Vukanovic, Radojcic,Kaiser & Rasson; stone by Voytek and Spears; Bone and Antler byRussell; and the Copper minerals by Glumac & Tringham. TheConclusions are drawn up by Tringham & Krstic.A question which bears on the interpretation of the site, and ofregional settlement during the period, is whether such a large site wascompletely occupied at any given time. Tringham in fact arguesinterestingly enough that vertical stratification at the site documentsdiscontinuous discontinuous/dis��con��tin��u��ous/ (dis?kon-tin��u-us)1. interrupted; intermittent; marked by breaks.2. discrete; separate.3. lacking logical order or coherence. occupation and that the later horizontal displacement isevidence of a greater degree of permanence. The evidence from recentethnoarchaeological fieldwork in southeast Europe for the complexity ofinteraction between occupational sub- groups is as striking as theinherent difficulty of reconstructing coeval co��e��val?adj.Originating or existing during the same period; lasting through the same era.n.One of the same era or period; a contemporary. prehistoric systems, whichaffects many of the conclusions in this volume.The overall interpretation lays a good deal of emphasis on trying todemonstrate 'intensification of production' (as defined on p.589) at the site and in the culture. This was set as one of theperfectly cogent objectives of the research from the outset.The framing of such an explanation goes well back into the good olddays when western intellectuals thought that Marxism offered them afuture which worked. Intensification of production entails increasedcomplexity of organization and distribution, and transformations ofbehaviour. The point must now be to try to penetrate the terminology, tosee if there is any valuable insight to be had into what can in any casebe recognized as complexification and change (sometimes away fromcomplexification) during this period of European prehistory prehistory,period of human evolution before writing was invented and records kept. The term was coined by Daniel Wilson in 1851. It is followed by protohistory, the period for which we have some records but must still rely largely on archaeological evidence to . We alreadyknow that these sorts of processes were taking place in Neolithic Climaxsocieties, some of which such as Cucuteni are not considered in thebook. The Vinca culture never achieved the degree of intensification ofproduction which can be seen in the Neolithic Climax societies ofGumelnit a, or Cucuteni and Tripolje; so that it is perhaps nugatory Having little meaning. A nugatory statement or command is one that provides little value and might just as well be omitted. See deprecate. toask whether the processes involved started any earlier in Vinca,although copper-mining certainly did.The acquaintanceship with terminology, like that with facts, has tobe periodically monitored, because once in circulation it readilymutates. The terminology of the First Temperate Neolithic as used inthis volume does not always fit the concept as it was originallydefined. The FTN FTN Face the Nation (CBS News)FTN Family Television NetworkFTN Fido Technology NetworksFTN FeedThe.Net (website)FTN Franja Transversal del Norte (Guatemala region)certainly was not characterized by the exploitation ofa 'narrow zone of maximum productivity', nor does Sherrattclaim it was. Similarly, the idea of 'climax societies' asused by Sherratt clearly does not correspond to the concept of that nameas defined by Nandris in 1978. Sherratt's concept of the'secondary products revolution' has probably already sufferedthe same general fate, namely careless usage once in circulation, andcoming to mean what its author did not quite intend.The map of southeast Europe showing the area encompassed by theexchange networks of Selevac looks plausible until one examines itsfoundations and the probability that the situation was actually as it isrepresented there. For example, the references to obsidian take noaccount at all of recent work since 1975, and the data are far tooflimsy to bear the weight of the conclusions. The evidence for obsidiansourcing is based on 'clearly's and 'must havebeen's. The locations in map figure 2.13 just do not correspond tothe sites on the ground. Amzabegovo is not in fact on a'plateau' but on a low, pointed spur narrowing the valley ofthe Bregalnica; Vrsnik is misplaced and mis-spelt; and Zelenikovo is onthe flat top of a major terrace within a meander of the Vardar, not on a'hillside'. As a random sample of checked facts these are notencouraging.The terminology of the late Neolithic and Copper Age in thediscussion also seems to adumbrate ad��um��brate?tr.v. ad��um��brat��ed, ad��um��brat��ing, ad��um��brates1. To give a sketchy outline of.2. To prefigure indistinctly; foreshadow.3. To disclose partially or guardedly.4. something unresolved, which is oftenthe unacknowledged function of terminology. When calling up a stronghypothetical process such as intensification of production it shouldsurely not be necessary to be cautious and elaborate about 'themature neolithic (middle-late neolithiclearly eneolithic cultures)including the Vinca culture' and 'the copper age-late copperage (late neolithic-early bronze age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the cultures)'. Such constantlyrecurring phrases as 'co-resident, kin-based domestic groups(households?)' seem a little over-cautious.Terminology unfortunately is explanation. It would have been nice tohave cleared some of these terms from the explanatory undergrowth.Climax Neolithic societies are Copper Age, but one does not need theterm, because they are so much more. They were defined in 1978 in a wayin which 'Copper Age', 'Eneolithic' and 'LateNeolithic' never have been, by reference to a wider framework,which is more biologically aware, more scientific and more recent thanthat employed by Marxist explanation.It is contended that at the stage of development of the Neolithicrepresented by the Vinca of Selevac 'the strategy of foodproduction first became successful and the scale of resourceexploitation began to expand through the intensification ofproduction'. It rather depends what is meant by successful. Let ushope it does not mean progressive. Cultures do not survive into thearchaeological record The archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past. if they are not successful, especially in foodproduction. The First Temperate Neolithic defines a culture which wassuccessful for well over a millennium. Indeed, it is not new to say thatwith the benefit of hindsight we see that one of the main features ofthe Neolithic itself was its success. It represents the evolutionarysuccess of a mode of behaviour adaptable enough to make possiblesuccessive variation and differentiation, which may lend some meaning tothe term progress.Although Selevac is not one of the great Vinc a tells, thestratigraphy stratigraphy,branch of geology specifically concerned with the arrangement of layered rocks (see stratification). Stratigraphy is based on the law of superposition, which states that in a normal sequence of rock layers the youngest is on top and the oldest on the nevertheless attains 3 m of deposit in places. Inevitablythis has to be sampled, and 279 cu. m were excavated during the 1976-78seasons. The unavoidable methodological reality is that if excavated toa depth of 1 m this represents an area about 16 m square, out of a totalof 53 ha. The excavation of large sites is a massive, almost biologicalinvestment, carrying with it the danger of an excess of attributedmeaning. The excavation and publication of Selevac is nevertheless asignificant achievement of sustained co-operation between Yugoslav andforeign scholars, which is to be admired and emulated.JOHN NANDRIS Institute of Archaeology The Institute of Archaeology is an academic department of University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom. The Institute is located in a separate building at the north end of Gordon Square, Bloomsbury. , University College London “UCL” redirects here. For other uses, see UCL (disambiguation).University College London, commonly known as UCL, is the oldest multi-faculty constituent college of the University of London, one of the two original founding colleges, and the first British ReferenceNANDRIS, J. 1978. Some features of Neolithic Climax Societies, StudiaPraehistorica 1: 198-11. Sofia.