turekjan@kar.zcu.czJan Turek

Západočeská univerzita v Plzni

APR 3 – Eneolit 12APR 3 – Eneolit 12

Šňůrová keramika & zvoncovité poháry v Čechách a na Moravěhttps://cuni.academia.edu/JanTurek

This lecture is an introduction into the chronology, material

culture and society of the Corded Ware (2900-2500 cal. BC) and Bell Beaker Culture (2500-2300 cal. BC) in Bohemia and Moravia. Using the

most recent archaeological evidence we are going to discuss the

development of Eneolithic society and changes in material culture and

follow particular cultural phenomena.

• Introduction• Settlement areas• Environment

• Funerary areas• Artefacts • Society

Research on Bell Beaker period in Bohemia and Moravia,last 150 years

• Vocel, Jan Erazim 1868: Pravěk země České.• Weinzeirl, Richard Ritter von 1895: Drei ornamentierte

neolitische Urnen, Prähistorisches Blatter 7, 23 – 28, 39 – 45.

• Stocký, Albín 1929: La Bohême préhistorique I. L´age de la pierre.

• Hájek, Ladislav 1966: Die älteste Phase der Glockenbecherkultur in Böhmen und Mähren, Památky archeologické 57, 210 – 241.

• Hájek, Ladislav 1968: Die Glockenbecherkultur in Böhmen. (Catalogue)

• Neustupný, Evžen 1976: Paradigm lost. In: Lanting/van der Waals (ed.), Glockenbecher Symposion Oberried 1974 (1976), 241 – 248.

• Dvořák, Petr 1990 – 1996: Catalogues of Moravian finds.

Types of evidence

Corded Ware Culture

• Missing sunken settlement features

• Inhumation burials• Rare hoards

Bell Beaker Culture

• Limited evidence of sunken settlement features

• Inhumation and complementary cremation burials

• No hoards

Absolute/Relative chronology

• 3300-2900 cal. BC Cham-Řivnáč-Jevišovice

• 2900-2500 cal. BC Corded Ware

• 2500-2300/2200 cal. BC Bell Beakers

• 2300-1900 cal. BC Únětice

Question of continuity

Regional distribution of finds and variability

Settlement areas

Reconstruction of structure and size of settlement units and their distribution in

landscape. • Corded Ware,

currently only up to 10 settlement sites in Bohemia and 2 in Moravia. Example CW settlement pot from Bacín (District Beroun, Central Bohemia).

Settlement areas

Reconstruction of structure and size of settlement units and their distribution in

landscape.

Bell Beaker settlement sites, groving number of new sites.

Moravia The list of settlements

includes 225 sites from 145 parishes. There are listed 68 sites with evidence of sunken features, 18 sites with evidence of occupation layer, 29 sites recorded by field-walking and isolated finds. (Total up to 30% of all BB sites)

 

BohemiaThe number of Beaker settlement sites also increased in the last decades due to recent large-scale excavations and systematic field-walking campaigns. Settlements represent 14% of the total number of Bell Beaker sites in north-west Bohemia and up to 10 % in whole Country.

Bell Beaker Settlement areas• Despite of growing number of settlement sites recorded in both

regions, the overall picture of the late Eneolithic settlement areas and their structure, however, remains „invisible“. We are still unable to reconstruct the common construction of dwellings. The semi-sunken rectangular features that used to be interpreted as huts probably represent a different kind of settlement feature. Recent large-scale excavations produced new evidence of simple post-structures, however non of them could be interpreted as ground plan of houses. Perhaps the systematic study of daub wall-plasters may give an answer to the question of form and construction of dwellings, that may have consisted of shallow anchored posts or surface log constructions.

The average number of sunken features usually excavated within one site is 1 to 3. They are usually small and shallow circular pits with flat bottom or extensive amorphous complex pits (traditionally interpreted as clay-pits). Large-scale excavations, such as Olomouc-Slavonín (up to 14 hectares excavated in 1995-2001) show a pattern of small clusters of sunken features located within 200 meters apart from each other.

Bell Beaker Settlement pottery

• The types of pottery from settlements are roughly matching the composition of pottery assemblages known from cemeteries, including decorated beakers. There are however differences in size and frequency of particular types of vessels appearing in both environs. The large storage jars and amphorae rarely appear in burial contexts (except some cremation burials).

• The settlement finds appears to be of crucial importance for certain chronological considerations. Some finds recovered recently from the settlement at Olomouc-Slavonín in central Moravia may possibly represent the mixed pottery material of the local Corded Ware and Beaker “Begleitkeramik”, which is combination unseen in burial context. There seems to be technological resemblance of both of these types of pottery including the late Corded Ware burial assemblages from the same site. If this assumption is right then we will have to reconsider the earlier chronological frameworks.

Bell Case study – Prague Basin

• Slope exposition of Bell Beaker sites.

• Slope exposition of Corded Ware sites.

Kontinuita dlouhých domů v Dánsku

Otázka obytných staveb obdobízvoncovitých pohárů v Čechách

Kozly (Zápotocký 1960)

Hostivice (Hložek – Turek 2007)

Líbeznice 2009

15x9m

Líbeznice 2009

Domy csepelské skupiny zvoncovitých pohárů Szigetszentmiklós-Üdülösor, Albertfalva (Endrödi

1998)

14x5m

Question of size • The original assumption

considered the average size of burial groups as possible reflection of dimensions of habitation sites (small hamlets). Some burial grounds, however contain burials that do not represent natural demographic picture of prehistoric community. Such as the cemeteries at Mochov or Velké Přílepy (both Central Bohemia) that consist of juvenille male individuals.

Environment

Agriculture, wild and cultural plants.

Environment

Domesticated animals and hunting.

Funerary areas Size and structure of cemeteries.

Funerary areas

Burial monuments.

Burial rites – Corded Ware

Corded Ware – An exceptional bi-ritual burial at Slany (Central Bohemia)

Burial rites – Bell Beakers

Funerary areas

Palaeodemography of Beaker populations.

Bell Beakers Artefacts

Types of artefacts and their practical and symbolic meaning.

Bell Beakers funerary pottery

Society

Symbolism of gender and social categories in burial rites.

Beginning of social differentiation.

Craft symbolism in Bell Beaker funerary practices - Elite burials.

• During the Bell Beaker period tools connected with production of flint arrows and/or metalworking tools together with raw materials appear in specific burial contexts. These graves, represented by wooden construction, sometimes including circular ditch and secondary cremation burials, were recorded mainly in Bavaria, Bohemia and Moravia. Individuals buried in this kind of graves are usually accompanied by decorated beakers. Beaker typology and some radiocarbon dates suggest these burials are associated with early phases of the period. Connection of these burials to prestigious goods may perhaps rather suggest evidence of certain social ranking rather than chronological differences. Within these Beaker graves tools and/or raw materials for production of flint arrowheads or gold processing usually represent a spatially clearly defined deposit. These objects may be interpreted as kind of symbolic assemblage that would give to deceased person opportunity and show possession of technology and perhaps to produce the prestigious artefacts on the way to the other world. I call this symbolic deposit the “production package” and I assume that within the Beaker burial customs it represents kind of ritualised reflection of control over prestigious technologies rather than an evidence of specific craft specialisation.

Burial chambersThe traces of internal construction of graves suggest that the chambers were lined with wood, perhaps in the fashion of a log cabin. It may be well possible that the “roof” of such tomb was elevated above the ground and created a visible monument as such. A burial “log cabin” was then acomplished with an enclosure created of tree trunks, that might have been split, creating a timber circle.

Tišice, Bell Beaker chambered tomb

Burial chamber at Praha Pitkovice

Burial chamber at Holubice, Excavation by L. Šulová

Why elite burials?- multiple appearance of decorated

beakers

- golden objects

- archery equipment

- industrial packages - secondary cremations inserted into the fill of grave or into the ditch.

Ring ditchesRing ditches encircling late Eneolithic graves are a widely spread phenomenon in central and north-western Europe. Bell Beaker ring ditches are known from Bohemia, Moravia, Lower Austria, Little Poland, Silesia, central Germany, Bavaria and Holland etc. The Bell Beaker ring ditches were recorded in Bohemia, Moravia, Bavaria, central Germany, Tuscany, Middle and Lower Rhine valley etc. In Bohemia and Moravia ring ditches occurred in both Corded Ware and Bell Beaker periods.

Corded Ware burial with a ring ditch from

Chudeřín (north Bohemia).

Diameters of these round ditches varies In Corded Ware period from 564 cm to 1050 cm (average 9.4m)In Bell Beaker period from 300cm to 1200cm (average 7m) The diameter of Corded Ware ditches is very near to 12 megalithic yards, which may be symbolically significant. The variability of the Bell Beaker ditches seems to be much greater (see the box-and-whisker plot of the diameters).

M edian 25% -75% O utlier Extrem e

C orded W are B ell B eaker200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

cm

Houses of dead

An important data for the re-consideration of this question may be found on south Moravian Bell Beaker sites of Dolní Věstonice (Dvořák et all 1996) and Tvořihráz (Bálek et all 1999). The Bell Beaker grave no. 44 at Dolní Věstonice was excavated within the ring ditch no. 45. This ditch was sunken only 25 cm deep into the natural subsoil. The outline of the ditch was of a wavy shape and in the north-eastern part were clearly visible postholes in the shape of halved tree trunks.

One could imagine the construction of such monument to be similar as recently discovered Early Bronze Agea funerary timber circle at Holm-next-the-Sea beach in Norfolk that is known as Seahenge (Pryor 2001).

Seahenge

The slightly oval shaped ring was created with 65 posts that were mainly split trunks of tree embeaded into the ground). At the south-western part of the ring there was an entrance into the internal area, where was a stump of an old oak embeaded upside down into the ground.

Such monument was relatively easy to enter and the funerary events and/or subsequent ceremonies might have repeteadly taken place here.Were the Beaker monuments similar?The funerary construction in the terms of a log cabin or one may say “house of dead” would be ideal for such re-opening and continual use of the tomb.

Seahenge Dolní Věstonice

Tvořihráz 2/91

This paper aimed to contribute towards the discussion on the interpretation of the late Eneolithic ring ditches, reconstruction of their function and form of the monuments inside them. In conclusion I would like to stress the need for creation of new models of some funerary monuments of the late Eneolithic period and revision of certain traditional views.

CONCLUSION

Thank you for your attention!