Towards the Meaning of Flint Grave Goods: A case study from Bulgaria

FACETS OF THE PAST THE CHALLENGE OF THE BALKAN NEO-ENEOLITHIC

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM CELEBRATING

THE 85TH BIRTH ANNIVERSARY OF EUGEN COMŞA 6–12 OCTOBER 2008, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

Responsible editor:

Alexandra Comşa

Editors:

Clive Bonsall Lolita Nikolova

FACETS OF THE PAST THE CHALLENGE OF THE BALKAN NEO-ENEOLITHIC

PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM CELEBRATING THE 85TH BIRTH ANNIVERSARY OF EUGEN COMŞA

6–12 OCTOBER 2008, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA

THE PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE ROMANIAN ACADEMY

Bucharest, 2013

TOWARDS THE MEANING OF FLINT GRAVE GOODS:

A CASE STUDY FROM BULGARIA

CU PRIVIRE LA SEMNIFICAŢIA INVENTARULUI FUNERAR DIN SILEX: UN STUDIU DE CAZ DIN BULGARIA

Maria GUROVA Prehistory Department

National Institute of Archaeology and Museum BAS, 2, Saborna Str., 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria

[email protected]

Cuvinte-cheie: cimitirul Durankulak, culturile Hamangia şi Varna, inventar funerar din silex, conotaţii funcţionale.

Rezumat: Analiza obiectelor funerare poate conduce la o mai bunǎ înţelegere a conceptului larg, explorat, dar încǎ enigmatic, de sacru, faţǎ de profan. Artefactele din cremene includ un rol funcţional primordial şi conotaţii în cadrul vieţii de zi cu zi a predecesorilor noştri preistorici, dar şi un rol secundar (simbolic). Pentru a releva şi descifra corect aceste douǎ nivele cognitive în biografia obiectelor de cremene este o sarcinǎ provocatoare, dar şi promiţǎtoare, care va contribui la interpretarea la nivel înalt a practicilor rituale, necesitând abordǎrile ştiinţifice combinate ale arheologilor, antropologilor, specialiştilor în religie etc. Aceastǎ lucrare prezintǎ şi pune în discuţie rezultatul analizei funcţionale a obiectelor de cremene din mormintele din cimitirul de la Durankulak, din nord-estul Bulgariei, în relaţie cu vârsta, sexul şi elementele distinctive ale statutului social al celor decedaţi, pe o perioadǎ largǎ, care se desfǎşoarǎ între neoliticul târziu (Cultura Hamangia) şi chalcolithic (Cultura Varna). Durankulak este un cimitir unic, care a fost complet sǎpat şi publicat. Astfel, el reprezintǎ o sursǎ abundentǎ, care oferǎ scopul pentru o analizǎ ulterioarǎ şi o interpretare a problemelor enumerate mai sus.

Key words: Durankulak cemetery, Hamangia and Varna cultures, flint grave goods, functional connotation.

Abstract: The analysis of funerary objects can lead to a better understanding of the large, explored, but still enigmatic epistemological concept of sacred versus profane. Flint grave goods embody a primary functional role and connotation within the everyday life of our prehistoric predecessors, but also a secondary symbolic (ritual) meaning. To reveal and correctly read these two cognitive levels in the grave goods’ biography is a challenging yet promising task, which will contribute to a higher-level interpretation of ritual practices, requiring the combined scientific approaches of archaeologists, anthropologists, specialists in religion, etc. This paper presents and discusses the results of the functional analysis of flint grave goods from the Durankulak cemetery, in north-eastern Bulgaria, in relation to the age, gender and status distinctions between the deceased, across a broad time range from the Late Neolithic (Hamangia culture) to the Late Chalcolithic (Varna culture). Durankulak is a unique cemetery that has been completely excavated and published. It thus represents an abundant source which offers scope for further analysis and interpretation of the problems highlighted above.

376 Flint grave goods: a case study from Bulgaria

Durankulak cemetery and its cognitive importance

Bulgaria is renowned for its 11 prehistoric (mainly Chalcolithic) cemeteries, situated in the north-eastern part of the country. Of these, Varna is the most famous and is usually regarded as eclipsing the others. On the other hand, the Durankulak necropolis is unique, because all its archaeological remains have been completely investigated and published1 (Fig. 1). In the Durankulak cemetery, the presence of gold and copper objects is much more modest and the differentiation of grave goods deposition among individual burials is less striking, compared to Varna. At Durakulak there are, however, very interesting features to be observed and discussed, in its abundant and exceptionally rich database. Durankulak provides an excellent opportunity to trace and reveal, diachronically, the mortuary practices characteristic of the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities for four principal reasons:

1 – the cemetery is associated with a tell settlement located about 200 m to the north;

2 – the excavation of 1204 burials; 3 – the one millennium time span; 4 – all stages of both the Hamangia and Varna cultures are represented in the

cemetery; C14 dates combined with the well-documented chronological sequence from another settlements belonging to the same culture provide the following chronological framework2:

Early Hamangia (phases I, II) – Late Neolithic; 5250/5200–4950/4900 cal BC; Hamangia III – beginning of the Chalcolithic; 4950/4900–4650/4600 cal BC; Hamangia IV – Middle Chalcolithic; 4650/4600–4550/4500 cal BC; Varna I–III – Late Chalcolithic; Varna I 4550/4500–4450/4400 cal BC; Varna II-III 4450/4400–4250/4150 cal BC.

Fig. 1 – Map of Bulgaria with localisation of Durankulak cemetery.

1 Todorova 2002. 2 Boyadžiev 2002, 67.

Facets of the past 377

It is worth mentioning that the new AMS dates from the Varna cemetery suggest an overall span of cemetery use of 83–178 years: from ~ 4560 to ~ 4450 cal BC. As the promoters of this new radiocarbon dating approach underline: “This is a period coeval with the Middle Copper Age on other sites and in other regions, as defined by Boyadzhiev. The Varna dates advance by one or two centuries the beginning of the Late Copper Age in the Black Sea zone”3. This discrepancy in radiocarbon determinations certainly needs to be resolved, but the chronological problems and discussions about the Chalcolithic period are beyond of the scope of this article.

According to the most recent study of the Durankulak phenomenon, all changes originating in the Hamangia IV culture (e.g. arrangement of the funerary features, vertical stratigraphy by sex-and-age criteria, strictly fixed body positions for men and women, contents and layout patterns of the grave goods) were fully established and generally accepted at the beginning of the Varna culture. Mortuary practices became highly standardized with a few, minor exceptions4.

At the outset of this presentation of the Durankulak flint assemblages, a point needs to be made that may seem self-evident if not bordering on the banal; it is that multi-aspect analysis of the grave goods (including the flint artefacts) facilitates a better understanding of the challenging, epistemological problem of the sacred versus the secular/profane in our reading and understanding of the past. The presence of flints among prestige grave goods is significant for both the question of symbolism and the adequate discerning of their relevance to other votive offerings and ritual deposits. In comparison with other grave goods, the flint implements possess a pronouncedly dualistic semantic position, because of their profound and inherent role, also in everyday life.

Functional connotation of the flint grave goods

A techno-typological study of the flint assemblages from the Durankulak cemetery was carried out by N. Sirakov5, while the present author has investigated the flint artefacts from a functional point of view6.

Concerning the composition of the flint assemblages, it should be stressed that there are very few cores and flakes. In contrast, blades are quite numerous – blanks with various morphologies and dimensions, used as funerary gifts. Among the typological repertoire retouched blades, truncations, endscrapers, burins and geometric microliths constitute the most prominent types (Figs. 2 and 3).

3 Higham et alii, 2007, 652. 4 Boyadžiev 2008, 85–94. 5 Sirakov 2002, 213–247. 6 Gurova 2002, 247–256.


Fig. 2 – Flint artefacts as grave-goods (after Sirakov 2002, Fig. 15, p. 245).


Fig. 3 – Flint artefacts as grave-goods (after Sirakov 2002, Fig. 14, p. 244).


Fig. 4 – Superblades as grave-goods: 1 – ♂ burial 597; 2 – ♀ burial 1162; 3 – ♂ burial 977

(after Sirakov 2002, Fig. 16, p. 246).


Fig. 5 – Burial 644 with flint grave-goods (after Todorova (ed.), 2002, Teil 2, Table 99).


Fig. 6 – “Sewing kit” from burial 577 (after Todorova (ed.), 2002, Teil 2, Table 111).

Micro-wear analysis was undertaken with MBS – 10 (×100) and METAM P 1 (×400) microscopes. Unfortunately, lack of time precluded the making of microphotographs before publication7. The results of this analysis may be considered and used as additional information for the selection (conscious, or random) of those flint implements, which were taken out of their normal settlement context (and hence, also removed from their normal life-span) and transformed into the votive and symbolic meaning of grave goods.

The assemblage that was available for use-wear analysis consisted of 184 artefacts from 133 burials (the neonatus and infans (I and II) burials are presented under the rubric ‘child’) (Table 1).

Table 1

Distribution of flint grave goods by burial type and period

Burials Hamangia I-II Hamangia III Hamangia IV Varna Total Male 13 14 11 23 61 Female 3 3 3 31 40 Child 2 3 4 10 19 Cenotaph – 1 1 11 13 Total 18 21 19 75 133 Flints 31 32 24 97 184 Used 12 13 17 70 112

The data from the use-wear analysis are presented in Tables 2–5, according to the chrono-cultural context of the flint material. In order to facilitate the reading of the tabulated data, the gender/age affiliation and functional determination of the flint grave goods are presented using the following symbols:

7 Unfortunately, the material is no longer available for analysis.


♀ – female burial; ♂ – male burial; ☺ – neonatus, infans (I and II); ◘ – cenotaph

* – presumed function; ◊ – unidentified worked material; ∆ – undetermined function because of natural alteration.

Table 2

Flint grave goods from the Hamangia I–II complex

Burial N Gender Flint artefacts Used Function 94 ♂ 1 1 scraping hide

134 ♂ 4 – projectile point* 149 ♂ 2 1 projectile point (arrowhead) 155 ♂ 1 – –

156 ♂ 5 2 scraping wood; cutting plants (reeds)

161 ♂ 1 – –

189 ♂ 2 2 combined tool (cutting plants, scraping wood); cutting meat/hide

195 ♂ 1 – ∆ 602 ♂ 2 1 projectile point (arrowhead) 604 ♂ 2 1 cutting meat/hide 725 ♂ 1 1 cutting fresh hide 794 ♂ 2 1 projectile point (arrowhead) 1056 ♂ 1 – – 167 ♀ 1 – – 208 ♀ 1 – ∆ 938 ♀ 2 1 sawing wood 76 ☺ 1 – –

154 ☺ 1 1 scraping wood total 31 12

Table 3

Flint grave goods from the Hamangia III complex

Burial N Gender Flint artefacts Used Function 45 ♂ 2 – – 60 ♂ 1 1 cutting meat/hide

106 ♂ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 145 ♂ 1 1 piercing hide 173 ♂ 2 1 projectile point (arrowhead) 600 ♂ 1 1 projectile point (arrowhead) 615 ♂ 1 – – 644 ♂ 8 – projectile point (arrowhead) 676 ♂ 1 – –


783 ♂ 1 1 sickle insert 802 ♂ 1 1 sawing hard material ◊ 818 ♂ 1 1 combined tool (scraping wood;

cutting meat/hide) 994 ♂ 3 1 projectile point (arrowhead); 2

projectile points (arrowhead) *

1068 ♂ 1 – – 100 ♀ 1 1 scraping and cutting hide 898 ♀ 1 1 combined tool (scraping wood;

cutting meat/hide) 1040 ♀ 1 – ∆ 649 ☺ 1 – ∆ 716 ☺ 1 – ∆ 782 ☺ 1 1 sickle insert 239 ◘ 1 1 cutting meat/hide total 32 13

Table 4

Flint grave goods from the Hamangia IV complex

Burial N Gender Flint artefacts Used Function 17 ♂ 1 – – 66 ♂ 1 1 scraping wood

215 ♂ 2 1 combined tool (pottery polisher; scraping wood)

315 ♂ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 372 ♂ 1 1 cutting plants (reeds) 397 ♂ 1 1 projectile point (arrowhead) 426 ♂ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 434 ♂ 1 – – 439 ♂ 1 1 cutting soft material ◊ 732 ♂ 1 1 scraping fresh hide 846 ♂ 2 1 projectile point (arrowhead) 299 ♀ 3 1 sickle insert 545 ♀ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 864 ♀ 2 2 cutting cereals; scraping pottery 234 ☺ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 415 ☺ 1 – – 423 ☺ 1 1 sawing wood 701 ☺ 1 1 combined tool (cutting plants; cutting

meat/hide) 440 ◘ 1 1 sawing bone total 24 17


Table 5

Flint grave goods from the Varna complex

Burial N Gender Flint artefacts Used Function

1 ♂ 3 2 scraping hide; cutting meat/hide; ∆

211 ♂ 1 1 projectile point (arrowhead)

221 ♂ 2 2 combined tools (scraping wood and hide); (piercing and cutting hide)

231 ♂ 3 3 combined tool (scraping wood and hide); cutting hard material ◊; cutting soft material ◊

276 ♂ 1 1 sawing and scraping wood 298 ♂ 1 – – 320 ♂ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 327 ♂ 1 – – 347 ♂ 1 1 cutting cereals 417 ♂ 1 1 cutting hide 524 ♂ 1 1 scraping hard material ◊

576 ♂ 1 1 combined tool (scraping wood and cutting cereals)

593 ♂ 2 2 sickle insert; cutting soft material ◊

597 ♂ 2 – projectile point *; ∆

601 ♂ 3 3 sawing bone; scraping hide; sickle insert

623 ♂ 1 1 scraping hard material ◊ 655 ♂ 1 1 sickle insert 665 ♂ 1 – – 674 ♂ 1 1 cutting plants (herb) 800 ♂ 2 1 cutting meat/hide 867 ♂ 2 1 grinding minerals 977 ♂ 1 – ∆ 1202 ♂ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 50 ♀ 1 1 cutting cereals

230 ♀ 2 2 scraping wood; cutting meat/hide

249 ♀ 1 1 sawing wood 257 ♀ 1 1 cutting plants (herb) 261 ♀ 1 – –

270 ♀ 3 3 sickle insert; cutting meat/hide (x2)

271 ♀ 1 – – 286 ♀ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 348 ♀ 1 – – 393 ♀ 1 – – 395 ♀ 1 – – 455 ♀ 1 1 cutting cereals 495 ♀ 2 2 piercing hide; cutting hide 496 ♀ 1 – – 514 ♀ 1 1 scraping wood


515 ♀ 1 1 cutting meat/hide

541 ♀ 1 1 combined tool (cutting plants; cutting hide)

558 ♀ 2 – – 587 ♀ 1 1 sawing bone 656 ♀ 1 1 scraping wood 666 ♀ 1 1 drilling wood 669 ♀ 1 1 scraping hide 694 ♀ 1 – – 699 ♀ 1 1 sickle insert 795 ♀ 1 1 scraping wood 826 ♀ 1 1 sickle insert 993 ♀ 1 1 sickle insert 1113 ♀ 1 1 scraping hide

1162 ♀ 2 2 combined tool (cutting plants; cutting meat/hide); cutting soft material ◊

1168 ♀ 2 1 cutting plants (reeds) 1175 ♀ 1 1 cutting hard material ◊ 2A ☺ 2 2 scraping wood; sickle insert 217 ☺ 1 – – 218 ☺ 1 – – 236 ☺ 1 1 scraping wood

358 ☺ 1 1 combined tool (cutting plants; softening hide)

433 ☺ 2 1 cutting plants (herb) 559 ☺ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 566 ☺ 1 – ∆ 573 ☺ 1 – ∆ 700 ☺ 1 1 scraping hide 232 ◘ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 452 ◘ 1 – – 453 ◘ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 534 ◘ 1 1 cutting meat/hide 539 ◘ 2 1 cutting meat/hide

560 ◘ 1 1 combined tool (scraping wood; cutting hide)

577 ◘ 1 1 scraping bone 653 ◘ 1 1 scraping wood 1057 ◘ 1 1 cutting plants (reeds) 1069 ◘ 2 1 cutting plants (reeds)

1114 ◘ 1 1 combined tool (cutting plant; scraping hide)

total 97 70

The results of the functional determination of the used implements can be briefly summarized as follows:

– The number of the flints used as funerary gifts and the number of artefacts with use-wear traces of the Hamangia I–II and Hamangia III periods are comparable. During Hamangia IV there was a decrease in flint offerings, but an


increasing number of implements showing evidence of use. The late Chalcolithic Varna culture is characterised by both an increase in burials with flint offerings, as well as an increase of flint artefacts with evidence of use – in total 4x more than the preceding Hamangia IV culture.

– It is noteworthy that flint offerings are attested among all the categories of deceased, throughout the entire sequence in the cemetery. It is also interesting to point out that from the beginning of Hamangia I–II to the end of Hamangia IV, the ratio of male:female burials containing flints is around 4:1. During the Varna culture, surprisingly, female burials with flint offerings slightly prevail over male burials (ratio 33:26).

– It is possible to distinguish three main functions among the flint items: knives for cutting meat and/or trimming fresh hides predominate (23), followed by sickle blades (15) and projectile points/arrowheads (14). There is only one artefact category that both typologically and functionally could be determined as a male offering component – arrowheads, represented by geometric microliths (some of which were termed by Sirakov ‘Vielle-type points’. It is noteworthy that the majority of this last-mentioned type is associated with Hamangia phases I–III. There is no other category of flint artefacts and toolkits showing gender determination. Sickle blades are attested in male and female burials, belonging both to the Varna and Hamangia IV cultures, in a ratio of 11:4. The so-called ‘sewing kit’ (which is discussed in more detail below), attributed by Todorova to tailoring (i.e. female) activities, appears in every type of burial – male, female, cenotaph, and child. They are also chiefly attested in the graves of the Varna culture (Varna: Hamangia IV = 42:8).

– One cannot omit the super-blades from Durankulak (Fig. 4). They are not as long as the best specimens from the Varna cemetery; nevertheless, they are among the biggest flint blades found in Bulgaria, a fact that indicates some significant features linked firstly with the manufacture of the blades and secondly with their role in the burial context. In total, among the grave goods, there are seven blades with a length of c. 20 cm or longer. Most of them are massive fragments, over 12 cm in length, the intact specimens measuring respectively 25 and 29.4 cm long. The longest blade (29.6 cm) has a distal fracture; the original length was probably more than 30 cm (Fig. 4–1). Six of the big blades come from male burials, and only one had been deposited in a female burial. Only one specimen has diagnostic use-wear traces; the rest cannot be ascribed a functional purpose, because of the post-depositional polish and edge damage. If one may presume on the basis of the Varna evidence, that the presence of a super-blade represents a sign of power, high social status and wealth – attributes of men as traditionally understood within prehistoric communities – such blades ought to be associated with male burials and male grave goods. In this respect, the association


of the biggest complete blade with the female burial N 1162 at Durankulak is difficult to understand (Fig. 4–3).

– There is only one burial (644) with eight flint artefacts among the grave goods, which comprise one microlith, (part of a composite arrow) and seven unretouched blades with no traces of use (Fig. 5).

‘Sewing-kits’ as particular grave goods

Recently, the present author has put forward a new functional interpretation of this special category of grave goods from the Durankulak cemetery that were named by their discoverer, H. Todorova, ‘sewing-kits’ or ‘nécessaires’. It was suggested that these toolkits represented particular ‘hoards’, and this aspect will not be discussed further here8. Typically, these toolkits comprise four elements: a flint artefact, a bone awl, a pebble polisher and a shell, all of which were normally deposited in a carinated jar, or bowl with a lid9 (Fig. 6). Todorova’s idea is based on a presumption that this is a toolkit that could be linked with some form tailoring activity. In this sense, one can assume that this category of grave goods was associated with females. In fact, these sewing-kits are attested in every main type of burial, but they predominate in female graves – 27 cases. Their frequency in male, cenotaph and child burials is respectively 13:7:3.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

1

Frequency of hoard' elements combination

flint/stone flint/boneflint/copper flint/stone/boneflint/stone/shell flint/bone/shellflint/stone/copper flint/stone/bone/shellflint/stone/bone/ochre stone/bone

Diagram 1 – Frequency of the combinations of the ‘hoard’ elements.

8 Gurova 2006, 1–14. 9 It should be stressed that all pottery was made for the specific purpose of deposition in the

graves, as models of real vessels.

Frequency of ‘hoard’ elements combination


In the cemetery, there were 51 of these particular ‘hoards’, 32 of which were available for use-wear analysis. The statistical data presented here are based on the published catalogue, but data on the flint functions are derived from personal analysis. The generalized statistical data give the following results:

– 51 sewing kits come from 50 burials; one cenotaph (518) contains two toolkits;

– the cultural determination is as follows: Hamangia IV culture – 8; Varna culture – 42.

– the sexual determination is as follows10: ♂ male – 13 ☺ child – 3 ♀ female – 27 ◘ cenotaph – 7

The most concentrated occurrence of these particular ‘hoards’ is in the southern part of the cemetery which is the main area of the Hamangia IV and Varna graves. A few isolated toolkits are found in Varna culture graves, located in the north-eastern and northern parts of the cemetery.

Despite the persuasive interpretation of these sewing-kits as coherent complexes, there is a variation in the frequency of the different components. This diversity is shown on Diagram 1. It seems that the combination of flint artefacts and bone awl is the most common; followed by the combination of flint/stone/bone and the largest one, that is flint/stone/bone/shell. It is obvious, from the diagram, that two components, flint artefact and bone tool (usually an awl), are presented in the three highest columns: positions 2, 4 and 8. Apparently this is the most frequent and stable combination of items. Whatever the function of this toolkit, a blade of flint can easily be a multifunctional tool, the usefulness of which is completed by a bone-piercing tool. The remaining components may be viewed as supplementary attributes to a basic toolkit.

It is challenging to try to determine the precise functions of the flint artefacts in the ‘hoards’. The flint assemblage subjected to use-wear analysis consisted of 39 items; of these 33 specimens were found to have traces of utilization. The results of the functional examination are presented in Table 6.

Table 6

Results of use-wear analysis of the flint artefacts from the toolkits studied

Burial No

Flint artefacts Used Function Gender Context

249 1 1 sawing wood ♀ Varna II–III 257 1 1 cutting plants ♀ Varna I

10 It should be noted that I have taken into consideration the biological identification of sex: in

only two cases was there a contradiction with the archaeological determination (according to the grave goods); in three other cases, the archaeological determination was used because of the absence of anthropological data.


261 1 – – ♀ Varna II–III

270 3 3 sickle insert; cutting meat/hide (×2) ♀ Varna I

271 1 – – ♀ Varna

276 1 1 sawing and scraping wood ♂ Varna I

286 1 1 cutting meat/hide ♀ Varna I 347 1 1 cutting cereals ♂ Varna II–III 348 1 – – ♀ Varna I 393 1 – – ♀ Varna 423 1 1 sawing wood ☺ Hamangia IV 452 1 – – ◘ Varna I 453 1 1 cutting meat/hide ◘ Varna I

495 2 2 piercing hide; cutting hide ♀ Varna I

496 1 – – ♀ Varna I 514 1 1 scraping wood ♀ Varna II–III 515 1 1 cutting meat/hide ♀ Varna II 524 1 1 scraping wood /bone? ♂ Varna I 534 1 1 cutting meat/hide ◘ Hamangia IV 539 2 2 cutting meat/hide (x2) ◘ Varna I 545 1 1 cutting meat/hide ♀ Hamangia IV 577 1 1 scraping bone ◘ Varna I

601 3 3 sawing bone; scraping hide; cutting meat/ hide

♂ Varna III

653 1 1 scraping wood ◘ Varna II 656 1 1 scraping wood ♀ Varna 674 1 1 cutting plants ♂ Varna III 699 1 1 sickle insert ♂ Varna II–III

732 1 1 scraping fresh hide ♂ Hamangia IV /Varna I

826 1 1 sickle insert ♀ Varna II–III

864 2 2 cutting cereals; scraping pottery ♀ Hamangia IV

993 1 1 sickle insert ♀ Varna III 1113 1 1 scraping hide ♀ Varna II–III

32 39 33 Total burials ♂ – male ♀ – female ☺– child ◘ – cenotaph

The most frequent manual operations seem to have been longitudinal – cutting and sawing – followed by scraping and (rarely) piercing. The material whose treatment is most often attested is meat/fresh hide, which suggests large-scale working of animal products. In equal quantity are tools for wood processing and harvesting implements – sickle blades. These heterogeneous functions of the flint components of the hoards do not indicate any special or precise purpose for


the ‘sewing-kits’. Rather, they comprise flint tools extracted from different everyday household activities and from subsistence farming practices such as harvesting.

Discussion

One of the most important observations of the Durankulak funerary evidence is that the flint grave goods in general do not vary greatly according to the sex and age of the deceased with whom they were associated. There are two exceptions: geometric microliths (found only in male burials) and big blades that are not found in neonatus/infans burials, for example. It is noteworthy, however, that the children were obviously subjected to the same rituals and ceremonies as the adults, suggesting that, despite of their premature death, they were respected and considered as normal individuals and social group members11.

The present paper does not claim to offer solutions to the epistemological problems formulated in the Introduction. It offers additional data, which could be useful in the wider contextual consideration of mortuary practices. It is useful to recall the reasoning of one leading specialist on the Balkan Chalcolithic, John Chapman. On the basis ‘…of the most power-full social arena of the Copper Age – the Varna cemetery…’ it is argued that the mortuary assemblages from north-east Bulgarian cemeteries represent the most elaborate sets of objects – the main significance of the term of hoard – transmitting the complex of social relations and conditions12. Later syntheses by the same scholar led him to generalize that, depending on the social context and evolutionary stage of the farming period, the sets of objects, being a materialized form of the society’s relations, emerge as depositions in the domestic domain, extra-mural cemetery context, or as hoards, located at some distance from the settlements13. In any case, the more complex and differentiated the social community, the more complex are the objects’ biographies in the depositions. Without doubt, during the Chalcolithic in north-east Bulgaria, the most complex social arena for hierarchy/status legitimization was the mortuary domain. In this respect, the most complex and sophisticated sets of objects become the grave goods and ‘ritual paraphernalia’.

In spite of the richness of the debate on the ‘Varna problem’, there is still a huge field of phenomena to be investigated and explained, and problems to be resolved. A good case study has already been provided for advancing the hoard/grave goods research and discussion – this is the meticulous description and

11 Boyadžiev & Gurova, 2008, 87–94. 12 Chapman 1991, 152–171. 13 Chapman 2000, 226–228.


interpretation of the hoard from Tell Omurtag in north-east Bulgaria14. Further studies and debates of the issues concerned will be warmly welcomed.

It is tempting to cite as a final remark a quotation from D. Bailey’s review of the Durankulak volumes: ‘The potential for re-thinking established sex and gender trends in mortuary treatment in the Neolithic Balkans is huge’15.

Bibliography

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14 Gaydarska et alii, 2004, 11–35. 15 Bailey & Hofmann, 2005, 221.


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Towards the Meaning of Flint Grave Goods: A case study from Bulgaria

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