Late Bronze Age Social Landscapes of the Southeast Balkans: A spatial analysis of local ceramics and site distribution  (BAR International Series 2936)
Category: Bronze Age

     The book explores settlement and burial patterns across the southeastern corner of the Balkan Peninsula during the second millennium BC and offers a new, detailed cross-border examination of the local pottery data. The volume offers a comprehensive analysis based on the existing cultural-historical framework and calls into question established constructs such as the ”Plovdiv-Zimnicea” culture. The work offers a chronologically structured analysis of pottery sequences and is methodologically innovative in the way it applies a rare combination of settlement-scale analysis using advanced spatial-statistical methods alongside artefact-scale typological and stylistic study on local ceramics also subjected to spatial-statistical mapping. As a result, the research highlights clusters of attributes and cycles of micro-regional interaction. On that basis it also addresses the formation, development and decline of the Late Bronze Age tradition(s) in Thrace and examines the degree to which this trajectory was influenced by wider patterns of regional development.

Table of contents

List of figures

List of tables

List of plates

Abstract

1. Introduction and background

Introduction 

Background 

Geography 

Topography 

Geology and natural resources

Climate 

Soils and vegetation

Natural routes 

2. Change and identity: A theoretical perspective

Culture-historical archaeology

Pots as politics 

Style and social boundaries 

Physical environments and human landscapes

3. Data and method

Analysis of pottery data

Site analysis

Site defnition and exploratory site-based analyses

Statistical location modelling

4. Archaeological overview and prior research

Archaeology is born

Archaeology after the Second World War 

The “Archaeological Enlightenment” 

Archaeology in the twenty-frst century

Problems of interpretation

5. Site characterisation and issues of preservation

Archaeological recovery 

Site classifcation

Settlements 

Sanctuaries 

Other categories

Site distribution

6. Quantifying site distributions

Selection of zones and parameters 

Locational modelling

Zone one: The eastern part of the Upper Thracian Plain 

Zone two: The entire Upper Thracian Plain

Zone three: Rhodope Mountains 

Zone four: Western Rhodopes

Zone fve: Eastern Rhodopes

Zone six: Eastern Rhodopes and Sakar 

Zone seven: Western Thrace the Northern Aegean hinterland

Zone eight: Upper and Middle Struma Valley

Zone nine: Central Macedonia and Chalkidki

Cemeteries

Multivariate categorical analysis: Eastern Rhodopes

Settlements

Sanctuaries

A multinomial model as an alternative

7. Characteristics and classification of the local LBA pottery

Function and technology

Coarse ware

Fine ware

Technological features

Classifcation

Kantharoi (K)

Bowls (B)

Kylikes (KY)

Amphorae (A)

Jugs (J)

Cups (C)

Double vessels (D)

8. Spatial analysis of ceramic distributions

LBA pottery complexes

Pottery distributions revisited. Spatial analysis of diagnostic ceramic features

9. Regional patterning and a revised chronology

Traditional chronological framework

10. People and places in LBA Thrace

Sub-regional patterning of ceramic and site distribution

Area one: Eastern Rhodopes and Sakar

Area two: Western Rhodopes

Area three: Upper Thracian Plain

Area four: Struma Valley

Area fve: Western Thrace and the northern Aegean hinterland

Comparanda

The appearance of LBA incised ware in the southeast Balkans

The origins of the LBA in the southeast Balkans

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix

Plates

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