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Neolithic Black Ware in Greece and on the Danube

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

Professor Myres has been the chief agent in inducing English archaeologists to appreciate the significance of the Danubian province for Greek prehistory. Since his first paper in Science Progress, 1896–7, he has frequently discussed in a stimulating manner the relations between the two areas. In his latest pronouncement he not only shews how political considerations have affected the interpretation of the relevant facts, but has stated in an unequivocal way the essential conditions for an objective decision between two contrasted views: ‘not only continuity of material on a series of sites, but coherence of styles within a chronological scheme.’ Six years ago both desiderata seemed far from fulfilment. The Danubian province was still separated by the Balkan wall from the Aegean; not even its relative chronology was clear. Subsequent discoveries by Heurtley in Macedonia and by Fewkes in the Morava valley have substantially reduced the gap between the two provinces in one direction. Even on the Middle Danube Banner and Tompa have established a provisionally acceptable cultural sequence. At the same time fresh comparative material has been made available beyond the Aegean which must affect any interpretation of Danubian-Aegean relationships. A re-examination of some of the issues might then appropriately be dedicated to the far-sighted savant who first inspired my own interest in the Danube valley.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1937

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References

page 26 note 1 ‘The Cretan Labyrinth,’ JRAI LXIII (1933) 291 and 308.

page 26 note 2 Summarised in Prehistoric Macedonia, Cambridge, 1939.

page 26 note 3 ‘Neolithic Sites in the Morava-Danubian Area,’ Bul. Amer. School of Preh. Research, 12, 1936, 5–82.

page 26 note 4 Dolgozatok a M. kir. Ferencz-Jozsef-tudományegyetem Archaeologiai Intézetéböl, IX–X, 122.

page 26 note 5 BRGK 24–5, 40 ff.

page 27 note 1 ESA IX (Minns-Festschrift) 123.

page 27 note 2 Studies II 42.

page 27 note 3 Ant.J. XII (1932), 228–36.

page 27 note 4 Man, 1937, 55.

page 28 note 1 Orchomenos II 50.

page 28 note 2 Weinberg's term stroke-burnished is here used instead of ‘burnish-decorated’ used by Frankfort and ‘pattern-burnished’ used by Engberg and Shipton for the same technique.

page 28 note 3 Weinberg, , ‘Remains from prehistoric Corinth,’ Hesperia VI (1937) 498.Google Scholar

page 28 note 4 For ‘ribbing’ used by Wace and Thompson I substitute ‘fluting’ or ‘corrugation’ in as much as the decorative marks are actually pressed into the clay.

page 28 note 5 The spirals on the ‘legs’ from Drakhmani figured by Frankfort have been incised when the clay was quite dry or even after firing in a manner more reminiscent of the West Mediterranean and Syria (Sakjegözü) than the Danubian area, where the incisions were executed in the wet clay, leaving a broader line.

page 28 note 6 Nor do I know any knobbed ware really like the Greek. The sherds of cordedware from Hagia Marina, though undoubtedly northern, must on the strength of the evidence from Eutresis be assigned to the Early Helladic settlement and have no connection with the burnished wares.

page 28 note 7 Vassits, Preistorijskaya Vinča, II and IV, illustrates most points, often with coloured plates; for an English description of the fabrics, see Fewkes, , ASPRB 12, 2736Google Scholar; for a striking comparison of stroke-burnished vases from Vinča and from Boeotia, see Goldman, Eutresis, 77.

page 30 note 1 For the distribution cf. Nestor, , BRGK 22 (1933) 32–6Google Scholar, 52–4, and Fewkes, op. cit.

page 30 note 2 As defined in my Dawn of European Civilization, 1939, 93–104.

page 30 note 3 Weltgeschichte der Steinzeit, 350.

page 30 note 4 Note also the occurrence of stone (‘marble’) vases at Vinča as in Thessaly and Macedonia, but at no more northern site in the Danube basin at any time at all. Specimen at Birmingham.

page 31 note 1 Ant. J. XII (1932) 228–36.

page 31 note 2 Palace of Minos I 36.

page 31 note 3 Examples in boxes E, I, 5, 9th m; B, I, 1, 8th m.; B, I, 10, 8th m.

page 31 note 4 Examples in boxes E, I, 5, 7th m.; E, III, 6, 7th m.; B, I, 1, 4th m.; B, I, 1, 3rd m.

page 31 note 5 Evans, , Palace I 59.Google Scholar

page 31 note 6 Studies II 55; Frankfort mentions also ‘shoe-last celts,’ citing the axes figures by Evans, Palace I, fig. 15; these are of course axes and the absence of celts serviceable only as adzes is really a feature distinguishing the Cretan Stone Age from that of the Mainland and the Danube basin.

page 32 note 1 Osten, van der, ‘The Alishar Hüyük 1930–32,’ Oriental Institute Publications XXIX 52 ff.Google Scholar

page 32 note 2 I believe the ‘slip’ here is a mechanical slip formed by the burnishing process in the manner described by Fewkes, loc. cit. 28, in the case of Vinča wares.

page 32 note 3 LAAA XXVI 38–72. Prof. Garstang has kindly allowed me to handle a large election of the sherds at Liverpool.

page 33 note 1 Syria XVI 162–5.

page 33 note 2 AJA XLI (1937) 11.

page 33 note 3 LAAA XXIV 133; I have been enabled to handle a number of sherds at Liverpool.

page 33 note 4 Altertumskunde des Zweistromlandes, 91–5.

page 33 note 5 Iraq III 11 and 53.

page 33 note 6 ‘The Chalcolithic Pottery of Megiddo,’ Oriental Institute Studies, 10.

page 34 note 1 In the Rhind Lectures delivered at Edinburgh, April, 1939.

page 34 note 2 ‘Closing the Gap at Tepe Gawra,’ Asia XXXVIII (1938) 536–43.

page 34 note 3 I see no reason for rejecting the copper daggers found by Soteriadhes on virgin soil at Hagia Marina; cf. also Forsdyke, , Catalogue of Greek Vases I, pp. xvi and 23.Google Scholar