Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:25:26.052Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Autonomy of the South-East European Copper Age1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

Colin Renfrew
Affiliation:
Department of Ancient History, University of Sheffield

Extract

Ten years have now elapsed since the death of V. Gordon Childe, whose great achievement it was to relate the many disparate elements of European prehistory into a single coherent whole. These ten years have seen not only the sustained application of radiocarbon dating to the south-east European Neolithic (Quitta, 1967; Kohl and Quitta, 1966), but the publication of important stratigraphic sequences, especially that of the great tell at Karanovo in Bulgaria (Georgiev, 1961). Both these advances put in question one of the essential elements in Childe's structure for the chronology of Europe: the chronological equation between Troy I and the Vinča culture of Jugoslavia (Childe, 1929, 32; 1927; 1939).

This is the cornerstone for the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of much of Europe, and to remove it would cause widespread changes both in chronology and culture history.

The crucial importance of this point has been well expressed by Professor Clark (1938): ‘Thanks to the synchronisms established between Troy and Iberia and the western Mediterranean on the one hand, and central and northern Europe on the other, any important alterations in the absolute dating of the successive “cities” is bound to affect the dating of every culture in Europe of the period, much in the same way as fluctuations in the price of certain key commodities are felt in the exchanges of the whole world’. Today, of course, it is not so much the absolute dating of Troy which is in question, but the synchronisms with Europe: the effect, however, is the same.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angelov, N., 1958. ‘Die Sidelung bei Hotnica’, Studia in Honorem Acad. D. Dečev, 389.Google Scholar
Angelov, N., 1961. ‘Atelier d'idoles plates en os dans le tell près du village Hotnica’, Archeologiya, III, 34.Google Scholar
Banner, J., 1956. Die Péceler Kultur.Google Scholar
Berciu, D., 1961a. Contribufii la Problemele Neoliticului in Rominia in Lumine Noilor Cercetǎri.Google Scholar
Berciu, D., 1961b, ‘Chronologie relative du Néolithique du Bas Danube à la lumière des nouvelles fouilles faites en Roumanie’, in Soudsky, B. and Plesova, E. (eds.), L'Europe à La Fin de l'Age de la Pierre.Google Scholar
Berciu, D., 1967. Rominia.Google Scholar
Blegen, C. W. et al. , 1950. Troy, vol. 1.Google Scholar
Blegen, C. W., 1963. Troy and the Trojans.Google Scholar
Bognár-Kutzián, I., 1965. The Copper Age Cemetery of Tiszapolgár-Basatanya.Google Scholar
Brea, L. B., 1964. Poliochni, Città Preistorica nell Isola di Lemnos, I.Google Scholar
Cann, J. R. and Renfrew, C., 1964. The characterization of obsidian and its application to the Mediterranean region’, PPS, XXX, 111.Google Scholar
Charles, J. M., 1968. ‘The metallurgy of a Minoan dagger—the first Sheffield Plate’, Antiquity, XLII, 278.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1923. ‘Some affiliations of Chalcolithic culture in Thrace’, Man, XXIII, 4.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1927. ‘The Danube thoroughfare and the beginnings of civilization in Europe’, Antiquity, I, 79.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1929. The Danube in Prehistory.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1936. ‘The axes from Maikop and Caucasian metallurgy’, Liverpool Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology, 23, 113.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1939. ‘The Orient and Europe’, American Journal of Archaeology, XLIII, 10.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1954. New Light on the Most Ancient East.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1956. ‘Anatolia and Thrace’, Anatolian Studies, VI, 45.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1957. The Dawn of European Civilization.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G., 1958. ‘Retrospect’, Antiquity, XXXII, 69.Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D., 1938. ‘Current prehistory’, PPS, IV, 221.Google Scholar
Clark, J. G. D., 1966. ‘The invasion hypothesis in British prehistory’, Antiquity, XLI, 172.Google Scholar
Coghlan, H. H., 1961. ‘Some problems concerning the manufacture of copper shaft-hole axes’, Archaeologia Austriaca, XXIX, 57.Google Scholar
Comşa, E., 1962. ‘Otnositelnaya Chronologiya i Razvitie Neolitskaya Kultur’, Dacia, VI, 53.Google Scholar
Deshayes, J., 1960. ‘Les origines de la metallurgie Danubienne’, Acta Archaeologica Hungarica, XII, 69.Google Scholar
Detev, P., 1950a. ‘Le tell Baniata près de Kapitan Dimitrievo’, GNAMP, II, 1.Google Scholar
Detev, P., 1950b. ‘Le tell Raskopanitse près de Manole’, IAI, XVII.Google Scholar
Detev, P., 1954. ‘Tell près du village de Bikovo’, Godishnik na Muzeite v Plovdivski Okrug, I, 151.Google Scholar
Detev, P., 1959. ‘Matériaux de la préhistoire de Plovdiv’, GNAMP, III, 3.Google Scholar
Detev, P., 1960. ‘Vorgeschichtliche Gefasse mit menschen- und tieränlichen Darstellungen in Bulgarien’, Archäologischer Anzeiger, 1960, 1.Google Scholar
Detev, P. 1965. ‘Modeles de décoration de l'énéolithique’, Archaeologiya, VII, 65.Google Scholar
Dimitrov, D. P., 1943. ‘Zweihenkelige trojanische Tonbecher aus Südbulgarien’, Archäologischer Anzeiger, LVII, 13.Google Scholar
Driehaus, J., 1952. ‘Zur Datierung und Herkunft donauländischer Axttypen der frühen Kupferzeit’, Archaeologia Geographica, III, 1.Google Scholar
Dumitrescu, H., 1961. ‘Connections between the Cucuteni-Tripolie cultural complex and the neighbouring eneolithic cultures in the light of the utilization of golden pendants’, Dacia, V, 69.Google Scholar
Dumitrescu, V., 1965. ‘Cǎscioarele’, Archaeology, 18, 34.Google Scholar
Ehrich, R. W., 1965. Chronologies in Old World Archaeolgoy, 403.Google Scholar
Evans, A. J., 1935. The Palace of Minos, IV.Google Scholar
French, D., 1962. ‘Excavations at Can Hasan’, Anatolian Studies, 12, 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, D., 1964. ‘Prehistoric pottery from Macedonia and Thrace’, Prähistorische Zeitschrift, XLII, 30.Google Scholar
Galbenu, D., 1962. ‘Aşezarea neoliticǎ de la Hîrşova’, SCIV, XIII, 285.Google Scholar
Galović, R., 1959. Predionica, Neolitsko Naselje Kod Priština.Google Scholar
Galović, R., 1962. ‘Zelenikovo’, Zbornik Narodnog Museia u Beogradu, V, 127.Google Scholar
Garašanin, D., 1951. Hronologija Vinčanske Grupe.Google Scholar
Garašanin, M. V., 1958. ‘Neolithikum und Bronzezeit in Serbien und Makedonien’, Bericht des Römisch-Germanisch Kommission, 39, 1.Google Scholar
Garašanin, M. V., 1961. ‘The Neolithic in Anatolia and the Balkans,’ Antiquity, XXXV, 276.Google Scholar
Garašanin, M. V., 1965. ‘Considerations sur les influences sudorientales dans les civilizations préhistoriques des Balkans’, Revue des Études sud-est Européennes, 1, 5.Google Scholar
Gaul, J. H., 1942. ‘Possibility of prehistoric metallurgy in the east Balkan peninsula’, American Journal of Archaeology, XLVI, 400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaul, J. H., 1948. The Neolithic Period in Bulgaria (Bull. Am. Sch. Preh. Res. 16).Google Scholar
Georgiev, G. I., 1958. ‘Über einige Produktionswerkzeuge aus dem Neolithikum und Äneolithikum in Bulgarien’, Studia in Honorem Acad. D. Decev (Sofia), 369.Google Scholar
Georgiev, G. I., 1959. ‘Über die Datierung der prähistorische Siedlung bei Madara, Kreis Kolarovgrad’, IAI, XXII, 29.Google Scholar
Georgiev, G. I., 1961. ‘Kulturgruppen der Jungsteinzeit und Kupferzeit in der Ebene von Thrazien’, in Soudsky, B. and Plesova, E. (eds.), L'Europe à la Fin de l'age de la Pierre, 45.Google Scholar
Georgiev, G. I., 1962. ‘Azmashkata moghila krai Stara Zagora’, Archaeologiya, IV, 64.Google Scholar
Georgiev, G. I., 1965. ‘The Azmak Mound in southern Bulgaria’, Antiquity, XXXIX, 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Georgiev, G. I. and Angelov, N., 1957. ‘Ausgrabungen an der Sidelungshügel bei Russe’, IAI, XXI, 41.Google Scholar
Georgiev, G. I. and Merpert, N. I., 1965. ‘Raskopki Mnogosloinogo Poselniya … 1963’, IAI, XXVIII, 129.Google Scholar
Georgiev, G. I. and Merpert, N. I., 1966. ‘The Ezero Mound in south-east Bulgaria’, Antiquity, XL, 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gimbutas, M., 1965a. ‘The relative chronology of Neolithic and Chalcolithic cultures of eastern Europe’, in Ehrich, , 1965, 459.Google Scholar
Gimbutas, M., 1965b. Bronze Age Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glišić, J., 1964. ‘Stratigraphie der Vinča Gruppe Siedlung bei der Spinnerei in Priština’, Glasnik Muzeja Kosova i Metohije, VII–VIII, 11.Google Scholar
Grbić, M., 1929. Pločnik.Google Scholar
Grbić, M., 1956. ‘Retention der Starčevo Kultur’, Archaeologia Iugoslavica, II, 1.Google Scholar
Hillebrand, J., 1929. ‘Über die Bedeutung des altkupferzeitlichen Bodrogkeresztur Kulturkreises’, Wiener Prähistorische Zeitschrift, 16, 8.Google Scholar
Hole, F. and Flannery, K. V., 1967. ‘The prehistory of south-west Iran, a preliminary report’, PPS, XXXIII, 147.Google Scholar
Kalicz, N., 1963. Die Péceler (Badener) Kultur und Anatolien.Google Scholar
Kohl, G. and Quitta, H., 1966. ‘Berlin Radiocarbon Measurements II’, Radiocarbon, 8, 27.Google Scholar
Kohler, E. L. and Ralph, E. K., 1961. ‘C-14 dates for sites in the Mediterranean area’, American Journal of Archaeology, 65, 359.Google Scholar
Lamb, W., 1936. Excavations at Thermi in Lesbos.Google Scholar
Lloyd, S. and Mellaart, J., 1962. Beycesultan, 1.Google Scholar
Margos, A. and Toncheva, G., 1962. ‘La cité lacustre préhistorique au village d'Ezerovo arr. de Varna’, Izvestiya na Varnenskoto Archeologischesko Druzhestvo, XIII, 1.Google Scholar
Mellaart, J., 1960. ‘Anatolia and the Balkans’, Antiquity, XXXIV, 270.Google Scholar
Mellaart, J., 1964. ‘Excavations at Çatal Hüyük 1963’, Anatolian Studies, 14.Google Scholar
Merpert, N. I., 1961. ‘L'Énéolithique dans la zone steppique de la partie Européenne de l'URSS’, in Soudsky, B. and Plesova, E. (eds.), L'Europe à la Fin de l'Age de la Pierre, 176.Google Scholar
Merpert, N. I., 1966. ‘Rannii Bronzovii Vek Yozhnoi Bolgarii’, Communications de la Délégation Sovietique au Premier Congrès des Études Balkaniques, Sofia.Google Scholar
Mikov, V., 1939a. ‘Tell près du village de Veselinovo’, IAI, XIII, 195.Google Scholar
Mikov, V., 1939b. ‘Les fouilles du tell près du village de Yunatsite’, Annuaire de la Bibliotheque et du Musée National de Plovdiv, 1937–9, 55.Google Scholar
Mikov, V., 1948. ‘Fouilles du site prehistorique près de Michailitch’, Raskopi i Prouchvaniya, 1, 7.Google Scholar
Mikov, V., 1961. ‘Haches-pioches en Bulgarie’, Izsledovaniya v Patnet na Karel Shkorpil (Sofia), 369.Google Scholar
Milojčič, V., 1949a. ‘South-eastern elements in the prehistory of Serbia’, Annual of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, XLIV, 258.Google Scholar
Milojčič, V., 1949b. Chronologie der jüngeren Steinzeit Mittel-und Südosteuropas.Google Scholar
Milojčič, V., 1965. ‘Die Tontafeln von Tartaria und die absolute Chronologie des mitteleuropäischen Neolithikums’, Germania, XLIII, 261.Google Scholar
Nandris, J. G., 1968. ‘Lepenski Vir’, Science Journal, January 1968, 64.Google Scholar
Nemejcová-Pavúková, V., 1966. ‘Zur relativen Chronologie des Äneolithikums in Mittel- und Südosteruropa’, Germania, 44, 234.Google Scholar
Nestor, I., 1955. ‘La metallurgie du cuivre et du bronze en Roumanie’, Nouvelles Études d'Histoire, 1955.Google Scholar
Neustupný, E., 1968a. ‘The Tartaria tablets’, Antiquity, XLIII, 32.Google Scholar
Neustupný, E., 1968b. ‘Absolute chronology of the Neolithic and Aeneolithic periods in central and south-eastern Europe’, Slovenska Archeologia, XIV, 19.Google Scholar
Otto, H. and Witter, W., 1952. Handbuch der Älteren Vorgeschichtlichen Metallurgie in Mitteleuropa.Google Scholar
Passer, T. S., 1961. ‘Problèmes de l'Énéolithique de sud-ouest de l'Europe occidentale’, in Soudsky, B. and Plesova, E. (eds.), L'Europe à la Fin de l'Age de la Pierre, 148.Google Scholar
Patay, P., Kimmer, Z., Szabo, Z., and Sinay, G., 1963. ‘Spektrographische und metallographische Untersuchungen kupfer- und frühbronzezeitliche Funde’, Acta Archaeologica Hungarica, 15, 37.Google Scholar
Petkov, N., 1950. ‘Classification des idoles plates en os de la civilisation énéolithique balkano-danubienne’, GNAMP, II, 25.Google Scholar
Pittioni, R., 1957. ‘Urzeitlicher Bergbau auf Kupfererz und Spuren-analyse’, Archaeologia Austriaca Beiheft 1.Google Scholar
Popović, V., 1965. ‘Une civilization égéo-orientale sur le moyen Danube’, Revue Archéologique, Juillet-September 1965, 1.Google Scholar
Quitta, H., 1967. ‘The C-14 chronology of the central and south-east European Neolithic’, Antiquity, XLI, 263.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1964. ‘Crete and the Cyclades before Rhadamanthus’, Kretika Chronika, 18, 107.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1967a. ‘Cycladic metallurgy and the Aegean Early Bronze Age’, American Journal of Archaeology, 71, 1.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1967b. ‘Colonialism and Megalithismus’, Antiquity, XLI, 276.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1968a. ‘Greek Neolithic—backward or precocious?’, Current Archaeology, March 1968.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1968b. ‘Wessex without Mycenae’, Annual of the British School of Archaeology of Athens, 63.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., 1969. ‘The chronology and classification of the Early Cycladic figurines’, American Journal of Archaeology, 73, 1.Google Scholar
Renfrew, C., Cann, J. R. and Dixon, J. E.Obsidian in the Aegean’, Annual of the British School of Archaeology at Athens, 60, 225.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, C. F. A., 1949. Ugaritica, II (Mission de Ras Shamra II).Google Scholar
Schmidt, H., 1903. ‘Tordos’, Zeitschrift für Ethnographie, 1903, 438.Google Scholar
Schmidt, R. R., 1945. Die Burg Vučedol.Google Scholar
Sergeev, T. P., 1963. ‘Early Tripolje hoard in the village of Karbuna’, Sovietskaya Archaeologyia, 1, 135.Google Scholar
Srejović, D., 1963, ‘Versuch einer historischen Wertung der Vinča-Gruppe’, Archaeologia Iugoslavica, IV, 5.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. and Suess, H. E., 1966. ‘On the relationship between Radiocarbon dates and true sample ages’, Radiocarbon, 8, 534.Google Scholar
Suess, H. E., 1967. ‘Bristlecone Pine calibration of the Radiocarbon time scale from 4100 B.C. to 1500 B.C.’, Radioactive Dating and Methods of Low Level Counting (International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna), 143.Google Scholar
Todorović, J., and Cermanović, A., 1961. Banitsa, Siedlung der Vinča Gruppe.Google Scholar
Tsountas, C., 1908. Ai Proistorikai Akropoleis Dhiminiou kai Sesklou.Google Scholar
Vajsova, H., 1966. ‘Stand der Jungsteinzeitforschung in Bulgarien’, Slovenská Archaeologiya, XIV, 5.Google Scholar
Venedikov, I., 1965. Les Trésors d'Art des Terres Bulgares.Google Scholar
Vlassa, N., 1963. ‘Chronology of the Neolithic in Transylvania in the light of the Tartaria settlement stratigraphy’, Dacia, VII, 1.Google Scholar
Vulpe, A., 1964. ‘Sur la chronologie des haches doubles en cuivre a tranchets opposés’, SCIV, XV, 443.Google Scholar
Weinberg, S. S., 1962. ‘Excavations at prehistoric Elateia 1959’, Hesperia, XXXI, 158.Google Scholar
Wertime, T. A., 1964. ‘Man's first encounters with metallurgy’, Science, 146, 1257.Google Scholar