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A Contribution to the Understanding of Decorative Art on Coarse Pottery in the Starčevo Settlement at Galovo in Slavonski Brod
Kornelija Minichreiter
Sažetak
In the settlements of the oldest prehistoric cultures, the production of clay vessels was the most common, therefore around 90% of unearthed archaeological artifacts in the settlements of the Starčevo culture - the first Pannonian earthenware culture - accounts for various clay vessels. Categorizing by style or chronology according to cultures or their developmental stages within the Neolithic is only possible on the basis of earthenware production, and an analysis of the decorations - the oldest messages on vessels - facilitates a closer insight into the thoughts and the spiritual life of these cultures.
The first containers for carrying and preserving food were probably wickerwork baskets. They were used to carry different fruits, shells, and fish, and basketry was also applied in fishing (wickerwork fish traps). In the settlement, thinner and thicker branches were woven and fastened onto round logs serving as fences around courtyards, cult facilities and burial ritual areas. Fences formed of closely set rows of round logs were fastened in the bottom by a coating of a layer (normally few centimetres thick) of clay - Slavonski Brod “Galovo” (MINICHREITER, 2001a, 207-210). A similar technical method was applied in kiln construction in the settlement. On the outer part of the construction of wickerwork and thinner branches, an approximately 5 centimetre thick layer of clay was pasted and then fired, so that the marks of the wooden construction are visible on the interior sides of the kiln. Cylindrical kilns in Zadubravlje (MINICHREITER, 1992a, 40, Fig. 2), the elongated kilns in Slavonski Brod “Galovo” (MINICHREITER, 1999, 15, Fig. 8) and in the Starčevo settlement “Gođevo” in the vicinity of Jaruge were constructed in this way. Wickerwork baskets could not hold water, therefore their inside was coated with clay (KARMANSKI, 2000, 650). Clay was only sun-dried and it leaked - this was the pre-ceramic Neolithicum (BENAC, GARAŠANIN, SREJOVIĆ, 1979, 25). Wickerwork baskets were kept near the fireplace and the first clay vessel was fired by accidentally catching fire (KARMANSKI, 2000, 652). At the Donja Branjevina site in the layer II, fragments of semi-round bowls were unearthed with imprints of wickerwork baskets on their outside (DIMITRIJEVIĆ, 1974, 83, T. II; KARMANSKI 1979, T. LXII, 5; ibid, 2000, 652, T. CXCIII, 1-3, T. CXIV, 1). Presumably in the beginning vessels were made in this way, and after some experience was gained they were produced exclusively of clay with an admixture of chaff or small grains of sand. The art of making vessels was handed down, and because of poor production quality and frequent breaking of the vessels each settlement had its own kiln. Earthenware production gradually improved and local potters imitated the fashionable styles of pottery decoration, developing their own creations simultaneously. Because of the large amount of moveable archaeological goods unearthed in the course of five years of digs at Galovo in Slavonski Brod (on the Sava River, northern Croatia), in this paper we concentrate particularly on the decorative art on coarse vessels, without analysing the shape of the vessels or their statistical processing. The techniques of decorating coarse vessels can be classified into four groups: incising, impressing, stitching and sculpturing. The technique of incising (Fig. 4.,1-4) encompasses motifs on coarse vessels produced by an instrument - a wooden stick or a pointed bone. Motifs incised in this way can be made in very thin lines or broader and deeper lines, resulting in accented rims. In the vessels three different motifs appear: vertical incised marks, incised parallel lines and incised thin lines. According to S. Dimitrijević, vessels were decorated in the incision technique in all phases of the Starčevo culture, from Linear A up until the end of Spiraloid B (DIMITRIJEVIĆ, 1974, 67). This stylistic analysis is endorsed by the sites in Zadubravlje and Slavonski Brod containing motifs with their closest analogies in Donja Branjevina, stratum III’ and II’, Lepenski Vir IIIa and Starčevo IIa. Impressing is a broadly disseminated decorative technique (Fig. 4., 5-9) consisting in impressing fingertips or nail ends into wet and soft clay on the entire surface of pots and bowls. It occurs as early as the Linear A phase and belongs to the impresso ornaments group. Motifs made by pinching with two fingers are distributed on vessel sides in three ways: in vertical sets of pinched samples placed in certain intervals; in horizontal sets of motifs alternately pinched with two fingers; or randomly on the entire surface of the vessel’s belly. On the basis of former research results, Dimitrijević classified these sorts of impresso ornaments only as belonging to the last developmental stage of the Starčevo culture, Spiraloid B (DIMITRIJEVIĆ, 1974, 67), but more recent research has shown that coarse vessels were decorated with this technique from Linear A through all the developmental stages of this culture. Ornaments applied by a narrow stick with a round cross section in the technique of stitching (Fig. 5., 1-3) are extraordinarily exceptional. Out of several thousands of fragments of vessels in the unearthed part of the settlement in Slavonski Brod, only two vessels were decorated with this technique. On one vessel the stitches are distributed randomly on the entire surface of the belly, whereas on the other vessel - a ball-shaped pot with an S profile and a curved neck - a stylised figure, conceivably of a bird, was represented in the technique of stitching. Keeping in mind the small number of unearthed specimens for the time being we may conclude that this decoration technique was applied on vessels in the Linear A, Spiraloid A and B stages. The technique of sculpturing (Fig. 6, 7) offered a broad range of motifs, which were shaped in two ways: by appliqués in the shape of a knob or by relief bands with fingerprints. An extraordinarily beautiful example of decorating vessels in the sculpturing technique is a relief of a female figure with hands raised in prayer-position, made with relief bands with fingerprints (Fig. 7); up to the present this is a unique example in the Starčevo settlement at Slavonski Brod (MINICHREITER, 2000, 5-15, Fig. 1).
This analysis of decorative art in coarse pottery of the Starčevo settlement at Galovo in Slavonski Brod is made possible by the release of numerous mobile archaeological artefacts unearthed in the five-year dig. Even though only a small part of pottery finds have been processed, the characteristics of decorative styles and the shapes of vessels, which show great similarity to Zadubravlje, classify Galovo in Slavonski Brod as belonging to the early developmental stage of the Starčevo culture - Linear A (according to S. Dimitrijević).
Analyses of vessels made with more or less skill at a time when the firing of clay vessels had only just begun have shown that the decoration of vessels was multivalent.
- Decorating surfaces with barbotine appliqués had a practical function as well, it did not serve merely as ornamentation.
Large pots had a smooth surface and therefore small pieces of clay of flat, irregular shapes were pasted on the sides of their bellies for easier carrying. Double or triple knobs were pasted onto large pots, holding the ropes on which the vessels used to hang.
- Remains of wickerwork baskets are visible on the outside of some clay vessels, indicating that the earlier tradition of production of certain kinds of clay vessels in the rudimentary way - a wickerwork basket coated with clay on the inside - lasted up into the Linear A stage. A sculpted ear or an ear impresso mostly recall stylised imitations of wickerwork baskets.
- The third kind of decoration - which is the most difficult to decipher - are symbolic messages or notes on vessels. Thus the motif of an ear impresso actually recalls grain ears, suggesting that these pots served as containers for cereals. A stylised female figurine on large pots is presumably a symbol of fertility - the magna mater, suggesting that these pots served for cult rites.
We can only conjecture on the actual meaning of the messages “written” on vessels by the first farmers. Although at first it might appear simple and easily accessible, the interpretation of vessel ornaments is a highly complex problem. If we want to understand the thought world of the population of that time, the interpretation of vessel ornaments cannot be limited only to explaining the motifs and techniques of their production. Obviously the outer surface form was of two different kinds: one kind of vessel was decorated for practical purposes, whereas ornaments on the other kind of vessel had a deeper meaning - they were the oldest written evidence left by the first populations of their way of thinking, expressed in symbols, on the experience of life as a continuous increase of their own awareness. For the first agricultural populations, their understanding of natural phenomena, their perception of seasonal changes, as well as their observation of the animal behaviour (the beginning of the domestication) were of crucial importance to their survival. The vicinity of deities (symbolic figurines in houses and reliefs on vessels) as well as certain cult practices are the oldest and the most mysterious way of expressing the primordial need to attain the best possible understanding and closeness with nature, which they felt as a constituent part of themselves, aware that their survival depended upon it.
Ključne riječi
Neolithic; early Starčevo culture; Linear A; coarse pottery; decorations; Slavonski Brod; northern Croatia
Hrčak ID:
786
URI
Datum izdavanja:
16.6.2003.
Posjeta: 3.233 *