Tsoni Tsonev

The present study is based on Session AR16 entitled: 'Interpreting the Archaeological Record: GIS' held at the EAA conference in Glasgow, 2015. The particularity of the session was that each presentation asked particular questions, such as: (i) how a built space of a single settlement talks to its visitors; (ii) how the monumentality of megaliths is perceived in the field by observers both past and present in relation to their visual reproductions; (iii) how large archaeological spatial data can be managed with GIS so that they become visualized and made available for ongoing and future studies; (iv) how partial and incomplete archaeological spatial data can be analyzed properly and provide coherent interpretations. The answers to these and related questions are not straightforward. Insights are borrowed from various disciplines related to the theory of mind, psychological reactions to built environment, cognition, and art. These involve technically informed studies such as GIS and multi-dimensional statistics. This wider problematic requires from participants in the session capabilities of proper way of representation of archaeological spatial data, analytical inquiry, and theoretically informed interpretation. From this point of view the disparity of the examples in this joint paper provide a vantage point that shows the necessity of developing these different topics together for any archaeological research scheme and interpretation of already acquired data.

The present study is based on Session AR16 entitled: ‘Interpreting the Archaeological Record: GIS’ held at the EAA conference in Glasgow, 2015. The particularity of the session was that each presentation asked particular questions, such as: (i) how a built space of a single settlement talks to its visitors; (ii) how the monu- mentality of megaliths is perceived in the field by observers both past and present in relation to their visual reproductions; (iii) how large archaeological spatial data can be managed with GIS so that they become visual- ized and made available for on-going and future studies; (iv) how partial and incomplete archaeological spatial data can be analyzed properly and provide coherent interpretations.
The answers to these and related questions are not straightforward. Insights are borrowed from various dis- ciplines related to the theory of mind, psychological reactions to built environment, cognition, and art. These involve technically informed studies such as GIS and multi-dimensional statistics. This wider problematic re- quires from participants in the session capabilities of proper way of representation of archaeological spatial data, analytical inquiry, and theoretically informed interpretation. From this point of view the disparity of the examples in this joint paper provide a vantage point that shows the necessity of developing these different top- ics together for any archaeological research scheme and interpretation of already acquired data.

From the Alps to central Europe (Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary


In Moravia, the presence of several jadeitite axeheads has been known since the 1880s. However, it was not until the 1970s that any sustained attention was paid to them, and this was when new examples were identified in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, in the south-west corner of ‘the Europe of copper’. As part of JADE2, a specific research project was undertaken in the south-eastern part of central Europe, as a result of which the total number of Alpine imports has now risen to 66. Their detailed description can be found in Annexe 17

Within the study region, the spatial distribution of these objects is far from random. One can distinguish between the following: Alpine Austria and the foothills of the Alps to the south of the Danube, where discoveries are few and widely dispersed; a ‘Czech’ group, with a marked concentration in lower Austria and in the east of the Czech Republic; and finally a ‘Hungarian group’, which essentially covers the west of that country and the south of Slovakia.   

The findspot contexts all appear to belong to the early phase of the Lengyel culture (and the Painted Pottery culture in Moravia), and to date to the period 4900/4800–4600/4500 BC, to judge from the relative chronology of ceramic styles and the radiocarbon dates for Friebritz-Süd (Austria) and Alsónyék-Bátaszék (Hungary).

The hoard of seven large axeheads of Bégude type from Villach/Kanzianiberg (Austria) is a special case because, as its location at the south of the chain of the Alps suggests, it may be related directly to a tradition of the Square-Mouthed Pottery culture, phases I–II. This hoard has no equivalent in the south-east part of central Europe.

Spectroradiometric analyses show that the raw materials of these imported items are essentially jadeitites and jadeititic omphacitites, of high aesthetic and mechanical quality, while the use of eclogites had been more sporadic. Independent analyses (through measurement of specific gravity, examination of petrological thin sections, XRD, EPMA and SEM-EDX) have produced similar results.

Using the JADE reference collection of raw material samples of Alpine jades, spectroradiometric analysis and the study of specific macroscopic characteristics have allowed us to identify the Mont Viso massif as the principal source of the jades; items made from rocks from Mont Beigua form only a low proportion of the total. The hypothesis that the route travelled was through Slovakia and Croatia, rather than via the Alpine cols between Italy and Austria, seems to be the most plausible interpretation, given the very sparse distribution of jade polished blades in the Alpine region of Austria.

A typological and mineralogical comparison between the series of Alpine axe- and adze-heads found in north-east Italy (with the reference site being Pozzuolo del Friuli/Sammardenchia) and the two ‘Czech’ and ‘Hungarian’ geographical groups demonstrates that there had been a very strong selection process operating, with preference being accorded to jadeitites and to jadeititic omphacitites in the latter regions while most of the Italian examples are of eclogite. There had also been a selection on the basis of size, with small and medium-sized blades travelling further, and in larger numbers, than the longest ones – with the exception of the large axehead found at Bystročice in the Czech Republic.

Moreover, the adze-heads made of Alpine jades that were imported to the study region seem to have undergone specific treatment. Some were re-shaped into trapezoidal form in order to conform to regional norms of hafting, while others were repolished in order to resharpen and flatten the blades to make them thinner. There was also re-use of the butt-ends of the thickest broken adze-heads. All the adze-heads were carefully polished, although never to the level of a glassy sheen. These various modifications are unusual within the broader world of Alpine jade use and, along with examples from Bulgaria, would appear to constitute a practice that is characteristic of ‘the Europe of copper’.

Even though the finest Alpine jades had almost invariably been selected, it remains the case that the axe- and adze-heads of these materials were used for felling trees and working wood, as is clear from use-wear traces. Above all we are dealing with workaday tools that were used within a domestic context, in settlements. There may also have been a ceremonial use in multiple-ditched enclosures, although this remains to be demonstrated. However, their very small number when compared to all the polished stone tools made from regionally-available rock means that they could not have been available to every man.

The Alpine jade axe- and adze-heads that have been found in funerary contexts at Friebritz (Austria) and at Zengővárkony and Alsónyék-Bátaszék (Hungary) help to shed light on the social function of these tools in the south-eastern part of central Europe. In each case they were associated with remarkably rich graves, even though not every rich grave contained such an object. The Alpine jade tools would thus appear to be one of several status markers for men in positions of dominance within markedly inegalitarian societies. 

In conclusion, the importation of polished blades made from Alpine jades to the study region, as in Bulgaria, would seem to have begun with the general expansion of Alpine products around 4900/4800 BC – at a time before the emergence of a social and religious ‘Europe of copper’. At the same time, this expansion in all directions is attested as much in France as it is in southern Italy. However, in the Lengyel culture, the social function of jade tools, as one of several markers of individual status, was already completely different from that of their counterparts in western Europe, where jade axe- and adze-heads rapidly became part of ritual paraphernalia, and were used in the expression of religious beliefs, as seen most strikingly in the Gulf of Morbihan.

Finally, imports to the south-east of Europe quickly dried up, probably a little before the middle of the fifth millennium, when large numbers of object-signs made of copper, together with specific religious concepts, were adopted within this geographic and cultural area.

The paper describes an innovative approach to the process of creating a novel GIS for analyses and protection
of archaeological heritage of Bulgaria. Firstly, it describes in brief the appearance and evolution of the electronic
database for registration and documentation of archaeological sites and monuments known as ‘Archaeological
Map of Bulgaria’ (AMB). Secondly, it gives details about the existing legal framework under which the novel
information system and the methods for fieldwork have to be conducted. The imposed by it technical
requirements and public obligations entail development of an innovative analytical technique for assessment of
the threats of destruction of archaeological heritage. In order to meet these high expectations we suggest a
Bayesian statistical approach that incorporates the spatial results obtained from terrain surveys and highprecision
registration and documentation techniques into one process of generating key information about the
existing threats of destruction of archeological sites in a given region. This procedure is synchronized with the
novel methods for fieldwork which are also described briefly. Last but not least the basic functionality and
characteristics of the GIS-based Information System are described, including its logic and mode of operation.

It has long been recognised that, in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Europe, there existed a kind of ‘mirror image’ between Carnac and the Gulf of Morbihan in the west and Varna in the east. Around the middle of the Vfth millennium BC, these two areas display a remarkable wealth in their funerary assemblages (with jade and va-riscite being used in the west and gold and copper in the east), and they also shared some social concepts, fea-turing a marked degree of social inequality, expressed through symbols of violence and of power, curved throwing weapons, sceptres and axes.
As part of Projet JADE, a recent expedition to study and analyse artefacts in the museums of Bulgaria has resulted in the recognition of a fine set of axeheads made from jadeitite, of omphacitite and of eclogite. These had previously been identified, incorrectly, as being of serpentinites of Bulgarian origin. We shall try to demonstrate that these axeheads had, in all probability, been imported over a long distance, originating in the high Italian Alps, from the Beigua region and from Mont Viso to a lesser degree.
The artefacts in question - which essentially consist of polished axeheads and small tranchet axeheads - have come from three types of context.
The first comprises several of the graves in the cemeteries at Varna I and II and at Durankulak. One of the most spectacular tombs is Grave 43 in Varna I, one of the richest in the Varna cemeteries, with almost a kilo of gold (around a sixth of all of the gold found at Varna) ; two jadeitite axeheads had been placed between the legs of the corpse. In total, twelve axeheads and small adze-heads of probable Alpine rock have been identified at Varna and Durankulak, both sites lying on the coast of the Black Sea.
The second context is the settlement. Just two jade axe-head are known, one from the tell at Karanovo - and it comes from the base of Layer VI (late Chalcolithic) - and a second from Nevski. However, nothing is known of their find circumstances, so it is unclear whether we are dealing with a domestic site or a sanctuary.
The third context type is the hoard. Around 31 axeheads, both large and small, have been found in hoards, deposited flat. Three come from the Orlovets hoard. In the case of the Svoboda hoard, 28 axeheads are offficially recorded, but there are signs that the original number could have been higher. At Svoboda there was one axehead of Bégude type, one of classical Chelles type, eight of Chelles type that had been repolished, seven of Durrington type, four of Varna type and seven small triangular or trapezoidal adze-heads. This number of axe-heads makes Svoboda the most important hoard in the whole of Europe. The typological range suggests a date just after the middle of the fifth millennium BC, and this accords with the proposed date for Varna II and the Late Chalcolithic.
As for the axeheads from Varna II, these allow us to sug-gest a date around 4600 BC at least for the earliest imports of Alpine axeheads.
This previously unpublished evidence for the eastwards circulation of axeheads over more than 1 700 km needs to be discussed in relation to the discovery of Alpine axeheads in Croatia. It appears that Mont Viso and the Beigua massif occupied a central position in the diffusion of Alpine axeheads (through repeated contacts) across a vast swathe of Europe, from Carnac to Varna.