Chapters by Đurđa Obradović
N. Miladinović-Radmilović and S. Vitezović (eds.) Bioarchaeology in the Balkans: Balance and Perspectives, 2013
The paper summarises archaeobotanical research in Serbia, more specifically, the analysis of plan... more The paper summarises archaeobotanical research in Serbia, more specifically, the analysis of plant remains from Neolithic sites and deposits (c. 6200-4500 cal BC). It offers an overview of the type of material analysed (macro- and micro-remains) and the relevant literature, and describes the charred plant assemblages in terms of the recovery method, the archaeological context, and the identified crop and wild taxa. Certain past and present methodological issues and problems regarding archaeobotanical analysis in Serbia are recognised, and the ‘usefulness’ of the obtained results for archaeological interpretations and reconstructions discussed.""
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Papers by Đurđa Obradović
Integration of Archaeological Heritage Interpretation into Practice, 2022
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Quaternary, 2022
Agriculture is a complex and dynamic socio-ecological system shaped by environmental, economic, a... more Agriculture is a complex and dynamic socio-ecological system shaped by environmental, economic, and social factors. The crop resource pool is its key component and one that best reflects environmental limitations and socio-economic concerns of the farmers. This pertains in particular to small-scale subsistence production, as was practised by Neolithic farmers. We investigated if and how the environment and cultural complexes shaped the spectrum and diversity of crops cultivated by Neolithic farmers in the central-western Balkans and on the Hungarian Plain. We did so by exploring patterns in crop diversity between biogeographical regions and cultural complexes using multivariate statistical analyses. We also examined the spectrum of wild-gathered plant resources in the same way. We found that the number of species in Neolithic plant assemblages is correlated with sampling intensity (the number and volume of samples), but that this applies to all archaeological cultures. Late Neolithi...
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Animal Husbandry and Hunting in the Central and Western Balkans Through Time, 2020
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Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 2018
This paper presents and evaluates the archaeobotanical and archaeological evidence of plant produ... more This paper presents and evaluates the archaeobotanical and archaeological evidence of plant product storage from Early and Late Neolithic sites in Serbia, southeast Europe. The commonly stated and widely accepted archaeological evidence of storage in the region includes ceramic pots, clay bins and pits. However, as shown in our study, the archaeobotanical evidence does not always support the interpretation of these structures and objects as plant storage containers, as it is often of secondary origin and composed of discarded plant material such as by-products of plant use. On the other hand, the available botanical record points to some other possible ways of storing plant products, such as in perishable containers that do not normally survive archaeologically in this part of the world. Although limited, the combined evidence indicates variability in plant storage practices and solutions within the cultural phenomena associated with the Neolithic Starčevo and Vinča cultures of the region. For instance, plant storage in large clay pots was noted at some of the sites, and in clay bins at others. Also, different structures and features may have been used for storing crop products, whilst wild plants seem to have been kept in perishable and/or small ceramic containers. A further impression is that finds of the same plant (type) in different containers may reflect different stages in processing.
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This paper addresses the issue of Neolithic settlement patterns in the middle Morava Valley in re... more This paper addresses the issue of Neolithic settlement patterns in the middle Morava Valley in relation to pedological features and proposed models of agriculture. The paper has two aims: 1) to test the hypothesis about the differences between the Early/Middle and Late Neolithic in the
criteria used for the establishment of settlements according to pedological features 2) to answer the question whether there was significant preference toward some soil type in Early/Middle and in Late Neolithic. In order to answer these questions method of statistical analysis (chi squared test) was applied. The analysis showed preference towards brown forest soil in both periods, although this preference was proved to be statistically important only in the test for the Early/Middle Neolithic. The results do not oppose the hypothesis that the lighter soils were preferred in the Early/Middle Neolithic, but they do not indicate drastic change and wider exploitation of heavier soil types in the Late Neolithic.
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Within the project aimed at rescuing the archaeological heritage along the newly constructed rout... more Within the project aimed at rescuing the archaeological heritage along the newly constructed route of highway E75, development-led excavations were conducted at the site of Pavlovac-Gumnište near Vranje. Over the excavation season, the eastern edge of the Neolithic settlement was investigated. The large size of the excavated area (2400 m2) offered an opportunity to examine the complex horizontal and vertical stratigraphy. The investigations revealed that Pavlovac-Gumnište is a multi-layered Neolithic site composed of a Starčevo culture layer and at least two subsequent Vinča culture occupation horizons.
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Poster presentations by Đurđa Obradović
19th Conference of the International Workgroup for Palaeoethnobotany, 2022
Agronomic studies emphasise that agriculture is modelled by different groups of factors that form... more Agronomic studies emphasise that agriculture is modelled by different groups of factors that form complex and dynamic socio-ecological systems of agricultural production. Biological by nature, this form of production is influenced by natural environment, many aspects of which are not under farmer’s control, such as, for instance, species suitability, (micro-)regional climate, pests and diseases. Farming decisions are further shaped by economic goals, including ensuring dietary sustenance and generating income. Finally, agricultural activities are embedded in the social contexts created and reproduced by the farming households and societies.
This presentation is concerned with plant-based agricultural production in the Neolithic in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. It observes how crop cultivation practices varied between the settlements and how they changed through the c. 1700-year long period (6200-4500 BC). Two transformational developments punctuate this sequence: (1) transmission in the late 7th millennium BC of the Early Neolithic farming practices northwards from the Aegean and into the continental parts of the Balkan Peninsula. We track adaptations that these practices underwent, as evidence of adjustment to local environments and climate; such adaptations underpinned creation of the regional socio-economic context known as the Starčevo culture; (2) emergence of a new socio-economic context, the Vinča culture, in the 2nd half of the 6th millennium BC, accompanied by new pottery technology and settlement pattern, an apparent increase in the population size, and followed by the beginning of extractive metallurgy at the turn of the millennia.
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18th Conference of the International Workgroup for Palaeoethnobotany, 2019
Einkorn, emmer and 'new type' wheat constituted the hulled/glume wheat repertoire in prehistory o... more Einkorn, emmer and 'new type' wheat constituted the hulled/glume wheat repertoire in prehistory of the central Balkans. Additionally, spelt wheat was tentatively reported for few Neolithic sites; more substantial and more secure record of this type derives from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age sites. Based on the current evidence, 'new type' glume wheat is rare in the Neolithic assemblages from this region. Usually, only small amounts of grain and/or glume bases are detected in the deposits dominated by einkorn or emmer. It seems that, in the very early days of prehistoric farming in the Balkans, 'new type' glume wheat was only a random, accidental accompaniment to the staple crop – a 'sideliner'. This may have changed in the Bronze Age, if judging by the more frequent presence of this wheat type in the analysed assemblages, and the large, high-density deposit of pure 'new type' glume wheat (grain+chaff) derived from the Late Bronze Age layer at Feudvar, northern Serbia. The Bronze Age was the time when some other crops were introduced in, or became more prominent components of, the cultivated crop spectrum – not only in the Balkans, but across Europe. This likely had multiple ramifications to the farming economy. Our poster discusses the apparent shift through time in the economic role of 'new type' glume wheat in the prehistoric central Balkans and how this articulated with other coeval developments in the agrarian system.
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17th Conference of the International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany, 2016
A number of Late Neolithic Vinča culture settlements (c. 5400-4650/ 4550 cal BC) has been registe... more A number of Late Neolithic Vinča culture settlements (c. 5400-4650/ 4550 cal BC) has been registered and investigated in the territory of Serbia. Plant remains (seed/fruit/chaff) have been collected only at a fraction of them and just a handful of sites included some form of archaeobotanical sampling (as opposed to hand-collection of visible charred remains). The differences in field- and laboratory methods inevitably limit the potential for comparisons between the sampled and non-sampled sites. By comparing the like-with-like, however, it is still possible to draw some valid inferences and conclusions about certain aspects of plant use at these sites. Here we focus on three specific types of archaeological contexts present at the majority of the analysed sites: in situ burnt crop storage deposits; deposits from, or directly associated with, fire installations; and crop-rich deposits in rubbish pits. Our aim is to explore the nature of crop storage and discard of crop processing by-products over the period and across a wider region. The paper presents and cross-compares the botanical content of these deposits and uses the observations to discuss differences and similarities between the sites in the choice of stored/consumed crops and in the disposal of crop processing by-products. Implications for, and relevance to, other known aspects of life at the sites are briefly discussed.
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Conference Presentations by Đurđa Obradović
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Exhibitions by Đurđa Obradović
The exhibition marks the ERC’s 10th anniversary and was organised in 2017 by the first ERC-funded... more The exhibition marks the ERC’s 10th anniversary and was organised in 2017 by the first ERC-funded project in Serbia (BIRTH: Birth, mothers and babies: prehistoric fertility in the Balkans 10000–5000 BC; PI Sofija Stefanovic) and the BioSense Institute in Novi Sad, Vojvodina. The displayed objects included artefacts collected from Neolithic sites in Serbia and Macedonia, as well as selected Neolithic botanical and faunal remains.
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The Balkans, peer-reviewed by Đurđa Obradović
Valamoti, S.M., Dimoula, A., Ntinou, M. (eds.) Cooking with plants in ancient Europe and beyond: Interdisciplinary approaches to the archaeology of plant foods. Sidestone Press, 2022
This paper takes a long-term perspective and looks at the development of plant food economies fro... more This paper takes a long-term perspective and looks at the development of plant food economies from the Neolithic through to the Bronze Age (6300‑1000 BC) in the central and western parts of the continental Balkans (southeast Europe), more specifically – the territories of Serbia,*Kosovo(1), and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It does this by overviewing the archaeobotanical evidence of crop growing from sites archaeologically dated to the selected timespan. Farming started in the region with the cultivation of at least six crop species early in the Neolithic. Through time, the range grew steadily as new species were taken into cultivation whilst old ones were maintained. Some crops changed their role over time, from minor to major or vice versa, while the importance of others remained constant. Continuity, diversification and innovation mark the five millennia of farming practice in the region.
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The Balkans by Đurđa Obradović
Quaternary, 2022
Agriculture is a complex and dynamic socio-ecological system shaped by environmental, economic, a... more Agriculture is a complex and dynamic socio-ecological system shaped by environmental, economic, and social factors. The crop resource pool is its key component and one that best reflects environmental limitations and socio-economic concerns of the farmers. This pertains in particular to small-scale subsistence production, as was practised by Neolithic farmers. We investigated if and how the environment and cultural complexes shaped the spectrum and diversity of crops cultivated by Neolithic farmers in the central-western Balkans and on the Hungarian Plain. We did so by exploring patterns in crop diversity between biogeographical regions and cultural complexes using multivariate statistical analyses. We also examined the spectrum of wild-gathered plant resources in the same way. We found that the number of species in Neolithic plant assemblages is correlated with sampling intensity (the number and volume of samples), but that this applies to all archaeological cultures. Late Neolithic communities of the central and western Balkans exploited a large pool of plant resources, whose spectrum was somewhat different between archaeological cultures. By comparison, the earliest Neolithic tradition in the region, the Starčevo–Körös–Criş phenomenon, seems to have used a comparatively narrower range of crops and wild plants, as did the Linearbandkeramik culture on the Hungarian Plain.
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Conference abstracts by Đurđa Obradović
Domesticating Earth — The Beginnings of Agriculture Revisited, 2024
Wild edible fruits have received little attention in archaeological research in the continental B... more Wild edible fruits have received little attention in archaeological research in the continental Balkans, mainly because of their rare occurrence in botanical assemblages and a greater regional focus on the history of agriculture. Recent archaeobotanical research has documented persistent tradition of collection and use of fleshy fruits and suggested that some fruit-bearing trees were valued beyond nutrition and perhaps managed. Among most prominent in the archaeobotanical record from the region are finds of pear (Pyrus), mainly of wild type, occasionally occurring as concentrations of charred fruit, such as in Neolithic houses (5th mill BC). Remains of both wild and cultivated form were discovered in later Roman and Early Byzantine period (4-6 century), sometimes as grave offerings. This talk will present an overview of finds from the region, indicating a persistent use of wild pear in the past. However, extensive inter-specific hybridisation within the Pyrus genus, among the wild forms but also between wild and cultivated species, has been noted for the Balkans, where the genetic pool is particularly diverse. This tendency results in a high degree of polymorphism between trees in the same localised areas of growth. Intergeneric crossing of pear with apple (Malus) and mountain ash (Sorbus) has also been observed. Is it then possible to distinguish between wild, cultivated and intergrading Pyrus types on the grounds of fruit morphology? Some morphological traits observed in modern fruit are promising for identification purposes and we look for them in the archaeological specimens.
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19th Conference of the International Workgroup for Palaeoethnobotany, 2022
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Chapters by Đurđa Obradović
Papers by Đurđa Obradović
criteria used for the establishment of settlements according to pedological features 2) to answer the question whether there was significant preference toward some soil type in Early/Middle and in Late Neolithic. In order to answer these questions method of statistical analysis (chi squared test) was applied. The analysis showed preference towards brown forest soil in both periods, although this preference was proved to be statistically important only in the test for the Early/Middle Neolithic. The results do not oppose the hypothesis that the lighter soils were preferred in the Early/Middle Neolithic, but they do not indicate drastic change and wider exploitation of heavier soil types in the Late Neolithic.
Poster presentations by Đurđa Obradović
This presentation is concerned with plant-based agricultural production in the Neolithic in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. It observes how crop cultivation practices varied between the settlements and how they changed through the c. 1700-year long period (6200-4500 BC). Two transformational developments punctuate this sequence: (1) transmission in the late 7th millennium BC of the Early Neolithic farming practices northwards from the Aegean and into the continental parts of the Balkan Peninsula. We track adaptations that these practices underwent, as evidence of adjustment to local environments and climate; such adaptations underpinned creation of the regional socio-economic context known as the Starčevo culture; (2) emergence of a new socio-economic context, the Vinča culture, in the 2nd half of the 6th millennium BC, accompanied by new pottery technology and settlement pattern, an apparent increase in the population size, and followed by the beginning of extractive metallurgy at the turn of the millennia.
Conference Presentations by Đurđa Obradović
Exhibitions by Đurđa Obradović
The Balkans, peer-reviewed by Đurđa Obradović
The Balkans by Đurđa Obradović
Conference abstracts by Đurđa Obradović
criteria used for the establishment of settlements according to pedological features 2) to answer the question whether there was significant preference toward some soil type in Early/Middle and in Late Neolithic. In order to answer these questions method of statistical analysis (chi squared test) was applied. The analysis showed preference towards brown forest soil in both periods, although this preference was proved to be statistically important only in the test for the Early/Middle Neolithic. The results do not oppose the hypothesis that the lighter soils were preferred in the Early/Middle Neolithic, but they do not indicate drastic change and wider exploitation of heavier soil types in the Late Neolithic.
This presentation is concerned with plant-based agricultural production in the Neolithic in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. It observes how crop cultivation practices varied between the settlements and how they changed through the c. 1700-year long period (6200-4500 BC). Two transformational developments punctuate this sequence: (1) transmission in the late 7th millennium BC of the Early Neolithic farming practices northwards from the Aegean and into the continental parts of the Balkan Peninsula. We track adaptations that these practices underwent, as evidence of adjustment to local environments and climate; such adaptations underpinned creation of the regional socio-economic context known as the Starčevo culture; (2) emergence of a new socio-economic context, the Vinča culture, in the 2nd half of the 6th millennium BC, accompanied by new pottery technology and settlement pattern, an apparent increase in the population size, and followed by the beginning of extractive metallurgy at the turn of the millennia.