The Social Dynamics of House Destruction

JOURNAL OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 16, 334–395 (1997)ARTICLE NO. AA970310

The Age of Clay: The Social Dynamics of House Destruction

Mirjana Stevanovic

ARF; and U.C. Berkeley

Received March 15, 1997; revision received May 1, 1997; accepted May 15, 1997

This study provides some fresh insight into Neolithic domestic architecture through the analysisof architectural technology and the control over the practice of house construction and destruction.Examined on a regional or local level, architecture of the Neolithic is often presented as a fairlyhomogenous social practice over the large area of Southeast Europe. In viewing the Neolithic housesas homogenous and uncontroversial material culture, archaeologists have overlooked not only thepossible variation and multimeaning of the Neolithic houses but also their striking and extensivemeans of destruction. The role of house conflagration, a practice that lasted during the entire Neolithicof Southeast Europe, has not been addressed in archaeological investigations. Indeed the phenome-non of burned houses has been treated as a series of lucky accidents during the Neolithic, whichare primarily responsible for the preservation of Neolithic sites. Contrary this view, I argue that itis unlikely that the houses were burned as a result of a series of accidents or for any structural andtechnological reasons but rather that they were destroyed by deliberate burning and most likely forreasons of a symbolic nature. The causes for the practice of house firing and house abandonmentas observed through the architectural evidence at the site of Opovo are believed to have been relatedto the need for house replacement and securing its postutilitarian visibility in order to show socialand material continuity of the Neolithic society. In my view, a struggle for social and materialcontinuity might have been a leading mobilizing force in creating and maintaining social practicesand beliefs in the Neolithic society. q 1997 Academic Press

THE NEOLITHIC HOUSE SOCIETIES people. In Southeast Europe the Neolithic1

houses were the first permanently and sys-tematically built dwellings that are knownin the archaeological record and whose. . . the best way to understand Montaillou is toemergence is linked to the more general pro-[. . .] go straight to the basic cell which, multiplied

a few dozen times, went to make up the village. cess of neolithization, i.e., domestication.This basic cell was none other than the peasant The Neolithic period, as many archaeolo-family, embodied in the permanence of a house and in gists demonstrate, is the key transitional pe-the daily life of a group co-resident under the same roof.

riod from the hunter–gatherer way of life tothe farming (i.e., food-producing) life. Dur-. . . the inhabitants of Montaillou [themselves],

for whom the family of flesh and blood and the ing this period a change from mobile livinghouse of wood, stone or daub were one and the same in the nonpermanent or semipermanentthing. dwellings to living in the permanent dwell-

(Ladurie 1979: 24) (italics are my emphasis)

1 In this essay, ‘‘Neolithic’’ is used to mark the timeThis article addresses the houses made ofperiod that is otherwise segmented and called differ-daub in the Neolithic of Southeast Europe,ently in different parts of Europe and the Near East.which at the end of their use-life were de-Thus, in this case the Neolithic stands for Neolithic,

stroyed in conflagration. It asserts house Eneolithic, Mature Neolithic, and the Copper Age. Withburning as a deliberate social practice and full appreciation of the regional-specific periodization,

I decided to use one term in order to avoid confusion.evaluates its significance for the Neolithic

3340278-4165/97 $25.00Copyright q 1997 by Academic PressAll rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

AID JAA 0310 / ai05$$$$$1 01-15-98 16:18:02 jaaa AP: JAA

335SOCIAL DYNAMICS OF HOUSE DESTRUCTION

ings organized in villages occurred.2 Seden- chaeologists have overlooked the signifi-cance of their destruction by conflagrationtism has been invoked as one of the main

characteristics, if not the cause, of the pro- during this period of prehistory. The role ofhouse conflagration, a practice that lastedcess of neolithization while architecture be-

came the symbol of the period. It is widely during the entire Neolithic of Southeast Eu-rope, has traditionally not been addressedassumed that at this point in time a ‘‘domes-

tic’’ mode of living emerged. in archaeological investigations (see Fig. 1).House building as well as house destruc-In archaeology a domestic house is con-

sidered to provide a body of evidence that tion are the hallmarks of the Neolithic pe-riod in Southeast Europe. This article arguesauthors often refer to when they write about

diverse issues specific to the Neolithic pe- that both house construction and destruc-tion are closely related architectural prac-riod (Hodder 1990). It has generated a num-

ber of formal and social interpretations of tices which have to be examined simultane-ously. The practices of house constructionhouses including speculations on matriar-

chal versus patriarchal social organization. and house burning by the same group ofpeople may seem to be on opposite sides ofYet, it can hardly be said that we have much

insight into the architectural practices of the the spectrum, even paradoxical, when oneconsiders that the Neolithic period was theNeolithic people and much less into the so-

cial forces that organized these practices. beginning of house construction on a largescale. I suggest, however, that they wereThis article, therefore, raises the question of

the Neolithic houses which were central to complementary practices. In other words, Iargue for the possibility that a deliberate so-the domestic domain in the changing Neo-

lithic society, but traditionally taken to be cial strategy existed during the Neolithic ac-cording to which houses were built with theuncontroversial features of the cultural envi-

ronment. In Southeast Europe architectural intent to be destroyed at a certain point intheir use-life, moreover by an act of confla-evidence for the Neolithic is presented on

both a regional and a local level as a result gration. Through this extensive study ofconstruction materials that were used in theof a homogenous social practice that was

conditioned by a settled way of life and new Neolithic and their multiple transformationsduring the house use-life, I intend to addressfarming economy and demonstrated by the

existence of long-lasting tell settlements. In a number of larger archaeological and an-thropological issues. These include the roleviewing the Neolithic houses in Southeast

Europe as harmonious material culture, ar- of the house in the Neolithic house-basedsocieties, i.e., the link among the house’s ar-chitectural, social, and symbolic signifi-2 There are examples of permanent dwellings and vil-cance. The house is to be interpreted notlage life from the Mesolithic period in Southeast Europe,only as a feature that protects one from thesuch are the settlements in the Iron Gorge region includ-

ing the famous Lepenski Vir site, Padina, Hajducka Vo- elements but also as a meaningful and com-denica, and others. It is increasingly evident that our plex artifact which can express physical, so-concept of sedentism is monolithic and simplistic and cial, and symbolic aspects of the lives of thethat it will change in the future so to encompass a vari-

people who dwell in it.ety of human solutions to the problem of sedentism,More specifically, I will present in this ar-which are not present currently in archaeological expla-

nations. In this study, it is not the problem of sedentism ticle the results of the analysis of the materi-that is primary subject and therefore the traditional als for house construction and how theirview of Neolithic as the first period of the sedentary choice might be linked to the practice ofvillage life is not challenged. For further insights into

house burning at the Neolithic village sitethe problem of Neolithization and for the references seeof Opovo. Opovo is a Vinca culture site situ-Rowley-Conwy and Zvelebil (1989), Seferiades (1993),

Zvelebil (1995), and others. ated in the southwest part of the Banat in


336 MIRJANA STEVANOVIC

the province of Vojvodina in Serbia, former Neolithic period and it represents a fruitfulsource for studies of architecture and otherYugoslavia. It lies in the lower valley of the

Tamis river, 20 km from its confluence with Neolithic material cultural.the Danube. The Vinca culture lasted from

House Burning as Social Practiceca. 5500 B.C./4700 B.C. to ca. 4000 B.C./3300in the Vinca CultureB.C. Its territory is considered to be in the

region of the central Balkans (south from the Southeast Europe has historically andprehistorically been a crucial region, as itDanube and Sava rivers, in contemporary

Serbia and northern Macedonia). Its core ter- represents the crossroads between Europeand the Near East. The proximity of South-ritory is in the Morava and Vardar river val-

leys. The Vinca culture spread from this core east Europe to the Near East made this re-gion a part of the wider debates in the ori-territory up to the Drina and Ibar rivers and

Sar planina to the west and to the Suva and gins of agriculture, sedentism, urbanism,and origins of civilization. The extent of ar-Osogovo mountains to the east (Garasanin

1979) (see Figs. 2 and 3). The Morava (both chaeological research made the region oneof the archaeologically better known areasGreat and Southern branches) and Vardar

valleys run through the middle of the Balkan in Europe.The attention that was given to Southeastpeninsula and are considered its main natu-

ral north-south communication route. This Europe by assuming its importance as agateway for the process of diffusion wasis the shortest direct communication that

joins the Aegean coast and the central Dan- probably a decisive factor for its further de-velopments in archaeology. The concept ofube region. It is also considered to be the

direct communication route between, on the culture change by population replacementwas, in a way, imposed on Southeast Europeone hand, the east Mediterranean, Asia Mi-

nor, and the Near East and Central Europe and inspired extensive investigations for itsevidence (Srejovic 1988). In Yugoslavia theon the other hand. Therefore, it is believed

that in this region the contacts between two Neolithic—represented by the Vinca cul-ture—was sometimes characterized as thebroad cultural regions, the east Mediterra-

nean and the Central European, were most ‘‘glamour period’’ of prehistory (Bankoffand Winter 1982: 149). Coincidentally, theintensive (Garasanin 1979).

The eponymous Vinca culture site of tone and scope of the debate empoweredbut also constrained the archaeology of theVinca-Belo Brdo became renowned from the

time of the earliest excavations carried out region. The constraints for archaeology ofthe region that resulted were that manyat this site in the beginning of the century

(e.g., Vasic 1936). Since its discovery to the other avenues of research, architecture of theNeolithic being one, were not considered.present the site of Vinca-Belo Brdo and

abundant other sites of the Vinca culture It has been noticed in archaeology that inthe large area of Southeast Europe in thehave been the subject of numerous studies

of prehistoric archaeology. The scholars who Neolithic period the archaeological culturesshow a striking similarity in archaeologicalconcerned themselves with the archaeology

of Southeast Europe have considered the site remains that pertain to building activities interms of the volume of materials and theirof Vinca-Belo Brdo the basis for the relative

chronology of the Balkan-Danubian Neo- universality at settlements (Chapman 1981;Sherratt 1982a,b; Stevanovic 1972, 1995;lithic and Eneolithic (see Garasanin 1973;

Tringham 1991c; Stevanovic and Jovanovic 1985; Tringham 1971, 1972, 1995; Tringhamet al. 1985, 1992; Tringham and Krstic 1990a).1996). Moreover, this important prehistoric

culture of Southeast Europe features nearly In addition to their universality and volume,it was recognized and emphasized by Tring-all the phases of development of the long



ham (1990, 1994, 1995), and investigated by immobile and mobile elements that includefurniture, ovens, pots, and a variety of arti-Tringham and Stevanovic (1990, 1991; Steva-

novic 1996), that there is another common facts whole or crushed on the floor and cov-ered with the crumbled walls. This is aand important characteristic of architecture

in this region—house destruction by burn- unique record which allows extensive archi-tectural analysis and provides an extraordi-ing—a phenomenon which had been up to

that point recognized in archaeology only in nary situation for examining the technologyof construction in the Neolithic that is notthe sense that the burning has preserved the

architecture exceptionally well. At virtually possible in many other archaeological con-texts from this period of prehistory (Tring-all the sites with preserved architecture we

see the dramatic effect of a large-scale house ham and Stevanovic 1990, 1991). In mostother areas of the world, Neolithic structuresfire and the massive accumulation of burned

clay rubble of clay house floors and the daub are represented only by postholes.This homogeneity in the architectural re-of the superstructure. There has not yet been

reported a single Later Neolithic site in the mains in terms of their construction andtheir destruction in a conflagration is linkedregion with architecture remains that are

completely unburned. to a specific episode of prehistory—4500–3000 B.C. or 5300–3800 B.C.—and is not ob-In the house fire, under high tempera-

tures, the clay covering of the wood frame served in the prehistoric periods before orafter—neither in such frequency nor in suchis transformed into a durable ceramic-like

material. The Vinca culture houses, for ex- volume (see Fig. 1). Chronologically thisphenomenon belongs to the period of theample, were built by the wattle-and-daub

method of construction. This method in- Middle to Late Neolithic/Early Eneolithic.In terms of regional prehistoric cultures ofvolves using a mixture of materials that

comprise (a) a heavy or light framework of Serbia, that is, from the early stages of theVinca culture—around 5200 B.C.—basedwood (including the main upright posts and

the wattling, planks, half-timbers, reeds on the 14C dates (see Gimbutas 1991:451) un-til the end of the Vinca culture—aroundwhich were woven or packed horizontally

or placed vertically between them) and (b) 4000 B.C.—according to the 14C dates fromthe same source. However, if the phenome-a layer of varying thickness of clay which

was daubed over the frame on one or both non of house burning is observed on thelarger regional level, that is, including thesurfaces. Archaeologically these structures

comprise areas of compacted, fired clay rub- Neolithic/Eneolithic cultures of Bulgariaand Southern Hungary, it lasted longer (atble, representing all that remains of the

burned and collapsed superstructures of Karanovo site and culture in Bulgaria fromca. 6200–3800 B.C. and at the Tisza and Tis-wattle-and-daub buildings. They are typi-

cally found in proximity to postholes, pits zapolgar culture sites in Hungary from ca.5300 B.C. to 3800 B.C., according to the 14Cand other surrounding features.

The house fire, in a way, produces a Pom- dates).3

peii effect in the archaeology of this regionby literally ‘‘freezing’’ the picture of the 3 It is very likely that future research will show similarhouses at the moment when they collapse if not the same method of house construction and de-

struction in the earlier periods of prehistory in South-after their burning. We recognize that aftereast Europe. That is, that building and possible destruc-their collapse they have been modified bytion of dwellings can be extended back to the transi-removal of rubble, and possibly of sometional period from Mesolithic into Neolithic and

burned artifacts. Thus, we have the main dif- especially to the Early Neolithic. It is already ratherferentiating elements of the house in situ in apparent that, for instance, the people of the Early Neo-

lithic Starcevo culture who inhabited earlier the samethe form of house floor, its walls, and other



Houses as Social Spaces in Southeast extensively examined for intensification ofproduction (Kaiser and Voytek 1983; Tring-European Archaeologyham 1985; 1990; Tringham and Krstic 1990b),Up to this point the Neolithic architectureas well as for increased reproduction (Am-of the region has been mainly viewedmerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1973, 1984; Bo-through the studies of the transition to a sed-gucki 1988; Sherratt 1984; Sterud 1978; To-entary way of life. Neolithic architecture isdorova 1978). The role and significance offirmly embedded in two very important is-the built environment in these studies havesues of archaeology of Southeast Europe andbeen entertained as part of and secondarythe Near East—sedentism and the nature ofto the analysis of agriculture.social formations of the Neolithic period.

Levi-Strauss has proposed a direct rela-The sedentary way of life—its causes, con-tionship between the house and the lineagesequences, mechanisms, and definition—and, moreover, between the house and thehas been the object of rich debate (Hoddersocial organization of the groups (see Cars-1990; Kaiser and Voytek 1983; Price andten and Hugh-Jones 1995). It is interestingBrown 1985; Rafferty 1985; Tringham andthat archaeology, at least in some regions ofKrstic 1990b; Wilson 1988; and others). Sed-the world, assumes the same position even ifentism is usually defined as a link betweenunintentionally. Archaeologists working ina house and its inhabitants. Thus the sig-Southeast Europe have not been tradition-nificance of architecture in the process of set-ally engaged in the theoretical debate on thetling down is not disputed, but the degreerole and significance of the house for theof its importance varies depending onsocial organization and its potential to markwhether it is taken to be a cause or conse-the lineage in settled societies. However, in-quence of sedentism.terpretations of the houses and villages ofIt has been suggested that the house mayNeolithic societies in Southeast Europe haveat certain times have been conceptually cen-implicitly been along the lines of the lineagetral. As such, it would have evoked certain(see for instance, Chapman 1989; Lazaroviciemotions such as security, and served to de-et al. 1985; Todorova 1976; 1990; Todorovicmarcate the social and cultural from the wildand Cermanovic 1961).and natural (see Hodder 1990) It is also pos-

Inferring from Neolithic architecture,sible that the ‘‘institution’’ of the home wasmainly from the uniform house size andnecessary in order to objectify and to enclosehouse type, archaeologists have traditionallya newly created social structure protectingconsidered Neolithic societies to be as inter-the individual’s investment and possessionsnally undifferentiated as the houses them-(see Wilson 1988).selves (Garasanin 1973; Todorova 1990; To-The Neolithic societies have often beendorovic and Cermanovic, 1961; to mentioncharacterized as being structured around theonly few). The only exception to this con-domestic mode of production (Sahlins 1968,structed uniformity is the occurrence of oc-1972). The household is considered in thesecasional large long-houses that have vari-studies the primary unit of production andously been interpreted as village halls orreproduction. In Southeast European ar-clubhouses rather than as residential dwell-chaeology a household (i.e., a co-residentialings (Nea Nikomedeia, Sesklo, Dhimini inunit) has been equated with a house andGreece; Polyanitsa in Bulgaria; Gomolava inSerbia) (see Whittle 1985; Brukner 1982), or

geographic territory as the Vinca culture people, prac- structures interpreted as temples (Partsa inticed similar if not the same method of house construc-

Romania) (see Lazarovici et al. 1985). Vil-tion (see Stankovic, 1992, for house description from thelages in the Neolithic have been consideredStarcevo culture site), as well as their destruction in

conflagration. to consist of extended families of the same



Vucedol

BubanjSalcuta-Krivodol

(Gumelnita)Vinca-Plocnik

I-

¸

¸

¸

¸

¸

ˇ

ˇ

ˇ

ˇˇ

Vinca-Plocnik

ˇˇ

StarcevoCris

¸CrisDudesti

Proto-Cris

(Gumelnita)¸

Vinca-Tordos

ˇˇ

FIG. 1. The Burned House Horizon in Southeast European Prehistory.

lineage sharing all resources and labor com- 1958; Hammel 1984; Hammel and Laslett1974; Stahl 1986).munally, much like the traditional ‘‘za-

druga’’ in the Balkans (Byrnes 1976; Halpern Zadruga literally means ‘‘cooperative.’’



Historically, zadruga describes a form of storage and communal rooms for the wholevillage. The division of labor and ownershipjoint family, usually related in the male line,

and a prominent feature of rural society. A of the means of production in these villageswere thought to be as communal, with equalzadruga is defined by Mosely as ‘‘a house-

hold composed of two or more biological or access to resources for all village membersand with no social differentiation.small-families, closely related by blood or

adoption, owning its means of production It is important to understand that the in-terpretation of the Neolithic social organiza-communally, producing and consuming the

means of its livelihood jointly, and regulat- tion as the original zadruga is based solelyon the architectural evidence. Without dis-ing the control of its property, labor, and

livelihood communally’’ (1953:19). puting the possibility of the original zadrugaor matriarchal social organization duringTodorova and Vajsov (1993) assert on the

basis of the Neolithic settlements of Ovcar- the Neolithic, I believe that such an interpre-tation of the Neolithic architecture is unsub-ovo, Polyanitsa, Goljamo Delcevo that the

earliest founders of these villages comprised stantiated at the present stage of research onNeolithic architecture.in the early stage three to five member fami-

lies. During the later phase of the settlements The works by Tringham on Southeast Eu-ropean Neolithic households, their spatial,(phase IV at Ovcarovo, for instance) the vil-

lage is described as comprised of three economic and social organization, and theirgender tensions (1984, 1985a, 1990, 1991a,b,groups of dwellings (eight to nine houses

per group), from which they conclude that 1995) and by (Chapman 1989) on house andvillage complexity in the Vinca culture, onthe ‘‘original commune’’ consisted of three

extended families, each of eight to nine nu- the other hand, have inferred—based on theNeolithic houses in the region—more com-clear families. By the culmination phase the

Ovcarovo settlement was comprised of 25 plex and more dynamic social structuresduring the Neolithic. It was this kind of vi-dwellings of smaller size, each believed to

have housed not more than one average sion of the Neolithic in Southeast Europethat prompted me to ask questions such as,family of three members—still organized on

the zadruga model. what can we learn from studying the Neo-lithic architectural record that could throwTodorovic and Cermanovic (1961), and

Benac (1952) interpreted the Neolithic social more light on the house and contribute to abetter comprehension of the processes of aorganization of Vinca culture settlements on

the basis of architecture as the formative pe- new practice of creating structured space byhumans and in return what can we learnriod of the nuclear family unit living in an

individual house. They say the village com- about social complexities of the inhabitantsby studying their houses. In this article it isprised a single lineage that had communal

ownership of the basic means of production. assumed that the objects which people cre-ate and with which people surround them-Tripolye culture architecture and social or-

ganization have been interpreted also as rep- selves including houses have meaning forthem and show the relation of these individ-resenting an ‘‘original zadruga.’’ In this in-

stance, however, the interpretation is based uals not only to the space in which they livebut to the wider society; they help build themuch more on the Marxist explanation of

society than on ethnohistorical analogy. context of social action (Hodder 1987; Don-ley 1982; Donley-Reid 1990; Moore 1986;Both Kricevskij (1940) and Passek (1949)

concluded that in Neolithic villages several Tringham 1994). It is proposed here that thebuildings themselves and their associatednuclear families shared one collective long

house, each family occupying a small hous- material culture provide evidence for do-mestic space as place and an expression ofing unit with other long houses serving as



lineage continuity, which also acted as both 1977). My emphases, however, would bethat the practice of building the house, thecontext and media in domestic negotiations,

tensions, gender relations, and dominance transformation of building soil, and its com-bination with other organic and inorganicstructures.elements in the essential source material for

The Technological Practice of house production was the crucial culturalArchitecture in Southeast Europe building block in the process of becoming

cultural objects. I further entertain the possi-Within the renewed effort to stimulate thestudies of the house in anthropology (e.g., bility that the practice of house discard/

abandonment/destruction in the NeolithicCarsten and Hugh-Jones 1995 volume) aswell as in social theory in general (numerous Vinca culture society was an expression of

the same cultural process, that of becomingworks that through the studies of space, ac-tion and agent often refer to architecture, social agents.

In Southeast European archaeology thesuch as Bourdieu 1990; Foucault 1984; Pred1986; and others), I find that in archaeology, house as a subject of analysis has tradition-

ally been assigned a background or second-theoretical discussions on the prehistorichouse as a technological practice is missing. ary importance. It is examined primarily as

containing and encompassing other humanLooking through the archaeological prism,the technological aspect of architecture material culture and activities, and second-

arily as the medium and product of humanshould be the baseline for the analysis andinterpretation of the house. The dwelling, I activities. Furthermore, houses are tradition-

ally viewed in archaeology as stable, slowwould argue, includes the ‘‘making of’’ thehouse, and in my mind, it has a logical pre- changing, and not indicative of social pro-

cesses except for those which bring about acedence over inhabiting the house.I argue in this article that the technology considerable cultural and social change. This

‘‘disadvantage’’ makes them less importantof architecture has to be understood in itssocial context and not just as technical skills, in conceptualizing the behavior of small size

social groups or an individual, whereas itas has too often been the case in archaeology.Technology of architecture should be under- makes them more indicative of large scale

social processes. It could also be assertedstood as the processes through which mate-rials are transformed into artifacts and can- that in archaeology the house is taken to

be a composite material culture beyondnot be separated from the social relations oftheir production (many authors make and the complexity of an artifact and in the anal-

ysis not subjected to the same conceptualexpound upon this point; see, for instance,Lechtman 1977, 1984, 1993; Lemonnier 1990, schemes as other artifacts. The lack of dis-

cussion on technology of architecture is an1993; Ingold 1988, 1990; Dobres 1995; andfor a thorough review, Dobres and Hoffman example of this.

Neolithic houses are immobile features set1994). Architecture can be seen, therefore,as the transformation of raw materials into on the landscape in particular arrangements

that satisfy the needs and ideas of their hu-cultural products, a process through whichthe social relations are being formed, played man creators. As the products of technologi-

cal practices, houses are artifacts of a certainout, or negotiated (Ingold 1990, Hughes1979). culture and express the social conditions of

their creation. These houses are not onlyHodder (1990) indicates a crucial role ofproduction in the Neolithic society and spatial and organizational products but also

technological products. Much of the expla-stresses that the act of moving and livinginside the house is the major acting force in nation in archaeology, and especially the ex-

planation of architectural remains, dependsbecoming cultural objects (after Heidegger



on the way of conceptualizing space. How- of structural materials and their combina-tions that had not been used before. At theever, in order to interpret domestic architec-

ture one has to understand not only the spa- same time, the introduction and develop-ment of new strategies, methods, and tech-tial relationships within each house and

within the larger community but also the niques of production were taking place,such as, for example, house construction intransformative processes of the materials in-

volved in house production and simultane- the wattle-and-daub method. Even thoughsoil of various types had been a known ma-ously their effect on the social processes.

Thus, rather than analyzing the spatial as- terial resource, which, when mixed with wa-ter and tempering materials, had been usedpects of Neolithic houses, I have ventured

into examining their material constituents, for the production of pottery, figurines, andmany other objects, its use in house con-their use-lives, and the cause of their de-

struction. While I quite agree that the house struction had been minimal until the EarlyNeolithic period. There is also another di-provides the context for the artifacts and fea-

tures within it, I emphasize that, at the same mension to the technology of house con-struction—the use of large quantities of ma-time, the house is an artifact in itself and

needs to be studied as such. One aim of the terials that had not existed before. The mag-nitude of the project of Neolithic houseresearch presented is to elevate the house to

the level of an artifact and demonstrate that building required massive amounts of soilthat had to be dug out and mixed with waterits archaeological remains—house rubble—

are a valuable part of material culture once and large quantities of organic temper, aswell as an adequately complex organizationa set of analytical tools is developed that will

allow archaeologists to use house rubble to of labor, access to the resources for construc-tion materials and building area, and themake inferences about society.

To begin investigating the complexity of proper scheduling for successful results.This paper’s title places clay in the focusNeolithic architecture, I suggest (after Tring-

ham and Krstic 1990b; Tringham 1994; 1995; of the discussion. The aim is to draw atten-tion to the role that clay had as a raw mate-McGuire and Schiffer 1983) that a Neolithic

house should be viewed through its four ba- rial in societies throughout the prehistory ofEurope. Especially important is the role claysic phases of use-life rather than as a single

event/product: (i) house construction (in- had during the Neolithic period. The Neo-lithic period in Southeast Europe is markedcluding building technique and materials),

(ii) house use (spatial organization), (iii) by an incredible increase of material produc-tion probably resembling a level of indus-house maintenance, and (iv) house destruc-

tion. Not all the phases have been consid- trial manufacture. Whereas evidence of theproduction of foods, textiles, and other ac-ered to be viable as a subject of technological

practice. Some are believed to be more so, tivities in the Neolithic societies is not asobvious, even though it is present, evidencesuch as construction and maintenance, while

use and destruction are not. It has been sug- for the production of artifacts made of clayas a fundamental raw material, such as ce-gested and the investigation presented in

this article will support that prehistoric ramics, figurines and other figurative repre-sentations, and house construction, is plenti-house destruction could be interpreted as a

deliberate technological practice (Semenov ful. Not only were houses constructed of itbut also house interiors with mobile and im-1968; Shaffer 1984, 1993; Wilshusen 1988,

1989). mobile furniture and a variety of tools wereall made in clay. Thus, a typical scene of aThe practice of house construction during

the Neolithic in Southeast Europe featured Neolithic house is the floor built of a thicklayer of compacted clay on which we findsome technological innovations, such as use



other objects made of it: bed platforms and aries, hierarchies, or mnemonic places,which lay claim on the valuable grounds.benches; ovens and ‘‘mangals’’ for warming

food and air; wheat grinding receptacles,grain grinders, and mortars; storage vessels REGIONAL CONTEXT OFand very large immobile vessels built into ARCHITECTURE OF THE

VINCA CULTUREthe floor; portable storage containers (innumbers that usually go over several doz-

Long-term permanent villages are theens) and lids; clay balls used for a variety ofmost characteristic pattern during the Neo-functions, such as weights for fishing nets,lithic period of Southeast Europe. The vil-weaving, and cooking/heating stones; figu-lages are mainly known from tell settle-rative representations of humans and ani-ments, even though a large number of flat/mals; furniture; house and oven models;non-tell sites, such as Opovo, have been dis-jewelry; and so on. The choice of clay as acovered. For instance, Demoule and Perlespredominant source of material for a num-(1993) talk about hundreds of closelyber of functions in the Neolithic societiesspaced, compact villages known from thecalls for redefining this period of prehistoryrich basins of Thessaly and central Greece.as the Age of Clay.Kotsakis talks about large ‘‘flat’’ villages,What could be the quality of clay thatwith widespread, separated houses andmade it such a pervasive raw material dur-short-term occupation (1993). Tells and flating the Neolithic? Was it its availability andNeolithic settlements are also well knownabundance? In addition to the list of signifi-from the Central and Northern Balkans in-cant functions of clay during the Neolithic,cluding the Vinca culture (see GarasaninI add that clay as a raw material had a partic-1951, 1984; Bogdanovic 1981, 1988, 1990; Be-ular importance for its quality of providingnac 1973; Brukner 1962, 1988; Jovanovicdurability and visibility in a pragmatic and1965; Jovanovic and Glisic 1960, 1961; Srejo-

symbolic sense to the objects that it consti-vic 1988; Srejovic and Tasic 1990; Tringham

tuted. and Krstic 1990b).Moreover, the multiple transformations that Tell sites have the potential to provide ex-

this material as well as other building mate- cellent architectural and settlement data be-rials could endure are considered here to be cause of their boundedness and the practiceof exceptional significance for archaeology of very obvious vertical house replacement.of the Southeast European house-based soci- These settlements can be subjected to inves-eties. The first set of transformations of the tigations of the settlement’s size and organi-building materials consisted in their mixing, zation as well as change through time, sincein the process of which the raw clays were they often represent continuous occupation.brought in contact with domesticated plants, On the other hand, flat settlements featurei.e., food-remains, such as chaff and straw. expansion by horizontal house replacementThe second set of transformations of the con- (Tringham and Stevanovic 1990) and are dif-struction materials took place when the ferent for the analysis of settlement size, itshouse was fired at the end of its use-life. organization, and household studies. TheThe clay, wood, and temper materials were flat sites are often considered to providetransformed into a durable ceramic-like ma- much less reliable evidence on settlementterial. By suggesting the concept of the size and organization (see the discussion inhouse use-life which would have been con- (Tringham and Krstic 1990b).trolled by the Neolithic people I am also ex- The broad culture areas of Southeast Eu-ploring the role that houses come to play as rope are distinguished by similarities in

their economy, settlement type, house type,symbols of social groups, such as bound-



and other material culture throughout the dent evidence for the general appearance ofthe Neolithic houses (some of which areNeolithic period. The Neolithic architecture

seems to show a steady development of cer- two- or three-roomed like the Middle Neo-lithic ‘‘megaron’’ at Sesklo) comes from thetain traits from the earlier to later periods.

First of all, the number of surface buildings clay models, which show double-pitched,painted roofs and several openings, possiblyin comparison to subterranean and semi-

subterranean buildings increases in the later doors or windows (Theocharis 1973, Figs.192, 193, 225). The clay house models areperiod. Through time larger and more solid

houses were constructed using greater relatively constant in occurrence in theSoutheast European Neolithic period. Somequantities of clay, and frequently these

formed villages with evidence of deliberate of the models have been interpreted as tem-ples (see Gimbutas 1980, 1982); none of theplanning and delimitation by various means

(Todorova 1990; Tringham 1991b; Whittle house models have been interpreted as arepresentation of a two-story building, al-1985; Champion et al. 1984; Ammerman and

Cavalli-Sforza 1973; Dennell 1983; Gimbutas though some of them do show such indica-tions (see Todorova et al. 1983).1976a; Evans and Rasson 1984; and

others). The uniform interior space of the The phenomenon of two-story houses hasbeen ignored in Southeast European archae-houses in the earlier periods became seg-

mented in the later periods. The associated ology even though there are occasional re-ports of two-story Neolithic houses fromfeatures in the houses such as ovens, furni-

ture, fixed storage vessels, and other artifacts Tisza and Herpaly II contexts in Hungary(Horvath 1987; Kalicz and Raczky 1987a,increased in their number and complexity in

the later periods of prehistory. The materials 1987b), Gumelnitsa sites in Bulgaria (Todor-ova and Vajsov 1993), Cucuteni B sites infor house construction stayed the same, i.e.,

soil, wood, and temper-materials, but were Romania and Moldavia (Ellis 1984; Mar-kevic 1981), and Sesklo sites in Greeceused in larger quantities than before.

The surface houses from the Late Neo- (Theocharis 1973, Demoule and Perles 1993,Treuil 1983). The Opovo excavations re-lithic period in the region including the

Vinca culture are of square shape at first and vealed another two-story Neolithic house inthe region. However, there seems to be anlater of rectangular shape, usually compris-

ing a main room with an antechamber. In air of disbelief around this issue in the ar-chaeology of Southeast Europe. In my view,some instances the division of the space in

the house is even more complex and com- this kind of attitude has prevented archaeol-ogists in the region from paying closer atten-prises several smaller rooms or delineated

spaces (e.g., in the Vinca culture sites of Ban- tion to potential evidence for two-storystructures during excavation.jica, Divostin, Gomolava). The house interi-

ors comprise thick clay floors; round, oval, Whereas the shape and the size of housesseem to have followed the same trend allsquare, and horseshoe-shaped ovens; silos

for storing grain; massive cattle heads of over Southeast Europe, the methods of con-struction vary to some extent (Elia 1982).clay; a large number of pottery vessels

and other tool assemblages; and traces of Mudbrick is typical of the Near East (Fig.2) and in Europe is restricted to Greece; incolored plaster (Vasic 1936, Garasanin 1951,

1973, Chapman 1981; Markotic 1976, 1984; contrast, wattle-and-daub was rare in theNear East but is characteristic of Europe andMcPherron and Srejovic 1988; Jovanovic and

Glisic 1960, 1961; Todorova at al. 1983; has been seen as a local invention (Treuil1983). Both techniques occur in Greece,Brukner 1980; Demoule and Perles 1993; and

others). sometimes at the same site, as at Sesklo (De-moule and Perles 1993). In Southeast EuropeIt should also be pointed out that indepen-



FIG. 2. Map of the Balkans and the Near East (modified after Gimbutas 1991).

during the Neolithic period and certainly in culture, regardless of the settlement type orcultural variant. That the strategy of housethe Vinca culture, the only method of con-

struction used was wattle-and-daub. replacement is an important factor in tell for-mation has been noticed in Southeast Euro-Presently, there is no evidence for signifi-

cant differences in house construction, that pean archaeology. Tringham (1990) andTringham and Stevanovic (1990) pointed outis, the building method and the materials

between the tell and flat settlements in the that in the context of the Vinca culture housereplacement is present also in the case of flatVinca culture, and it has been assumed that

they have been of the same kind. The phe- or non-tell sites, and more importantly thatthe Neolithic house replacement is linked tonomenon of burned houses seems to be a

constant occurrence throughout the Vinca the practice of house burning.



Opovo and the Excavation architecture, is a large exposure of a site,which allows investigation of the relationof Neolithic Architecturebetween the houses and within each un-

The Banat in the province of Vojvodina in earthed dwelling. The strategy of large ex-which the site of Opovo is situated is a part posure has been exercised successfully in theof the Pannonian plain, the great lowland excavation of many Vinca culture sites (e.g.,plain of the middle Danube basin. As a re- Vasic 1936, Brukner 1980). Some sites havegion, the Banat is bound by the Tisza river provided a formidable stratigraphic se-to the west, the Danube to the south, and quence of habitation horizons, or else housethe foothills of the Carpathians in Romania levels, and thus allowed investigation of theto the east (Tringham et al. 1992, 1985). It is relations between them. This excavationbelieved that this area represents the north- strategy also has provided the possibility forern edge of the territory traditionally inhab- obtaining basic chronological divisions suchited by the Vinca people (Fig. 3). as the one for the Vinca culture, which

Neolithic settlement of the Banat region serves as the chronological benchmark forbegan in the late 6th millennium B.C. with the wider geographic region.the Early Neolithic Starcevo-Koros cultures. However, the traditional excavationIn the 5th millennium B.C., Starcevo sites method of the large exposure has its limita-were replaced by Vinca culture sites, which tions. In some ways, by opening large sitecontinued to exist until the late 4th millen- surfaces, the archaeologists had little verticalnium B.C. Opovo is considered to be a Late stratigraphy control within exposed blocks.Neolithic settlement of the Vinca culture (ca. Therefore, such a strategy has produced, on4700–4500 B.C.). The site covers an area ap- the one hand, an enormous amount of evi-proximately 5 ha on a low knoll overlooking dence about settlements as a whole, but onan abandoned meander of the Tamis river. the other hand, many aspects, such as houseThe survey of the area around Opovo car- construction and destruction, have stayedried out by the National Museums in blurred. First, the horizontal relationship be-Pancevo and Vrsac identified a large num- tween the houses, i.e., their contemporane-ber of Starcevo and Vinca culture Neolithic ity, was not investigated in detail but rathersites, some of which are presented in Figs. assumed on the basis of the houses’ absolute4 and 5 (for a more detailed account, see elevation. Second, in house cleaning and re-Tringham, Stevanovic and Brukner, in moval, all the house remains were notpress). treated as potential evidence; the house su-

The major research objectives at Opovo perstructure was traditionally discardedincluded: (i) an investigation of change in and the focus has been on the house floor.the Neolithic agricultural economy north of Third, none of the house remains were con-the Danube, (ii) an assessment of the perma- sidered worth further analysis after excava-nence of settlement at Opovo, and (iii) a de- tion. Excavating architecture has tradition-tailed examination of the role of households ally meant acquiring data not on the housesin the organization of social and economic themselves, except for their size, shape andlife at Opovo (Tringham et al. 1985: 427). orientation, but on the other artifacts found

The interest in the problem of Neolithic within them. Thus very basic data on housesettlement permanence and the role of walls, floors, roof, and other structural ele-households put the focus of research at ments have been neglected. There are manyOpovo on the houses and other such fea- objective and subjective causes for suchtures. It is known in Southeast Europe that methodological shortcomings; to mentionthe best strategy to take in excavating settle- just a few: lack of resources, lack of devel-

oped methodology, or lack of interest.ment sites, especially if one is interested in



FIG. 3. Map of the Vinca and Tisza culture sites (modified after Gimbutas 1991).

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FIG. 4. Distribution of loess soils in former Yugoslavia (modified after Chapman 1990).

One objective of the Opovo Archaeologi- Excavating architecture at Opovo withsuch objectives meant providing an entirelycal Project was to overcome the shortcom-

ings of previous excavations in the treatment new methodology for it that had not beenapplied before. Some elements of theof Neolithic architecture. It was maintained

at the OAP that flexibility in the method of method had been developed initially duringthe excavation of the sites of Selevac, Gomo-house excavation was necessary in an at-

tempt to achieve sufficient detail to allow lava, and Vinca-Belo Brdo (see Stevanovic1984, 1985, 1996; Tringham 1990; Tringhammeaningful interpretation of features, en-

sure systematic recovery of samples of all and Stevanovic 1991). However, only duringthe OAP was this method finally establishedmaterials, and complete the excavation of

the block during the projected time. There- and systematically executed. In order to col-lect data on house construction and destruc-fore, the method of floating balks was used

in order to understand the relation between tion, our work focused on the careful clean-ing of the burned structures, lifting the rub-the houses that belonged to the same habita-

tion level and between the levels. The balks ble and mapping it layer by layer, and takingsystematic samples. Recording was carriedwere positioned so as to provide profiles

linking houses and other features, which out according to cells (each 1 square m) inand around the structural features. The firstwould then, through the careful analysis,

show the relationships. Our sampling of the task was to separate house rubble into dif-ferent categories (house walls, floors, furni-construction materials and their transforma-

tions included considerably larger quantities ture, ovens) out of an often amorphousmound of material that was formed duringof archaeological material then before (see

Fig. 6). the process of house collapse. Rubble frag-



FIG. 5. The pedology of the site at Opovo.

ments which exceeded 10 cm in size were piece as a whole; others refered to the woodimpressions that are part of a particular rub-recorded by their specific numbers assigned

within the house map. Each fragment was ble fragment. The remaining rubble, i.e., thefragments that were too small to be individ-first drawn in the house plan and described

in situ in its spatial context. The next stage ually recorded, the fragments from the cul-tural layer which were in secondary posi-consisted of lifting the fragment out of its

spatial context and recording its specific tion, and the fragments that were a part ofusually heavily damaged features, were pro-characteristics. Some of the recorded charac-

teristics provided the measurements for the cessed separately as the bulk record. The



FIG. 6. Neolithic houses at Opovo.

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FIG. 6—Continued

bulk rubble was recorded spatially by locus comprised 1078 kg of house rubble frag-ments analyzed. The analyzed constructionand by the rubble type (ordinary, floor, vitri-

fied) for their weights. clay of house 2 weighed 707 kg. House 3was only partially excavated and yielded 57The next step in data acquisition was to

sample the rubble for further analysis ac- kg of rubble analyzed, and the analyzed rub-ble from house 4 rubble weighed 188 kg.cording to the questions that were being

asked in the project. The aim was to collect The rubble weights indicate that the largestquantity of building materials at the site ofmore than one sample from each category in

each house in order to compare the samples Opovo was excavated in the latest buildinghorizon.from different houses in one building hori-

zon. The remains of the wattle-and-daub In addition, the weights of the bulk rubbleprovided data for density maps, which showhouses were therefore exceptionally and

carefully excavated and systematically and the concentrations of the rubble that origi-nally was part of the cultural layers butfully mapped, recorded, and sampled.could not be directly assigned to any partic-ular structure in the excavation block. AfterHouse Constructionbeing spatially located as densities, the rub-ble could be compared and combined withThe strategy, recording, and analysis ofthe location of actual house remains andexcavation were designed to collect evi-other structures in the excavation block. Thedence on: (1) house construction materials:density maps were created for six excavationtheir type, sizes, quantities, and methods oflayers out of which the latest period of theprocessing; (2) house construction method;settlement at Opovo shows the largest densi-(3) the transformations of the constructionties of rubble in two areas of the excavationmaterials through utilization with specificblock. It also shows that the highest concen-interest in the causes of their fires; and (4)trations in this building horizon correspondhouse destruction as the result of fire.with the location of houses 1 and 2.Rubble weights. The rubble weights pro-

The rubble that was excavated, recorded,vided substantial control over the quantitiesand analyzed does not reflect the total quan-of clay used in house construction and thetities of construction materials employed inproportions of different construction materi-house construction in Block 1 at Opovo.als used. Figure 7 illustrates the total rubbleRather, it represents only one part of it, thatweights at Opovo. The weights of the Opovowhich was preserved. There are many fac-structural rubble show that the largest quan-tors that influence the quantity of rubble thattities of this material belong to the bulk rub-

ble, which comprised 14,012 kg. House 1 survives as archaeological record: The origi-



FIG. 7. Total rubble weight in kilograms.

nal size and type of the building, the way change through time, i.e., by the buildinghorizon. The top building horizon was thein which it collapsed, disturbances of the

rubble by later prehistoric activities at the only one that had two domestic structures.This may mean that the largest house den-same place, and disturbances caused by

other postdepositional processes and recent sity in the village was reached during thelast building horizon. This would speak insoil works. Much rubble was spread by

ploughing across the rest of Block 1. Even favor of a trend, which has been indicatedby other scholars of the Southeast Europeanthe occurrence of a predominant rubble type

of a specific weight range—for example, vit- Neolithic period, according to which therewas an intensification of production, includ-rified rubble which is very light, can influ-

ence the total rubble weight of a house. Such ing house production, which reached itspeak during the Late Neolithic/Early Eneo-is the case of house 4, where large quantities

of rubble were vitrified. A large sample of lithic period (Tringham and Krstic 1990a,Kaiser and Voytek 1983). It has been pro-rubble from house 4 was recorded, but it

weighed little in comparison with houses 1 posed that the increased amount of houseconstruction material could in the Laterand 2 that did not have such quantities of

vitrified rubble. Neolithic indicate the change in house con-struction introduced with the use of largerThe implications of rubble quantities and

densities at Opovo are many. First, it gives quantities of clay (Tringham and Stevanovic1990; Tringham and Krstic 1990b).an idea about the quantities of the materials,

their location in the excavated area, and their A second implication of the rubble quanti-



ties is that it allows for the reconstruction of culture sites in the region, that of Gomolavaand Vinca-Belo Brdo (Fig. 3). For a detailedthe proportions of building materials, such

as wood and clay, that were employed for account of the method and scientific analy-ses that were applied, see Stevanovic (1996).4each house. Both implications will be dis-

cussed later with the help of an idealized A variety of tests, such as X-ray diffractionand fluorescence analysis, enabled the iden-model of the Opovo Neolithic house.tification and quantification of the clay min-

Building Materials in Opovo House erals in the Neolithic unburned samples; theConstruction: Experimental and samples that were burned at low tempera-

Analytical Studies tures, i.e., below 4007C; and the burned sam-ples. Their complete mineral composition,The experimental and analytical studies

were primarily undertaken to provide iden- and especially clay mineral composition,was determined. In conjunction with micro-tification of the basic building materials that

were used by the Neolithic people. How- scopic analysis it was possible to comparethe results of both groups of samples andever, in addition to the basic materials, their

origins, and likely quantities, we are now establish that the house construction was in-deed performed with the use of two to threeable to discuss the kinds of materials locally

available, the strategic choices that were types of soil and their mixtures, includingthe surrounding subsoil, which was loessmade by the Neolithic people in the materi-

als for construction, as well as make a contri- soil, or a combination of loess subsoil withmarshy or river sediments. In the case ofbution to the reconstruction of the environ-

ment in which the Neolithic Opovo people final coating of internal walls or furniture,the clays used were of better quality, i.e.,lived.

It was concluded, first of all, that there with more clayey minerals, which originatedin special clay deposits. The fact that thewere two classes of construction material

which we know for certain were used in the same types of soil were used as buildingmaterials in all three analyzed Vinca culturewattle-and-daub building method at the site

of Opovo. Namely, these are Source materials settlements implies that their selection waseither a matter of convenience or a matter(clay and other rock and tree-wood and

reeds); Anthropogenic materials or fine plant of cultural choice, which might have been a‘‘convention’’ for the wider region of thematerial used as temper (parts of wheat,

such as chaff, straw, grasses, and other plant Vinca culture.Considering the characteristics of the en-materials). Both groups can be further di-

vided into inorganic and organic materials vironment in which the Opovo settlementwas situated (Tringham et al. 1992), its in-(see Fig. 8).

Soil for building. The investigation for the habitants had access to a variety of soils, es-pecially loess and marshland soils. The sitesource materials at Opovo began with a

number of steps to identify the original con- is located on a slight rise about 4 km fromthe present banks of the Tamis river. In pre-struction clays. A series of physical, chemi-

cal and microscopic analyses in combination history it would have been surrounded bywaterlogged and marshy ground, full of oldwith experimental studies were carried out

on the original Neolithic samples and on a meanders until the major drainage projectscollection of the geological samples of claysacquired from the vicinity of the Neolithic

4 These analyses were carried out in collaboration andsettlement. The analysis of the constructionwith the facilities of the Institute for Materials Testing,

clays used for the Opovo houses was con- in Belgrade, Yugoslavia and the Department of Soil Sci-ducted in association with the analysis of the ence and Geology, Agricultural University at Wagen-

ingen, Holland.same type of material from two other Vinca



FIG. 8. House building materials at Opovo.

of the 18th and 19th centuries (Fig. 4). The of the LBK houses provided the loess for thehouses (Modderman 1973 among others).pedological survey of the team directed by

L. van der Plas and L. Pons established that Milisauskas (1972) and Modderman (1973)made calculations about the quantities ofa dead meander was immediately adjacent

to the Neolithic village at Opovo (Fig. 5). clays needed for a LBK house walls and thelikelihood that the pits procured the soil.When the quantities of clay needed for a

house and its weight are taken with consid- It is viable to propose that the pits atOpovo that were situated around the houseseration, the most likely solution for the Neo-

lithic builders was to obtain as much con- were the places of procurement of the sub-stantial portion of construction clay. Thestruction soil as possible from the vicinity of

the building site. The analyses presented in marshy soils, which contain plenty of or-ganic materials that make them flexible andthis investigation have shown that the ma-

jority of soil used in construction was loess easily workable were probably a very usefulingredient in the mixture with the loess butsoil. The loess soil came from the loess pla-

teau on which a large number of the Neo- they had to be brought in from the vicinityof the Neolithic settlement. However, thelithic settlements of Southeast Europe in-

cluding that at Opovo were located. This soil problem of construction clay procurementwas more complex activity than the one thatis regarded highly suitable for purposes of

plastering and construction. It has been as- has been described.At any stratified Neolithic site in the re-sumed since Paret (1942) that it was digging

for loess soil that cause the many pits found gion that was located on the loess plateau,in the earliest building horizon the access toon LBK settlements. It is thought that in par-

ticular the oblong pits beside the long walls the construction soil would have been im-



mediate. However, in the upper building ho- a normal distribution or not. In the case of allOpovo houses wood diameters larger thanrizons the access to this soil changes. Since

the later houses were erected on layers of 7 or 8 cm occur only in small frequencies.Diameters larger then 10 cm are especiallyearlier houses they are located on ground

that is raised above the loess plateau and infrequent.iii. The analysis of the wood diameters bythey do not have an immediate contact with

loess soil. In addition, the burned houses of house sublayers also shows patterning. Inthe case of all the houses, the most commonthe previous building horizons make dig-

ging to the loess sub soil more difficult. In diameters may be observed in all the sublay-ers. Thus, in some sense they may be re-these conditions it is to be expected that the

loess clay procurement took place further garded as universal as building material forall the Opovo houses. However, they do ap-away from the bulding site. Thus, it is feasi-

ble to propose that access to building soil pear within the sublayers in different fre-quencies when the houses are compared. Incould have been the cause for the horizontal

house displacement in non-tell settlements the case of house 1, diameters of 1 cm occurin much smaller frequency on the bottomof Southeast Europe.

Wood for building. In gathering the evi- layer, that is on the house floor, than in theupper two sublayers. In the case of housesdence on organic source materials, i.e., con-

struction wood and reeds at Opovo, I had to 2 and 3 this diameter is of almost equal fre-quency in all the sublayers. Contrary to therely completely on the information obtained

from the house rubble, that is, either from three other houses in the case of house 4 thisdiameter is dominant on the top and middlethe wood and reed impressions in the rub-

ble, or from their actual fragments that can sublayers, but entirely missing on the housefloor layer.be observed rarely as unburned in the thin

sections. The analysis of construction wood Considerable quantities of wood of a di-ameter of 1 cm on the house floor level inin all four houses at Opovo concentrated on

the variety of diameters that occur and on all the houses except for house 4 may indi-cate that house roofs were covered with or-their shape. The frequency of wood diame-

ters is illustrated by the charts shown in Figs. ganic materials, such as water reeds and thinwood branches (i.e., branches of 1 cm in di-9–12. The wood diameters proved to be very

important evidence for the final reconstruc- ameter). House 4, however, was built withtwo stories and in its case the second storeytion of the way the Opovo houses were de-

stroyed. They show the following pat- would have prevented the roof materialsfrom falling down on the primary houseterning:floor. In the case of all the houses except

i. The reeds and wood used in the con- house 3, undoubtedly the largest quantity ofstruction of houses 1 through 4 ranged from construction wood was that whose diameter0.20 to 15 cm. The largest diameter materials was 1 cm or around it. Construction woodwere used only in the construction of houses of other diameters that occur in larger fre-1 and 2. quency is present in all the sublayers in

ii. The most common diameter of wood varying quantities.used in houses 1, 2 and 4, however, is 1 cm. The analysis of the wood impressions ob-For house 3 the most common diameter used served in the structural rubble allowed mak-is 1.5 cm. The frequency distribution for ing a typology of construction wood athouses 1, 2, and 4 is nonnormal, though for Opovo. The diameters that range from 0 tohouse 1 and 2, wood 5 cm in diameter was 2 cm represent type 1, diameters from 2 tocommonly utilized. It is uncertain if the fre- 5 cm are type 2, diameters from 5 to 10 cm

make type 3, and diameters from 10 cm andquency distribution for house 3 conforms to



FIG. 9. House 1: Frequency of construction wood diameter at Opovo by sublayer.

above make type 4. The role of the typology 2 where it is second to type 2. Types 2, 3,and 4 are present in progressively lesseris primarily to indicate the size and possibly

the tree-part that it comes from, such as a amounts in all the houses. Thus, wood-type4, which would be the primary posts is pres-twig, a branch, or a trunk. Thus, type 1 is

interpreted in this study as impressions of ent in the least amounts.It has been proposed that a mosaic typethe water reeds and twigs that were used

for wattling; type 2 represents the middle- of vegetation with heavy forest along therivers, open forest and forest-steppe in mostsize branches; type 3 represents secondary

posts; and type 4 primary posts. areas, meadow-steppe on the saline soils,and marshes scattered throughout existed inThe wood-type frequency by house (Fig.

13) shows that all Opovo houses except the vicinity of the Opovo Neolithic village(Russell 1993). The building materials thathouse 3 contain all four wood-types. Type 1

is the most frequent in all houses but house were used in the Opovo architecture judging





by the tree-diameters and tree and reed im- reeds and grasses that were used in largequantities for construction at Opovo couldpressions do reflect, to some extent, such a

mixed vegetation cover. In the analysis pre- have been obtained in the local marshes.Even though it is impossible to identifysented, the diameters show the presence of

wood that ranges in size from thin branches the tree species of the construction woodbased on the timber impressions in theto secondary branches and primary tree

parts, all of which could have been found in daub, it is possible to propose based on theenvironmental reconstruction of the area,the forests. Most of the impressions show

the use of round poles but there are also that several indigenous trees might havebeen used. According to several accountstraces of split timber (thick tree trunks that

had been made into posts with a semicircu- (Pounds 1961; Sercelj 1967), the Neolithicfarmers would have found the region of thelar cross-section), posts with a triangular

cross-section and even planks. The water Balkans to be almost entirely forested, in




FIG. 13. House 1–4: Frequency of construction wood-types.

some places more densely than in others. In the shape of chaff, straw and other grassesthat were completely oxidized in the housemost places oak would have been the domi-

nant tree. Thus, at Opovo, if the indigenous fire; sometimes the voids of complete wheatseeds are present. (ii) The actual fragmentstrees were used as the major construction

timber, it is feasible to expect that oak would of organic materials that were preserved inthe structural materials in silicified form.have been the choice.

There are several reasons why oak would Most of these at Opovo seem to be the partsof wheat that were preserved because of thehave been suitable wood for construction in

comparison with other tree species that are high silica content of wheat.Occasionally there are examples of actuallikely to have existed in the region. First of

all oak grows to an adequate size to produce fragments of the organic materials pre-served within the construction materials inprimary and secondary house posts. Second,

it is a more durable wood than other trees a noncarbonized state and nonsilicifiedstate, such as grains, charcoal, tree bark,which are likely to have existed around the

Opovo settlement, such as elm, pine, maple, and others. However, these are not clearlytempering materials in the structural clays,birch, alder, lime, poplar, and willow (see

Bakels 1978, Table 6). And what is equally but may be the remains of organic materialsused for other purposes, such as wood forimportant, oak is very resistant to insects.

Actually, according to Bakels there are al- fuel. Examples of such remains were foundat Opovo buried or trapped inside ash de-most no insects that attack this timber.

Anthropogenic materials. The Opovo evi- posits, such as indoor oven floors or in ashdepositories next to ovens. In the Opovodence on anthropogenic materials comes

from: (i) The once fresh plant remains that thin sections from the oven floor were iden-tified fragments of charcoal that belongedcomprised the organic temper inside the

burned rubble, that have since been com- to a pine tree and the fragments of unidenti-fied tree bark, which may also belong to apletely oxidized and decayed, but were pre-

served in the burned rubble as hollows pine tree.These building materials are treated as aknown as pseudomorphic vegetal voids.

The majority of house rubble from Opovo special group because they are indicative ofthe choices that the Neolithic people hadshows the presence of numerous voids in



made as a part of their building strategy. In analyses, it was concluded that at Opovothe heavy soils and swampy environmentthis group are included plant materials that

were obtained from the environment, such would not have been very conductive toNeolithic agriculture, although the region isas marshy soils with grasses, which might

have been either an accidental or deliberate the bread basket of Yugoslavia today. Nev-ertheless, it is clear from impressions in theaddition to the building clay, and the plant

materials that were tended and produced by house rubble that einkorn and emmer wheatwere cultivated by the Opovo people at leasthumans, such as wheat. These latter materi-

als comprise different wheat parts, such as in small quantities (Tringham et al., 1985,1992). However, when one considers thechaff, straw, and occasionally whole grains.

The presence of wheat parts in the house quantities of wheat parts that are observedas temper in the construction clay at Opovoconstruction material could potentially prove

to be very significant. Wheat domestication the size of crop that was needed to produceit seems to have been quite substantial. It isand production had a primary purpose of

providing subsistence for the Neolithic peo- impossible, at this stage, to suggest the exactquantities of chaff and straw embedded inple, a role which seems to be conceptually

distant from that of house construction. At the rubble. It has been suggested in the liter-ature that a necessary volume of organicthe same time, the evidence shows that the

wheat parts which were not consumed by tempering materials in the construction claymixed for mud brick should range from 20–the humans or domesticated animals, such as

chaff and straw, were secondarily used as 30% of the tempering materials to 70–80%of construction clay volume.tempering material in house building. It has

been suggested in ethnohistorical and engi- At Opovo, the overall impression is thatthe quantities of wheat parts used for tem-neering sources that chopped straw, grass or

other vegetable materials were often added per were considerable. At the same time, thisimpression is not supported by the existingto clay daub to help bind it, to assist in the

drying process, and to distribute the shrink- evidence on suitability of the area for Neo-lithic agriculture. Many puzzling questionsage cracking. The reasons for the choice of

materials is not discussed in these sources. In stem from these circumstances, such as whatwas a necessary amount of chaff for onearchaeology of Southeast Europe it has been

assumed traditionally that the secondary use house construction, and was this amountcollected from one annual crop or from sev-of the wheat parts was to aid construction

clay or that it was accidental. It has been sug- eral crops; how many fields were involvedin it; was collecting carried out over a num-gested, for example by Rye (1981) that these

materials (straw, stems from crop plants) ber of years, in which case the question ishow was it stored or was it collected in onemay be agricultural waste which was in-

cluded as such. season; was, along these same lines, houseconstruction a seasonal activity that tookIn my view, the implications of the sec-

ondary use of the precious subsistence prod- place after harvesting? We have no idea howmuch chaff and straw were produced yearlyuct, such as wheat in house construction

during the Neolithic deserves attention since but we do not consider them as raw materi-als available in large quantities. The researchit might be of a nonaccidental and nonutili-

tarian nature but expressive of the close con- on the quantities of the wheat parts as tem-per in the construction clay, therefore, has anection and interdependency between agri-

culture and a domestic way of life. potential to confirm or alter this idea.Bakels (1978) talks about different parts ofIn the cultural layers at Opovo botanical

remains were fairly scarce. Based on the plants that were collected for the purpose ofhouse construction on the basis of voidbotanical, topographic, and morphological



shape in the tempered building clay that she Neolithic settlement in Southeast Europe sofar. For this reason an assumption exists thatfinds in the LBK settlements of North and

Central Europe. Bakels claims that the plant the roofing was made of perishable organicmaterials. The roofs for the houses in theremains found in the daub are seldom

longer than 1 cm and they are remains of Neolithic of Southeast Europe have usuallybeen reconstructed on the basis of the housegraminae: stems, leaves, and chaff, including

chaff remains of emmer and einkorn, that models and the ethnograpic analogy of thearea. Some house models, such as from Strel-the evidence in the rubble as a whole is

highly suggestive of chopped straw. She ice, Moravia, and Branc, Slovakia, have ele-ments that are considered to be the represen-adds that in some cases it is clear that loess

was tempered with chaff only; that the chaff tations of roof rafters (Modderman 1973).Modderman claims that such roof construc-and the straw must have been gathered

especially for this purpose. In addition, tion would have used animal skins asroofing material. Other authors oppose thisthe fact that the weed species found in the

settlements belong exclusively to tall or suggestion. Startin (1978) states that skinwas not suitable for roofing because of itsclimbing plant species is considered evi-

dence that the inhabitants of the LBK settle- poor insulation properties and the necessityof regular greasing if it is to be long-lastingments would have harvested only the ears

of wheat. Low plants are rare in the impres- and waterproof. The majority of authorsagree that other materials, such as plants,sions, which would mean that the stalks

were cut or picked just below the ear and were the most likely choice for roofing.Tree bark has been suggested as the mostnot just above the ground (Bakels 1978).

It should be added here that the fine plant likely material used for the house roofs inLBK settlements (see Bakels 1978). In historicmaterials were used in house construction

also for tying the construction timber, i.e., at times only birch-bark is known to be usedfor roofing in Europe in combination withthe joints and for tying the roof parts includ-

ing roof thatching. One can imagine the use wood and sod. It is suspected that the birchtrees were not very common in North Eu-of a variety of fibers for such purposes. At

Opovo we have found some evidence of this rope during the Neolithic because of theirneed for space and light which were notkind in a fragment of rope and fragment of

textile, both made of flax fiber. In the Atlan- available in dense forests at the time. There-fore, it is not likely, according to Bakels, thattic vegetation in Central and Western Eu-

rope bast fibers are the most general natural this bark was used then. But some otherbarks could have been used, such as lime-source of rope (Bakels 1978). Lime- and yew-

bast in particular were used for binding. bark and elm-bark which were used fre-quently in North America.Willow- and elm-bast would have been also

suitable. The latter was used up to historic Many authors suggest the use of reeds forroofing during the Neolithic. The reed planttimes successfully in the experimental con-

struction of a Neolithic house in Denmark is a cosmopolitan plant which occurs in alarge number of habitats, all of which are(Hansen 1961).

I conclude this section by pointing out humid to wet; the water table must lie atleast just under the surface. Some Neolithicthat, even though the presented discussion

reveals that we have some control over the landscapes, such as North European are be-lieved to have been too dry to be suitableplant materials used in house construction

during the Neolithic, it does not offer evi- for reed growth. At Opovo, on the otherhand, the environmental conditions seem todence on the roof construction and its mate-

rials. The remains of the roof frame and of have been ideal for reed growth. Therefore,it is very likely that reeds, which were inten-roofing materials have not been found at any



TABLE 1sively used in house-wall construction, wereMedian and Mode Values for Wall Thicknessalso used for house roofs. In this case the

roofs were probably made with some sort of Percent Percentthatching method. Modderman claims that Value Frequency Percent (valid) (cum)there is evidence for thatched roofs in the

.00 659 34.3 34.3 34.3Neolithic house models from Southeast Eu-1.00 2 .1 .1 34.4rope (see Theocharis 1973: Figs. 8–11, pp.2.00 15 .8 .8 35.2

253–256). 3.00 95 4.9 4.9 40.14.00 153 8.0 8.0 48.1

Elements of House Construction 5.00 195 10.2 10.2 58.3at Opovo 6.00 177 9.2 9.2 67.5

7.00 186 9.7 9.7 77.1Some elements of house construction are8.00 124 6.5 6.5 83.6

directly related to calculating the quantities 9.00 77 4.0 4.0 87.6of materials used in house construction and 10.00 112 5.8 5.8 93.4

11.00 47 2.4 2.4 95.9to the reconstruction of the process of house12.00 32 1.7 1.7 97.6destruction in the Neolithic of Southeast Eu-13.00 13 .7 .7 98.2rope. These include the quantities and types14.00 11 .6 .6 98.8

of wood and the thickness of the house clay- 15.00 8 .4 .4 99.2cover, that is the rubble thickness. In Table 16.00 2 .1 .1 99.3

17.00 2 .1 .1 99.41 it can be observed that the wall-rubble18.00 6 .3 .3 99.7shows a large range of thickness at Opovo.20.00 2 .1 .1 99.8The full range is between 1 and 20 cm but the23.00 1 .1 .1 99.9

majority of rubble thickness falls between 40.00 1 .1 .1 99.93 and 10 cm. If the wall thickness ranged 42.00 1 .1 .1 100.0

Total 1921 100.0 100.0between 3 and 10 cm it would imply that aMedianvery large quantity of clay was used in

5.000 Mode .000house construction. In order to calculate theValid cases

amount of clay used for house construction 1921 Missing cases 0at Opovo I had to use an idealized model ofa Neolithic house.

The idealized house model (Fig. 14) islargely based on evidence from the Opovo used in the Opovo buildings. The roof struc-

ture even though a part of the idealizedhouses, such as house size, construction-wood size, and clay thickness used for the house model has not been included in the

material calculations. The reason for this iswalls. The model is only partially based oninformed assumptions, such as house height that we have no primary archaeological evi-

dence for roof structure, nor its size nor theand house roof. Since in the Neolithic archi-tectural record the full height of the walls is materials that were used in its construction.

The measurements of the model are pre-never preserved intact, we are forced tomake an approximation of it. The ethnohist- sented in Table 2.

The idealized house model was used fororical record shows that in a similar environ-mental and cultural context the height of do- estimating the quantities of the materials in

the house construction and especially for es-mestic structures ranges from 1.5 to 2.0 m.For the idealized Opovo house model, the timating the proportions between the con-

struction clay and wood volumes. The rela-height of 1.8 m has been applied. On thebasis of this idealized Opovo house I was tionship between clay weight and volume

was calculated according to engineeringable to calculate the proportion between theconstruction wood and construction clay principles (Ramsey and Sleeper 1981). The



FIG. 14. Idealized Neolithic house model.

idealized house model indicates that the compared with the actual Opovo house ratioof wood and clay volumes that were inferredproportion should be around 10% of con-

struction-wood volume versus 90% con- from the house rubble analysis, it gave verysimilar results. In the Opovo houses the ratiostruction-clay volume. When this ratio waswas 10–15% of construction-wood volumeto 85–90% of construction-clay volume. Ta-

TABLE 2 ble 3 summarizes the types and quantitiesMeasurements of the House Model of materials used in the Opovo house con-

struction.House Size: 4 1 8 m Area gross: Area net:(32 m2) 25 m2 3.4 1 4.7 m

House DestructionWall length: 2 times 4 m 1 8 m Total of 24 mWall volume: 13 m2

Since house burning in Southeast Euro-24 m length0.3 m thickness pean prehistory has traditionally not been a1.8 m H subject of investigation, the explanation of

Wood volume this practice either has not been sought orWalls: f15–20 cm 0.032%–0.38 m3

has been generalized on the basis of popularf4–10 cm 0.01%–0.12 m3

constructions. These explanations take twof1–3 cm 0.038%–0.45 m3

Total wood volume 0.08%–0.95 m3 paths. One of these assigns the practice toClay volume—Walls 12.00 m3 the general intensification of production andWood to clay population increase which results in over-

volume 1:12crowding in the Neolithic villages. Typically



TABLE 3Building Materials and Their Quantities

House 1 House 2 House 3 House 4

Building horizon 1 1 2 3House length in meters 8 6 7 6.5House width in meters 5.5 6.5 4 5.5House surface in m2 40 36 24 27House orientation NE/SW NE/SW NE/SW NE/SWRecorded house loci 100 65 13 22Total rubble weight in kg. 1078 707 57 188Volume of construction clay in m3 1.1 0.7 0.057 0.188Volume of construction wood in m3 0.18 0.093 0.0097 0.015Wood and clay ratio 10–15% (wood) vs n/a n/a n/a

85–90% (clay)Volume of anthropogenic materials 20% 20% 20% 20%

they have suggested that the increased use houses had caught fire collectively, the soilin between would be burned to some extentof fire within houses or the denser crowding

of houses within the village creates the con- and would be rich in rubble remains fromthe collapsed houses themselves. The fact isditions for occurrence of accidental fires. The

other path seeks the explanation within so- that while the construction clays were veryobviously fired to achieve the state of thecial dynamics that led to intersettlement

competition, unrest, raiding, and even inva- brick-like material, the surrounding soil wasnot. There are traces of very crumbled rub-sion. Other explanations, which are sporadic

and do not seem to have as much persuasive ble usually found around the burned housebut nothing that would approximate thepower on the archaeological community,

have suggested the deliberate setting of a level of house firing. Thus, this evidence isunderstood as an indication of individualfire in a house in order to strengthen con-

struction clay and make it water resistant rather than collective burning of houses.In order to support the proposition that(Kricevskij 1940; Semenov 1968), or firing of

an old house in order to preserve its clay house-fire was of deliberate nature and thatit took place at the end of house use-life, Imaterials for later reuse (Shaffer 1984, 1993).

In the Opovo Archaeological Project we examined the following aspects of burnedhouses:proposed that the Vinca culture houses: (1)

were burned individually and not collec-1. The houses were consumed in fire com-tively; (2) were burned not in the middle of

pletely.their use-lives but at the end of their use-2. The temperatures from burning formlives (Tringham 1994, 1995). As has been

clusters, which could be observed in all foursuggested by Tringham there is a strong casehouses at Opovo.to be made against the collective burning of

3. The house construction elements dothe houses at the Vinca culture sites (1990b).not provide enough fuel for a successfulThe evidence shows that the house remainshouse fire.of each building horizon are confined to the

4. There are obvious fire-ignition pointsimmediate area of the house. That is to say,within the houses, which are indicative ofthe cultural layers between two burned andhow the fire started.collapsed houses are free from the burned

remains. The reasoning here is, that if the 5. The fire path or the spatial direction of



fire within the houses shows a patterning this basis. Namely, it is hard to justify burn-ing down a house with its complete inven-indicative of deliberate fire.tory in order to acquire the clay from the

The completeness of the house fire. At Opovo, old house walls as building material for aas well as in most other Neolithic sites in new house. This hypothesis seems not tothe region, the entire houses were burned hold especially if construction clay is not ato the point that organic materials, such as material in shortage, as was the case in theconstruction wood and temper materials in Neolithic sites of Southeast Europe that werethe clay, were thoroughly consumed in fire. located on the loess plateau.Consequently, the clay cover of the house The temperatures of burning. The tempera-was burned and transformed to a brick-like ture of burning is potentially indicative ofmaterial. Moreover, construction clay often the nature of fire, its ignition, type of fuel,shows traces of sintering or that it was re- fire intensity, and fire path. These elements,duced to a glassy, bubbly amorphous struc- in return, could be decisive in determinationture through the process of vitrification. The of the causes of fire. Keeping this in mindburning did not only affect the house but all in all the phases of research on architecturethe internal mobile and immobile features at Opovo, we tried to acquire data whichand artifacts, which as a result, lost all their could later be used for determination of tem-utilitarian purpose in the fire. A typical oc- peratures of firing.currence at the Neolithic sites in Southeast Virtually all fires ignite because there isEurope is a burned and collapsed house some local high temperature in a region inwith everything inside destroyed, for exam- which an appropriate fuel–air mixture oc-ple, cooking ovens, grinding receptacles, curs (Kirk 1969). That is, at a large or verylarge number of ceramic vessels, stone tools, small point in space a temperature in excessbone tools, figurines, and other objects. of the ignition temperature has occurred inThere was most likely a large number of the presence of appropriate fuel and air (orother artifacts made of more perishable ma- oxygen). These circumstances constitute aterials, such as wood receptacles, baskets, minimum requirement for any fire to result.furs, feathers, and textiles, as well as, re- A variety of minimum temperatures for ig-mains of stored foods, possible stored seeds, nition have been reported, and they rangeand stored fuel materials, which by their na- from 190–5557C (McNaughton 1944). Theture got entirely consumed by fire and ignition temperatures for most fires are gen-whose remains we find extremely rarely pre- erally so high as to rule out spontaneousserved. combustion except for a very small category

In the light of the evidence on complete- of materials (see Browne 1929; Hoffmanness of the house fire, suggestions proposed 1940). Also, frequently, no source of rela-by Semenov (Semenov 1964, 1968) that Neo- tively high temperatures appears to be pres-lithic houses were burned for technological ent and the origins of the fire seem to bereasons or as suggested by some for the rea- very mysterious, as is known from arson in-sons of fumigation seem untenable. In other vestigation.5 According to the arson investi-words, since the houses were burned to thepoint of being destroyed with all their inven- 5 Since fire losses are one of the most common causestory they could not have been burned for of civil litigation and one of the most difficult areas

in which to reach firm conclusions (Kirk 1969), sometechnological or structural reasons. Also, thecriminologists specialize in analyzing fire. Their pri-proposition that house burning was carriedmary interest is in discovering if a fire was deliberatelyout in order to recycle the building materi- or accidentally set. It is believed that one half of the

als, suggested by Shaffer (1984) for the Neo- destructive fires in the United States currently are delib-erately set by the arsonists. Therefore, in order to provelithic of Southern Italy, could be rejected on



gations, it is the point and source of ignition is not possible to establish if these mineralsthat are the keys to be determined by the are primary or secondarily formed clay min-investigator if an origin of fire is to be dis- erals. Therefore, a basic precondition forcovered. conducting the research on the change of

A major factor in the process of firing is clays when fired is to know the compositionnot only the ignition itself but the next stage, of the original clay in order to be able tothat is, the temperature at which the fuel follow the transformations of the mineralsmaterial becomes exothermic and therefore, that fire incurs. When this essential precon-self-sustaining. This temperature appears to dition, the composition of the clays cannotbe about 270 to 2807C (Kirk 1969). Therefore, be satisfied, an experiment is necessary toto trace the behaviour of a small flame as it help in making the link between the burnedgrows into a large fire is of greatest impor- and the unburned clays.tance. At the same time, fire is chiefly deter- Experimentation in rubble firing tempera-mined by the availability of the combustible tures. It has been mentioned that at thematerials. In the case of the Neolithic house Opovo site house rubble fragments wereburning, in my view, it is the origin and the carefully recorded for many technologicalsustainability of fire that are equally im- attributes including their color. The colorsportant for explanation of fire causes. were assigned to the fragments based on the

The process of firing clays transforms the Munsell Soil Color Chart. The charts in Figs.basic clay composition partially or com- 15–18 show the frequency of color occur-pletely depending on the intensity of tem- rence in the cases of four Vinca cultureperature. It is now known at what tempera- houses at Opovo. However, since the rubbleture intensities certain clay minerals decom- colors of the Opovo houses by themselvespose and the same is valid for the nonclay were not sufficient to show the temperaturesminerals that are likely to be present in the of firing that the houses underwent, my in-soils. All these alterations usually cause

vestigation turned to an experimental study,changes in color in the fired clays but the

which was focused on transferring the rub-reactions between iron, calcium, and silicable colors into adequate temperatures ofare responsible for major sequences ofburning (for detailed account see Stevanovicchanges in colour that are correlated with1996). This procedure required making thetemperature and atmosphere (Matson 1971).comparison between the original rubbleOne of the ways, therefore, to reconstructsamples and experimental ones. The experi-the temperatures at which construction claysment comprised the collection of the localwere fired would be to investigate thesoils found in the vicinity of the Neolithicchange of their mineralogical and micro-settlement; making the rubble-simulationsmorphological composition, and/or to in-using these soils; and mixing them with ade-vestigate the change in color that the claysquate temper materials into rubble-tablets,undergo.which were then fired under controlled con-However, in many instances to establishditions, at a series of different temperaturesthe clay color change or change in their min-ranging from 50–11007C.eralogical composition is not sufficient. The

The experimental rubble, which was ac-minerals in the soils are transformed in firequired in this way, was compared with theand are likely to go through the chemicaloriginal rubble samples through comparisonreactions that form new minerals out of theof their thin sections. Only as a result of thisold ones, as will be indicated later. Often itprocess was I able to assign certain rubblecolors to certain temperatures of burning.such crimes, the arson investigators use many scientific

methods to analyze and understand fire. Table 4 shows the correspondence between



FIG. 15. House 1: Rubble color frequency.

Munsell colors and temperatures of firing will be removed by about 9007C except graph-ite which can resist oxidation up to 12007C.that were established by experiment.

The process of firing causes first the low- Up to 7507C clays that contain CaCO3 remainrelatively inert. When heated above 7507C cal-temperature decomposition that takes place at

temperatures up to 3507C. Any organic mate- cium carbonate begins to decompose. Withstill further temperature increase, and espe-rial present in clays naturally or added as tem-

per begins to decompose around 2007C. When cially in a reducing atmosphere, the calciumcan combine with sodium and other fluxesthe temperature reaches 5007C carbon at the

surface burns and clay color turns reddish. and silica to form glass. Vitrification is a pro-cess by which glass is formed in clay bodies.At temperatures of 500–6007C the structural

clays obtain the porosity and the color of the It can begin at about 7007C, but generally doesnot become extensive below 900–9507C.brick-like material that makes them durable.

Under suitable oxidizing conditions all carbon The rubble-colors at Opovo were, with the





help of the experiment, interpreted as spe- of cases, except for house 4, which mostlikely shows a different pattern because ofcific temperature intensities (see Table 4).

The temperature frequency charts (Fig. 19– specific conditions of burning since it was atwo-story structure. The real sharp break in26) show the frequencies of temperature oc-

currence in the case of four Opovo houses. temperature can be observed at 700–8007Cin the case of all houses. The 500–6007C tem-It could be deduced from the charts that

a variety of temperatures that range between peratures occur in roughly the same quanti-ties in all the houses.400 and 12007C occurred during the firing

of the Neolithic houses at Opovo. However, The general impression is that large quan-tities of the construction materials in thecertain patterning of the temperatures can

be observed. First, in the case of all Opovo Opovo houses were fired at relatively hightemperatures, that is, at the range betweenhouses the highest temperatures (1000–

12007C) are present in the smallest number 500 and 8007C. If we compare the tempera-




TABLE 4Rubble Colors by Munsell Soil Color Chart and Corresponding Temperatures

Temperature 2,5Y 2,5Yr 5Yr 7,5Yr 10R 10Yr

Below 4007C 2/3, 4/1, 4/3 2/5, 3/1, 3/2, 2/1, 2/2, 3/1,4/1, 4/2, 3/2, 3/3

4007C 4/2, 4/4, 4/6, 4/4, 5/2, 5/4, 5/4, 5/6, 5/8,5/3, 5/4, 5/6, 6/4 6/46/4

5007C 3/4, 3/6, 4/4, 5/6, 5/84/6

6007C 4/8 6/6, 6/8, 7/8 5/8, 6/6, 6/87007C 5/6, 5/8, 6/8 78/4, 7/6 4/6, 4/8, 5/6,

5/88007C 5/4, 6/4, 6/6 6/6, 6/8 3/6, 4/4, 5/4, 7/6, 7/8

6/6, 6/89007C 5/4, 5/6 7/2 8/4, 8/6, 8/810007C 4/3, 4/4 6/1 7/1, 8/1Over 10007C 2.5/1, 3/1 5/6 5/1, 6/1

3/2,3/3

tures of house burning with the tempera- house 4. This result is also to be expectedsince the high temperatures require unusualtures of pottery production in the same

Vinca culture, which range from 850 to circumstances, such as very high quantitiesof fuel.9507C (Kaiser 1984; Kaiser et al. 1986) we

can conclude that the temperatures of house If the same temperature range is analyzedby the house sub-layers (see Figs. 23–26) an-burning were high indeed. The very high

temperatures of rubble burning, those above other type of cluster can be observed. Itshows an obvious tendency of higher tem-8007C at which clays sinter and vitrify, occur

in dramatically smaller numbers, except for peratures to be located closer to or on the

FIG. 19. House 1: Rubble temperature frequency.




bottom sublayer, while the lower tempera- The house construction elements as fuel forhouse fire. The volume of house burning attures are predominant in the upper sublay-

ers of the collapsed rubble. Opovo, which is the same as at other Vincaculture sites, and the intensity of fire thatIn the Opovo houses we can see that the

highest temperatures, i.e., the vitrification Neolithic evidence shows bring in the ques-tion of what type and quantity of fuel wasspots, occur in the largest numbers on the

bottom sublayer, that is on the house floor. used to achieve such results. This problembecomes especially interesting when oneThis was the case in all four houses. These

charts also show that the lowest levels com- considers the ethnographic (Gordon 1953;Vitruvius) and experimental sources (Han-prise more high temperatures, whereas the

upper layers comprise the lower tempera- sen 1961; Shaffer 1993; Bankoff and Winter1979) on the subject. These sources point outtures. This situation implies that the hottest

fire occurred on the house floor level, and the great difficulty that one can have in try-ing to burn down a wattle-and-daub or anot on the roof level, for instance.





mud-brick building. For this reason the the extent to which we find it baked in thearchaeological record.likely volumes of construction materials,

chiefly wood and clay, that were used for The analysis of the wood types retainedas impressions in the rubble at Opovo showsthe Opovo houses are important.

The implications of the ratio between clay the presence of 43% of type 1 wood, 37% oftype 2, 18% of type 3, and only around 2%and wood volumes, 10–15% of wood to 85–

90% of clay (indicated in Table 2), are that of type 4 wood (Fig. 27). This indicates thatthe predominant type of wood in house con-the amount of wood was substantially

smaller in comparison to the amount of clay. struction was the thin wood, that up to 2 cmin diameter.I would take this implication even further

and propose that the volume of construction One more aspect of construction wood aspotential fuel material in house fire is thewood was not large enough to serve as suf-

ficient fuel to bake the construction clay to wood flammability. Wood flammability

FIG. 23. House 1: Temperature frequency by rubble sublayer.




largely depends on its specific gravity. That extended combustion when burning. Thusthey present a lessened fire hazard as com-is, the wood of low specific gravity, such as

reeds, twigs, and thin branches is considered pared to the more combustible softwoodsbut create a hotter and more protracted fire.more flammable, whereas the wood of high

specific gravity, such as primary branches In the Opovo houses the wood of highflammability is present in considerablyand tree trunks, is less flammable. On the

other hand, wood of low specific gravity larger quantities than the wood of lowflammability. The implication of such woodeven though easy to ignite gives off less en-

ergy and is likely to be consumed in fire in volumes and types is that the Opovo housescontained construction wood of flammabil-shorter time than the wood of lower level

flammability. According to Kirk (1969), ity that could easily start the fire but notprovide enough energy to sustain the firehardwoods, i.e., oak, are difficult to ignite

but are capable of generating much heat and for a long time. For instance, the oven exper-





iment with a newly made and unused oven rolysis is that wood, especially in massiveform, requires a considerable amount of heatof the type known from the Neolithic

showed that after it was fired for 6 days it to cause its ignition. This is completed atabout 5007C, at which point wood is com-needed 10–12 h and 2–2.5 tons (2T Å 2.5

m3) of wood fuel to reach a temperature of pletely consumed by fire and only woodcharcoal remains (Browning 1963). Even10007C. Thus, the energy of fuel for burning

a wattle-and-daub house to the tempera- though this charcoal could be further heatedand it can release more energy the point istures of 5007C and up to 10007C had to be

substantial. that additional fuel is necessary to carry thisprocess through. Therefore, if we know thatAnother important element of wood py-

FIG. 27. House 1–4: Wood-type ratio.



the construction wood in the Neolithic sublayers of rubble in each house it was dif-ficult to talk with any certainty about thehouses would be completely gone by 5007C

but the level of temperatures of the house locations of vitrification zones before ahouse was completely removed and rubblerubble at Opovo exceeded 5007C and actu-

ally goes up to 12007C, we must propose that recorded, and all the analyses were finished.Within the Opovo houses a number of vit-the quantities of wood needed as fuel must

have been larger then the wood incorpo- rification points, or the hottest spots of firein all the sublayers were discovered. Figurerated in the house construction. Conse-

quently, in order to burn down the houses 28 shows the frequencies of the vitrificationrubble within each Opovo house. This chartat Opovo the Neolithic people needed an

additional source of fuel to that provided by shows that, indeed, in the case of all Opovohouses but house 4, most vitrification points,the wood used in house construction.

The ignition points. In the investigation of which are considered to be the ignitionpoints of fire, occurred on the bottomcauses and mechanisms of fire one of the

major indicators is the ignition point of fire. sublayer. Thus, once more we can concludethat in the Opovo houses the fire is moreAccording to the arson investigations, any

low point in a burn pattern should be inves- likely to have started on the floor level thenon the roof level.tigated as a possible origin. Mainly, the

points of the highest temperature found at The fire path. It is known from arson investi-gation, and it has been mentioned above, thatthe lowest level within a house are most

likely the ignition points of a particular the spatial distribution of ignition point/(s)and temperatures is an important aspect ofhouse fire (Kirk 1969). The reason for good

preservation of the ignition is often that fire to consider in a search of the fire causes.In tracing the fire pattern there are a numberwhen a superstructure collapses in fire it

generally preserves the point of fire origin of important aspects, such as that low burnsshould be systematically sought while upperunderneath it excellently. The reason for the

ignition point to show high temperature of portions of the fire may be disregarded; eachof the burns should be analyzed as to theburning is that because the point of origin

is likely to burn longer than the fire that spread of fire away from it. This could be ac-complished by noting the direction of pre-develops from it, more time is allowed for it

to produce an impressive degree of burning. dominant fire as shown by depth of burn.One of the guidelines in the research pre-Especially important for our investigation is,

that when the fire is aided by the presence sented in this thesis has been to follow thespatial clusters of vitrification and high tem-of accelerants or kindling materials of any

kind, an unusually intense fire may result at peratures within each Opovo house. It hasbeen considered that these elements couldthe point of origin. Therefore, the lowest

point of burn must always be inspected with provide the fire path within each house. Themaps of the Opovo houses are presented inthe greatest care. This is especially true if

one is to determine the immediate cause as Figs. 29–32 and they illustrate the tempera-ture distribution. The house maps show thewell as intention behind deliberate or acci-

dental fire (Kirk 1969). following regularities in their distribution:In the process of house rubble mapping

i. The lower- and middle-range tempera-and recording at Opovo special attentiontures (4007C/5007C/6007C) are fairly wellwas dedicated to the locations of vitrifiedspread within the house.rubble. The initial observation of the rubble

ii. The temperatures around 700 andin a house usually indicated the presence8007C are present in larger amounts but inof several vitrification zones within each

house. However, since there were several a more restricted area. This is valid for all



FIG. 28. House 1–4: Frequency of vitrification.

houses except for house 4 (Fig. 32) in which points within houses, as well as the distribu-a fairly large portion of the house interior tion of the temperature intensities awaywas covered with clays burned at high tem- from them shows that we can, indeed, talkperatures. House 4 is the only two-story about a fire path in the case of the Opovohouse unearthed at Opovo and the pattern houses. First, the depth of burns indicatesof fire in it is bound to be somewhat differ- that the ignition points were on the houseent from the other houses. The conditions of floor as represented by the vitrificationburning and the amount of fuel provided by points. The vitrification did continue to oc-the second story structure are larger than cur in the upper sublayers of the house col-they are in one story houses; lapsed superstructure but in smaller num-

iii. Finally, the very high temperatures, bers. When examined spatially these vitrifi-those around 10007C and above, occur in cation points are connected, i.e., the topmuch smaller quantities and in very re- points most likely represent the continua-stricted areas. Again the exception to this tion of the bottom points of ignition and inwas house 4. The location of the vitrification that sense they indicate a fire path. Second,points within the house sublayers shows in the fire path maps show that the highestthe case of the Opovo house 1. There are six temperatures were located in the immediatevitrification points at the bottom sublayer, vicinity of the vitrification/ignition points.four at the middle sublayer, and three in Only farther away from these points thethe top sublayer (see Fig. 29). In house 2, temperature intensity dropped down tosublayers three, two, and one contained six, 500/6007C.four, and three vitrification points, respec- The Neolithic fire scenario. By following thetively (see Fig. 30). House 3 sublayers three, sequence of examination that was suggestedtwo, and one contained two, one, and also by the arson investigations, and thus, de-one vitrification point, respectively (see Fig. termining the origin of the fire in the space,31). Finally, the sublayers in house 4 contin- its causative agent, i.e., the nature of the ini-ued five, four, and three vitrification points tial fuel and the nature of the ignition, we(see Fig. 32). should be able to get an informed idea about

the nature of the fire and if it was intention-Both the frequency of vitrification bysublayers and the distribution of these ally or accidentally set. The fire begins with



FIG. 29. House 1: The fire path. j, sublayer 1; m, sublayer 2; l, sublayer 3;��

, 700–8007C.

ignition. In my investigation I proposed that ignition point. The spread of temperatureaway from this point from the highest to-a point of vitrification that occurs on the

lowest level within a house and exhibits con- wards the lowest temperature should beconsidered a fire path. Based on the mapssiderable thickness, i.e., continues upward

in the next sublayer, is to be considered the of fire paths within the Opovo houses and



FIG. 30. House 2: The fire path. See Fig. 29 Legend.

the principles from the arson investigations, all that has been said into account the mostlikely scenario for the Neolithic house-firesif there were more than one vitrification

point that had been a fire ignition point was that once started on the floor with somefuel, fire ignited the roof structure, whichwithin a house, such as in the case of the

Opovo houses, this situation will be consid- we suspect was built of wood constructionwith a large amount of organic, leafy coverered a deliberately set fire.

It is known that the behavior of fire is such (reeds, straw, grasses), i.e., thatch (see Fig.33). Fire is chiefly determined by the avail-that it always burns upward. Thus, taking




ability of the combustible materials. Even the fire than for the ignition point. The pri-mary source of fuel was on the floor levelthough in the scenario presented the house

roofs are considered a very important source where the fire started. However, neither theinitial fire fuel, if it were structural wood,of fuel, in my view, the roof materials were

the secondary source of fuel for a house fire nor the roof materials provided enough fuelfor fire of such intensity and of such an ex-and more important for the later stages of




tent to last long enough to burn through the of it would be caught in fire but the burnwould not go under the roof. The process ofentire house clay cover. There must have

been an additional fuel involved that was burning can change if the conditions change,for instance if the roof collapses inside theeither set up on the house floor or on the

outside around the house to help it burn house and provides fuel for the internalburns. In such circumstances it is importantentirely.

There is a possibility that interior fires to have sufficient quantities of flammableroof materials or other fuel to sustain theoriginate from exterior sources, which in the

case of the Neolithic fires would mean start- fire to the necessary extent.Other lines of evidence. There are other linesing them from the roof and most likely ignit-

ing from the exterior even if by sparks from of evidence within the material culture ofthe Vinca people that can be reviewed inchimneys. According to Kirk (1969) in such

an instance the house roof gets ignited and support of the presented statement that theVinca culture houses at Opovo were deliber-this results in the exterior fire. Since the na-

ture of fire is such that it always burns up- ately fired. The first one, I would say, is thelevel of knowledge on pyrotechnology of thewards either the entire roof or some portions



FIG. 33. The Neolithic fire scenario.

Vinca people and their success in the use of knowledge of fire and skill in handling itmay mean that they knew the ways to create,fire in other fields of production. The second

one is the orderly collapse of houses after control and prevent fires. For instance, incase of house fires the control could havetheir burning and the absence of any traces

of secondary use of the houses. been achieved by introducing changes in thebuilding materials, building methods suchPYROTECHNOLOGY. The ability of the

Vinca culture potters to reach high tempera- as mud brick architecture, or in a vil-lagewide change of house proximity. Takingtures in conjunction with reducing atmo-

spheres on a routine basis and prior to the into consideration the lengthy time periodduring which the practice of house burningfirst appearance of copper ore processing in

late Vinca sites has been now demonstrated occurred it seems realistic to assume thatsuch changes were possible and likely if all(Kaiser et al., 1986). Moreover, it is sug-

gested that high temperature firings had be- other necessary conditions were met. Sec-ondly, the pyrotechnological knowledge ofcome ‘‘culturally conventionalized’’ in the

Vinca culture. The Vinca people’s pyrotech- the Vinca culture people was such that itcould have allowed for a deliberate settingnological experience included also plaster-

lime production, as well as copper ore pro- up of a successful house fire and hencehouse destruction. Knowing that completecessing.

The pyrotechnological practice of the burning of a wattle-and-daub Neolithichouse is not necessarily an easy task (Ban-Vinca culture people could have a twofold

consequence for this study. Firstly, the koff and Winter 1979) it is being claimed in



FIG. 34. House 1–4: Impression orientation.

this study that a knowledge of pyrotechnol- Discussionogy was desirable for achieving it.

ORDERLY HOUSE COLLAPSE. The second The age of clay. The study presented wasundertaken for two main reasons: one, toline of supporting evidence for deliberate

house fire in the Neolithic comes from the improve our methodology for investigatingarchitectural remains of the Neolithic inorderly nature of house collapse that the

Opovo houses show. The analysis of the Southeast Europe and allow for makingmore inferences about the behavior of Neo-cardinal orientation of the wood impres-

sions shows considerable regularity (Fig. lithic peoples in regard to architecture thanwe were able to do before; and two, to offer34). In the case of all four Opovo houses

the impression orientation is predominantly some plausible interpretations for why andhow the Neolithic houses of Southeast Eu-NW-SE. Immediately after comes E/W, and

then NE/SW, and N/S. What is even more rope were destroyed. An important focus ofthe study, therefore, was the investigationimportant for my argument is that in the

case of all 4 houses the orientation and the of the causes of house fires during the Neo-lithic. The empirical data in this investiga-proportion of orientation is almost identical.

My explanation for this regularity is that the tion have been used to establish some rela-tionships between the materials used inhouses were burned down in similar fash-

ion. They have collapsed in a short period house construction and their behaviour infire by introducing the method of excava-of time, as shown by the long stretches of

fairly intact wall portions which were exca- tion, recording and sampling the data on ar-chitecture and performing their analyses.vated in some instances. There are no indica-

tions of structures burning more than once. The data collected on the construction mate-rials also allow for further insights into thePRIMARY HOUSE USE ONLY. Taking into

consideration that there are absolutely no specifics of the wattle-and-daub method ofhouse construction.indications of these houses being reoccu-

pied I propose that the house burning and The most critical evidence that followedfrom the analyses is the ratio between thecollapse was an organized and strategic ef-

fort of house destruction and their complete volume of construction wood and the vol-ume of clay, the wood-types used in con-‘‘sealing off’’ from possible future utilitar-

ian purposes. struction which indicate their flammability



potential, and the series of analyses of tem- fire the daub to such an extent regardless ofwhether the fire had been initiated acciden-peratures of firing of the architectural re-

mains, house ignition points, and fire paths. tally or deliberately.Thus the flammability of the constructionThe ratio between wood and clay which

shows the use of considerably larger quan- materials and their quantities available asfuel both show a negative correlation withtities of clay than wood in house construc-

tion is an important aspect of the investiga- the intensity of the fire (based on tempera-ture readings). In other words, neither thetion. In the Opovo houses large primary

posts were used but the majority of wood wood endurance (flammability) nor itsquantities seem to be satisfying to accountin the construction was of smaller size. That

is, reeds and small branches predominated, as a single factor for the house fire.I have used these conclusions as basic ar-which is understandable if the environmen-

tal conditions are taken into account. The guments against the hypothesis that thehouse burning was an accidental occur-choice and quantities of the anthropogenic

materials are of exceptional interest, but rence. However, in order to support the hy-pothesis that the house fires were deliberatethey do not seem to play a significant role

as fuel in the house fire. The significance of and not an accidental occurrence, I havealso investigated the burned houses fromthe flammability of different wood is that

most construction wood at Opovo was such many other points of view. Through thisinvestigation I have been able to define thethat it could ignite easily but being of a low

energy level it could not keep a fire burning following characteristics of burned houses,some of which are the results of the proper-for a long time.

The quantity of clay used in the wall con- ties of materials but some are the result ofhuman behaviour. The properties of thestruction unlike wood was large and was

applied on both sides of the house walls (in- construction material show that:side and outside). At the same time the tem-

i. the temperatures of house burningperatures at which the houses burned werewere much too high to have been achievedaround or exceeded 5007C and went up toonly by the fire of the construction wood;over 10007C. This indicates that fires were

ii. the fire path in each Opovo house indi-intensive enough and lasted long enough tocates several ignition points within a house;burn the clays completely. It is known thatwith the same methodology as modernigniting clays is difficult if not impossiblearson investigation I have used this criterionunless substantial quantities of fuel areto judge if Neolithic fires were deliberatelyadded. The question arises whether theset or not;wooden construction of the Neolithic houses

iii. the fire path also shows that the igni-provided enough fuel by itself to burn thetion did not start in the house roof but atclays to the extent to which we find them infloor level; on this basis I suggest that thethe archaeological record. According to thefire was set indoors and on the floor level;engineering studies in modern brick tech-

iv. the pattern of house collapse supportsnology as well as to the ethnographicthe view that houses were pulled down insources (Lucas and Harris 1962); (Khalilian organized and strategic way so as to1986) the quantities of wood that would bebring them to a closure.necessary as fuel to fire the clay to the state

of a brick exceed considerably the quantities Other critical factors are:of wood that were used in the constructionof the Opovo houses. In other words, the a. The completeness of house burning

and completeness of house destructionconstruction wood of the Opovo housescould not by itself constitute enough fuel to when coupled with evidence that the houses



were not used secondarily, i.e., after firing, houses, and that the ‘‘reusable’’ rubble isstill lying where it burned.indicate the intention of the occupants to ter-

minate the utilitarian (i.e., for residence) role Other ‘‘functional’’ causes for house firesinclude the need for fumigation of housesof a house by firing.

b. The sophisticated pyrotechnological infested with pests. There are many argu-ments that contest this proposition. The infes-knowledge of the Vinca culture people

shows that they were capable of manipulat- tation of the Neolithic dwellings assumesvarious types of wood insects and wood rot.ing fire in a variety of productive activities

and would have been able to control house It has been mentioned in previous chapters,however, that oak was the most likely typefires successfully as well if that had been

their intention. of wood used as the primary constructionmaterial, that is for the primary and second-c. Finally a variety of other factors, such

as the fact that we find no bodies inside ary posts and for the roof beams, and thatthis species is very resistant to infestation (seehouses but we find complete house invento-

ries6; and the fact that we find no animal Bakels 1978). In addition, many ways of fumi-gating a house are known from the ethno-skeletons inside or around the houses that

had been caught in the fire, also seems to graphic sources (see Khalili 1986; Weltfish1965). Fire smoke, for example, is used as anpoint to intentional fires that had not been

set as acts of aggression. Rather, I believe agent for fumigation—understandably with-out it resulting in the house destruction.that other reasons of a social nature should

be explored that could account for the prac- Burning a house because it is very infestedin order to replace it with another still cannottice of intentional house burning during the

Neolithic in Southeast Europe. account for the fact that completely equippedhouses were burned down so that none of

Some intentional reasons for house firing the equipment could be reused.have already been discussed. The suggestion The risk of fire in the age of clay. Nonfunctionalthat houses were fired for the functional rea- causes of house fires have been argued by theson of providing a rigid and durable skele- majority of archaeologists who have workedton to the dwelling was suggested by Se- in the region. A widely shared belief withinmenov (1968) but the completeness of house the archaeological community has been thatdestruction in the fires contradicts this argu- the Neolithic houses of Southeast Europe werement entirely. According to Shaffer (1984, destroyed as the result of accidental fires. The1993), the reason for house fire was created competing view assumes that the house firesby the need for acquiring reusable clay for were acts of aggression.further house building. This can be disputed Many archaeologists have expressed theby the same argument of the completeness assumption that domestic activities, such asof house destruction in combination with hearth or even mismanagement caused firethe fact that the houses were not abandoned ignition within a house, which later turnedbefore firing but after firing and the valuable into full-fledged and uncontrollable fire thatinventories were not taken out of the fired destroyed all the houses in a settlement.

However, evidence presented in this paperdoes not support this assumption. First, it is6 There are instances of the Neolithic houses that were

burned just like any other house but were completely clear that at Opovo there were no housesor almost completely emptied from the typical house that were not burned. It was concluded thatinventory. However, at this point of investigation of the the burned houses that may have been builtsubject it seems to me that the reason these houses were

and occupied concurrently were most likelyemptied of their typical content lies in their differentburned at separate times and not in onefunction and not in the fact that they were emptied in

the course of house fire escape. blaze. This conclusion is based on the lack of



burned remains in between the houses which during the Afghan–British war in the begin-ning of the century, as presented by colonelwould indicate the spread of fire from one

house to the other and its continuation Gordon (1953). A house of mud and rubblewalls and a flat mud-covered roof had to be(Tringham et al. 1992). Second, the recon-

structed temperatures of the house rubble prepared for burning or it would not burnat all. The two essentials were extra fuel andwhich belongs to the oven superstructure or

oven floor which are usually around 5007C good draft. These houses would not burn bya simple application of torch to their frame-do not correspond with the temperatures

that occurred at the ignition points of fire. work made of wood. Even when houses hadbeen thoroughly burned, Colonel GordonFor illustration of coercive house fires I

turn to ethnohistorical sources. A rare ethno- claims, they could be, and in fact were, madehabitable after a few months’ work.graphic account of house fires is presented

to us by the Roman historian Vitruvius who Wilshusen (1988; 1989) argues that despitesparse accounts of accidental firings of struc-believed that the risk of fire was great and

the results catastrophic, as demonstrated by tures in the ethnographic record, the com-mon belief among many archaeologistsVerulamium when the city was fired by

Boudicca in AD. 61. Vitruvius (as referenced working in Southwest United States hasbeen that pit-structures were real ‘‘tinderin Davey 1961:41) writes that the part of the

city of Verulamium that was built in wattle boxes’’; that one of their greatest enemieswas fire (e.g., Canby 1982:563). He notes thatwork burned down during this attack. Vi-

truvius’ account describes wattle-and-daub in the Southwest United States all the ar-chaeologists believe that the best explana-houses as an easy target for the flames. I

would suggest, however, that there was a tion of the many burned structures is acci-dent. Wilshusen (1988, 1989), however, ar-difference between the Neolithic and Roman

wattle-and-daub houses that is demon- gues that, although certainly there are casesthat might suggest accidental burning espe-strated by their different behaviour in fire.

The Roman houses of Verulamium ignited cially if the finds include an individual thatmay have been trapped inside a burningmore easily for a number of reasons. The

Roman cities, in which certain residential structure, on the basis of his data from theDolores Project earth-covered dwellings doquarters were built in wattle-and-daub ac-

cording to Vitruvius’ account were famous not burn down as quickly as stick-housedwellings. An experimental study that wasfor being overcrowded with multistory

buildings that were tightly packed, very conducted in order to assess this propositionin which a pit-structure in the Dolores areapoorly built, with very thin walls and large

thatched roofs. What is most important is was burned down in 1983 suggested that itwould take at least several hours for a pit-that the clay cover of these buildings seems

to have been quite thin. Equally important structure to fully catch fire and burn down(Wilshusen 1988, 1989). Wilshusen also re-for understanding the Roman Verulamium

city fire of 61 AD is the nature of the fire fers to the results of a study of experimentaldestruction of a 40-year-old earthlodge initself. The city was burned in an organized

fashion and houses were set on fire at the At-A-Slant Village, North Dakota, in thewinter of 1978–79 by burning. This studysame time. This would have caused a large

concentration of the gases that occur in fires, proved that earth-covered dwellings simplyare slower to burn down than most woodenwhich could then have carried the fire as

long as there were suitable fuel available. buildings. Wilshusen (1988, 1989) assertsthat in the case of the Middle Missouri tribesAnother example of house destruction

that was conducted in an organized manner there is ethnohistoric and archaeological evi-dence of structures being burned down dur-was the raiding of villages in Afghanistan



ing enemy raids. Those are the structures effect on burning the house walls. Actuallythe damage of the fire in their experimentwith human skeletons inside (Lehmer

1971:101). was insubstantial to the structure of thebuilding. They concluded that to burn theIn our example, that is in the Southeast

European Neolithic, it seems highly improb- wood and clay of a house to the extent towhich we find it in the excavated depositsable that all so far excavated Neolithic vil-

lages throughout this long period of prehis- would be very difficult. Even if an initialfire were easily ignited by highly flammabletory would have been burned down by coer-

cive activity of the kind described by materials stored inside the house, this firewould not go on, according to Bankoff andVitruvius, Gordon and Wilshusen. If some

archaeologists do believe that village con- Winter’s experiment, long enough to burnthe construction wood thoroughly. Toflagration as the result of raiding is a plausi-

ble interpretation of the Neolithic, they have achieve that state of burning it would havebeen necessary to help the fire in some way,first to account for the archaeological evi-

dence that indicates individual and deliber- for instance by adding fuel in order to reachhigh temperatures and sustain them untilate house firing that has been presented

here. Moreover, they have to rethink and they could burn wood and clay (Bankoff andWinter 1979).reevaluate their firmly embedded belief that

the Neolithic was a period of great stability, An experiment with similar results waspresented by Hansen (1961). The fire in anpeacefulness, gradual change and develop-

ment in which no large movements of popu- experimental Neolithic long-house built ofwattle-and-daub with large thatched rooflation, such as migrations that would in-

volve territorial fights were taking place. If came about through carelessness whilelighting a fire on the house’s hearth. As aall the Neolithic settlements were the targets

of coercive attacks and all their houses were result, with the exception of the osiers insidethe clay wall, which remained standing up-destroyed in conflagration caused by raid-

ers, the question arises: who were the people right, practically all the woodwork wascharred. In spite of the great heat (in placeswho undertook these attacks?

Several recent experimental studies of fir- near a haystack it burned for up to 6 hours),the clay wall was surprisingly little bakeding houses deliberately or accidentally show

that it is very hard or almost impossible to through. The inner side of the walls washeavily red or black but only to 0.50 cmfire houses built in clay to the extent that

we find in the archaeological record without depth. This layer flaked off in about twoweeks. It was only at the top, and at thesome form of help on the part of the humans,

by either providing additional fuel and draft places that were especially severely exposedto the heat, that the clay was practicallyfor the fire and by doing nothing to contain

the fire. baked through, and large pieces of mudplastering similar to those originally discov-The experimental studies conducted by

Bankoff and Winter (1979) and Shaffer ered at the ‘‘genuine’’ site could be brokenoff. The tops of the roof’s supporting posts(1984) have shown that firing of houses that

were built of wattle and daub with large had been ablaze, but had crashed downfairly soon when they were burned at theirquantities of clay is very difficult. They con-

clude that even if wood is a highly flamma- base by the fallen roof. Despite all this, Han-sen concluded that the slight damage to theble building material the fact that the struc-

tural wood is coated with a thick layer of walls was remarkable.The practice of house burning lastedclay makes it hard to burn. The hardest part

in the Bankoff and Winter experiment was throughout the Neolithic period of South-east Europe (ca. 1500 years) without intro-to sustain the fire long enough to have any



ducing any changes in the method of con- as ensuring the continuation of ancestral linein one place. Consequently, house construc-struction, or in the choice of the materials

used or in the intrasite organization of the tion, their use and destruction were the seg-ments of a continuous process.dwellings. The technological knowledge of

the Vinca culture people has proved to be House abandonment and replacement. Houseand village abandonment and replacementsubstantial and I believe it included the pos-

sibility to introduce some changes to their for structural or social reasons is a world-wide practice known from a variety of timearchitecture. The possibility of altering the

method of construction to one of mud-brick periods. The term abandonment coversmany different processes and has no singletechnology would have been feasible if the

social conditions had been favorable. This archaeological consequence. Site abandon-ment and replacement, even though the lat-method must have been known to the Vinca

culture people from the times of the earlier ter is much less known, has received a con-siderable attention in archaeological litera-settlements (Early Neolithic) in the border-

ing region to the South, such as at the site ture lately (Cameron and Tomka 1993). Afterthe initial focus on studies of abandonmentof Anzabegovo (Gimbutas 1974, 1976b). In

addition, soil in large quantities necessary in site formation processes (Schiffer 1976),more recently archaeology has witnessed anfor mud brick manufacture was readily

available at the Neolithic sites. However, the intensification and diversification in thestudy of this phenomenon (Brooks 1993). In-mud-brick construction is considered to be

a slower method and more labor intensive. vestigations of planned versus unplannedabandonment and utilization of sites fromThe dilemma arises: did the Vinca culture

people not want to invest more time and initial occupation to abandonment has beenthe focus of research in archaeology (e.g.,energy in mud-brick construction of their

houses? Or did they prefer their houses to Brooks 1989; Binford 1982; Stevenson 1982),and ethnoarchaeology investigations (e.g.,be more easily built and at the same time

easier to destroy? Kent 1984, 1990; Stevenson 1985; Tomka 1989).The phenomenon of abandonment is cur-A much more plausible interpretation of

house burning in the Southeast European rently viewed in the archaeological commu-nity as a complex set of processes in whichNeolithic, which is in my view supported

by the analyses presented in this paper, is differences can be drawn in its causes andits nature, such as episodic, seasonal, perma-that the house conflagrations were the result

of deliberate and symbolic action. I argue nent (e.g., Tomka 1989), or punctuated aban-donment (e.g., Graham 1993). These pro-that for the Neolithic Vinca culture people,

domestic houses were of utilitarian and rit- cesses are believed to have operated on thesettlement, aggregate, and individual house-ual significance at the same time. But

whereas it is easier to illustrate their utilitar- hold level. Furthermore, it has been con-cluded by recent investigations that aban-ian role based on the number of domestic

activities that were carried out within them, donment cannot be viewed as a separatestatic event, but is always dynamicallyit is much more difficult to show their non-

utilitarian role. Based on all evidence pre- linked to other events within a social group(Brooks 1993).sented in this study, I suggest that the house

burning and collapse was an organized and As suggested by Tringham (1990), discus-sion on site abandonment and replacementstrategic effort of house destruction and

their complete ‘‘sealing off’’ from possible in the Vinca culture, as well as in SoutheastEuropean prehistory has been limited. Somefuture utilitarian purposes. At this point of

their use-life the houses might have ac- causes for village abandonment and later re-placement during the Neolithic of Centralquired a new, nonutilitarian function, such



Europe have been implied by archaeologists abandonment on the village level is knownfrom the historic Pueblos at Orabi where thethat worked on the LBK culture. Childe

(1957), and Soudsky’ and Pavlu (1972) ana- partial abandonment of the site was due toa social dispute (see Wilshusen 1988, 1989).lyzed the LBK horizons of houses in terms

of interrupted occupation. Their argument According to Brooks (1993) the Plains so-cieties of North America feature severalsuggests that between the two phases of

houses the same people lived at another site. types of abandonment, from planned aban-donment that was related to the ‘‘life-cycle’’The cause of such alternating of settlements

was related to the type of agricultural prac- of the house and a need for its replacementto the less planned or very sudden abandon-tices conducted by the LBK populations.

Soudsky’ talked about a restricted territory ment in the case of a sudden death. Thelong-term planned house and/or site aban-within which a group of related people

would alternate the settlements staying at donment could take two years of prepara-tion in which help was provided by the kin.each location for 10–15 years at one time or

until the fields are exhausted by overcrop- In these instances, the houses that wereabandoned show a pattern of ‘‘scavenging’’ping. Modderman (n.d.) argued against cy-

clical habitation pattern of the LBK settle- for high-reproduction-cost goods or othervalued items including removing and trans-ments remarking that this explanatory

model, developed for the tropical regions porting of the old wood-beams in the areaswhere wood is scarce, and exhibit burningcharacterized by the slash and burn agricul-

ture, was inappropriately imposed on the of the dwellings as a ritual associated withthe abandonment of a residence (1993:180–Neolithic settlements of Europe, which were

located on different types of soil. 182). House destruction or abandonment forfear of ancestral ghosts, if a person dies in aExplanations such as the one for the LBK

villages of Central Europe presume that as house for reasons other than old age, isknown among the Athapaskans in thea single event a complete village was aban-

doned and later on resettled in a similar Southwest United States (Jett and Spencer1981:28). Among the Navajo a house infashion. On the other hand, I suggest that

even though a complete village abandon- which a person died may be burned; if not,a hole is torn through the north wall and thement and replacement was a possible strat-

egy in the Neolithic, another strategy, that roof beams are allowed to fall in, indicatingthat the place should be avoided (Reichardof abandonment and replacement on an in-

dividual or household scale, must not be 1963:81).The ethnographic examples are not onlyruled out.

In the ethnographic and archaeological lit- important to illustrate the practice of houseabandonment and replacement on the indi-erature often mentioned functional reasons

for individual house abandonment are vidual scale but also to draw attention toanother related practice that can occur dur-structural decay, as for instance, among the

American SW Pueblo populations (McIn- ing the process, that of partial or completehouse destruction. The causes for the prac-tosh 1974), or insect infestation in the case

of the Navajo, which limited their use-life of tice of house destruction and house aban-donment at the Neolithic site of Opovo arehogans to 6–10 years (McGuire and Schiffer

1983:291), (see discussion in Wilshusen 1988, believed to have been related to the needfor house replacement. In any archaeological1989; and Weltfish 1965:252). Extreme

drought conditions and resource depletion study of cooperative production and espe-cially the possibility of cooperative genera-forced many of the Hopi to temporarily

abandon on the village scale the Mesas tional transmission of land and other prop-erty by households, it is essential to establish(Dockstader 1979:525). The social reason for



the relationship of the household to a locus objectifying the successful social reproduc-tion of the owners. Social and material conti-or loci through time. Houses as residing

dwellings were the focal points for the social nuity were important to the Neolithic socie-ties and might have remained a leading mo-life in many respects of the Neolithic com-

munities (Tringham 1990; Tringham and bilizing force in the society throughout theNeolithic. The engagement in domesticationStevanovic 1991). This study argues that the

Neolithic Opovo houses were not just aban- of plants and animals, as well as domestica-tion of humans was physically and concep-doned in order for their inhabitants to alter-

nate the settlements and gain new farming tually a struggle for constancy. The only wayto succeed in the domestication of animals,grounds. The Opovo houses, just as other

Neolithic houses in the Vinca culture, were plants, and humans, as we know from thehistorical periods, is through perseverancedestroyed before they were abandoned.

The Opovo houses were burned down and protraction of human and natural re-sources.and replaced with no exception. The Opovo

houses, moreover were built with a tech- In the Vinca culture, the period of greatestintensification of production and the periodnique that would facilitate house destruction

at the end of its use-life. Since there are no of the most extensive house burning coin-cide with the practice of building new struc-indications that the end of a house use-life

was based on utilitarian grounds—all the tures which are horizontally removed to acertain extent from the location of older de-houses were fully equipped when burnt

down—it is proposed here that their use-life stroyed houses. It has been suggested thatif this was a common practice in the lateended as the result of other nonutilitarian

factors. Surely, such an act of house destruc- Vinca culture settlements, especially thosewhere the land available or preferred for res-tion would have been highly undesirable

among the settled people had there not been idence was more restricted, such as tell set-tlements, the houses would have symbol-socially essential reasons. House burning

may have been a ritualized act marking, for ized the continuity of land use and possiblyland ownership (Tringham et al. 1992). Thus,instance, the end of a house use-life and an

end or new beginning of a household head in those circumstances a Neolithic house se-cured its visibility by being burnt and pro-(as suggested by Tringham 1994). In these

circumstances, by housing the events of life vided a foundation for the new house withwhich it was replaced.and death of its inhabitants houses are em-

bedded in those events and as such they ac- It is quite feasible that such continuitywould have served to legitimize ownershipquire their use-lives.of a locale in a settlement and of agriculturalresources in the vicinity of the settlement.CONCLUSIONContinuity is being assured not onlythrough succession and replacement of itshuman resources (reproduction) but alsoContinuity of Placethrough holding onto fixed or movableproperty and through the transmission ofThe Neolithic house was the central fea-

ture in the society by way of constituting the the names, titles and prerogatives as pre-sented by Levi-Strauss and reviewed by Car-largest and most complex single feature for

production and by encapsulating the social sten and Hugh-Jones (1995). Thus in theNeolithic of Southeast Europe, in additionactivities within it and its physical belong-

ings. However, the house during the Neo- to assurance of a lineage continuity throughreproduction, we could propose a sociallithic might have also had the symbolic role

of securing a postutilitarian visibility and mechanism for assurance of continuity



through the house and the farming grounds it retains its visibility and its mnemonic po-that go with it. It may seem paradoxical to tential. Its existence would have been knownsuggest that house destruction can assure to the people who built a new house on topcontinuity in a society in which houses seem of it. Moreover, the reason that they buildto have been the largest asset for an individ- the house at the very place of the previousual or a family. However, if the houses had one, I believe, was a strategic action with anto be replaced at some point in their use- aim to incorporate symbolically and struc-life (as suggested by Tringham 1994) and turally the old house into the new one. By‘‘sealed off’’ from the future utilitarian pur- such action the role of the older place contin-poses to do so by the means of firing them ues to exist through the role of the new place.is an understandible strategy. In fact fired Thus, the continuation of the place is estab-clay, that the houses were made of, lasts lished.much longer than unfired clay and becomes There are multiple examples from the sitemuch more visible in the village deposits, of Opovo, as well as from many other Vincaas surely the Neolithic people realized from culture sites (Gomolava, Vinca-Belo Brdo) oftheir own manufacture of ceramics in clay. the practice of house construction by incor-

It is not surprising that the Vinca people porating older outdoor hearths and ovens aswould have chosen fire as an agent of trans- well as older burned houses into the founda-formation—the agent that can create and tion of new houses. This was achieved bydestroy—to carry out the closure of their erecting the new house not directly on tophouses in a ritualized action. Domestication of the older features, but resting on one partof fire had been achieved by bringing it of the older house or feature (in some in-within the realm of the houses (in hearths stances to incorporate more than one out-and ovens). Fire as an agent of transforma- door oven and/or house). This positioningtion of the raw-food into the cooked-food of a house may have given it a structuralwas a crucial part of the process that focused

advantage in the sense that the stable, solidon bringing the wild within the house and

ground of the older features was used as ainto the cultured/domesticated space of thefoundation for the new house. However, thehumans in the concept of ‘‘Domus.’’ The realfact that they do not always lie directly oncontrol of fire that followed was achievedtop of the older feature I interpret as a sym-by the sophisticated pyrotechnology of thebolic continuation of the place.Vinca culture people.

The tell settlements of Southeast EuropeDuring the Vinca culture period houseand the Near East are prime examples offires by their destructive role played a con-such a practice and of the significance of thestructive part as well and expanded the pro-place that many generations inhabited. Thecess of technological and social domestica-non-tell sites or so-called ‘‘flat’’ site, such astion. The Neolithic house was brought to clo-Opovo, are another example of the samesure by burning; it was shut off from thepractice. At Opovo there are three buildingactive/utilitarian life. At the same time, it ishorizons which, on the basis of 14C dates,preserved by that same fire which trans-are believed to have lasted for nearly 200forms it into a brick-like solid material thatyears. In my mind the places of the Neolithiccan stay as such for an indefinite time. Inpeople which were ‘‘kept alive’’ and visiblethis way the house as a place gains visibilityfor generations to come indicate the continu-in a much wider sense than it had duringity of the social structure, such as lineage,its utilitarian life.through the mechanics of house construc-Even though a burned and collapsedtion, their use and destruction being the seg-house becomes invisible by being covered

by humus and/or by another house on top, ments of a continuous process.



Bogdanovic, MilenkoACKNOWLEDGMENTS1990 Die spatneolithischen Siedlungen in Divostin.

In Vinca and its world, edited by D. SrejovicFor the research presented in this article I receivedand N. Tasic, pp. 99–106. Serbian Academy ofsupport from the Fulbright-Hayes Doctoral DissertationSciences and Arts, Belgrade.Research Abroad Program, the Stahl Fund of the Ar-

chaeological Research Facility, Department of Anthro- Bogucki, Peterpology at U.C. Berkeley, and the Explorers Club Fund. 1988 Forest farmers and stockherders: early agricultureI take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all of and its consequences in North-Central Europe.them. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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The Social Dynamics of House Destruction

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