Edinburgh Research Explorer Characterization of ‘Balkan flint’ artefacts from Bulgaria and the Iron Gates using LA-ICP-MS and EPMA Citation for published version: Bonsall, C, Gurova, M, Hayward, C, Nachev, C & Pearce, N 2010, 'Characterization of ‘Balkan flint’ artefacts from Bulgaria and the Iron Gates using LA-ICP-MS and EPMA', (Interdisciplinary Studies), vol. 22, pp. 9-18. Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Published In: (Interdisciplinary Studies) General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 10. Oct. 2021 АРХЕОЛОГИЧЕСКИ ИНСТИТУТ С МУЗЕЙ – БАН ИНТЕРДИСЦИПЛИНАРНИ ИЗСЛЕДВАНИЯ XXII–XXIII СОФИЯ, 2010 9 CHARACTERIZATION OF ‘BALKAN FLINT’ ARTEFACTS FROM BULGARIA AND THE IRON GATES USING LA-ICP-MS AND EPMA Clive Bonsall1, Maria Gurova2, Chris Hayward3, Chavdar Nachev4, Nicholas Pearce5 Introduction sults of trace element analyses using LA-ICP-MS and EPMA techniques are discussed. In 2009 at the 15th annual meeting of the EAA in Riva del Garda, Italy, a special session was or- Archaeological background ganized on Balkan Flint in Southeast European Prehistory6, which brought together scholars whose The ‘Balkan flint’ problem emerged from research on the early farming societies of South- Bulgarian prehistoric evidence and subsequently east Europe had inevitably led them to confront the became deeply embedded in Balkan research, es- problem of the appearance at the beginning of the pecially that concerned with the supra-regional Neolithic of a new, high-quality, raw material for Karanovo I-Starčevo-Criş-Körös cultural complex. the manufacture of chipped stone artefacts, widely Inherently linked to the Neolithisation debate, known as ‘Balkan Flint’ or yellow spotted flint, and the ‘Balkan flint’ problem remains intractable. its continued use in some areas into later periods. In spite of decades of research on the origins and How and where was it obtained, and why was it so spread of the Neolithic in the Balkans, it has proved popular? Did it hold symbolic as well as economic difficult to explain the appearance of standardized and technological significance for Neolithic peo- (formal) toolkits made of yellowish-brown, white- ples? spotted ‘Balkan flint’ca 6000 BC. Was the concept Since the 1970s it has been the conventional of the toolkits brought with migrants along cur- view that this distinctive flint originated from a rently unknown routes from some part of (central source or sources on the so-called ‘Pre-Balkan Plat- or north-western) Anatolia, or did it originate in the form’ (Moesian Platform) in northern Bulgaria from context of local pre-Karanovo enclaves? Two poten- where it was distributed throughout much of South- tial ‘nuclear areas’ for the development of the tech- east Europe (Kozłowski & Kozłowski 1984, Voytek nological and stylistic features of these toolkits have 1987). But did it all come from sources on the Moe- been suggested by M. Gurova (Гюрова 2009, Gu- sian platform and, if so, where were those sources rova 2008): 1) the region of the Struma and Vardar located? The present paper is concerned with the valleys, which some authors believe were directly very important but still unresolved problem of the and independently colonized by Anatolian migrants provenance of Balkan Flint, and the preliminary re- (Николов 1987, Lichardus-Itten 1993, Lichardus-It- 1 School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Ed- ten et al. 2006), and 2) the area in northern Bul- inburgh, Old High School, Infirmary Street, Edinburgh EH1 garia where the earliest Neolithic sites are believed 1LT, U. K., e-mail: clive. [email protected] to be those characterized by ‘monochrome pottery’, 2 National Institute of Archaeology and Museum, BAS, Sofia, 2 Saborna str., e-mail: [email protected] whose inhabitants were already experienced in 3 School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Grant Insti- blade production and lived in reasonable proxim- tute, The King’s Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JW, U. K., e-mail: chris. [email protected] ity to the abundant high-quality flint outcrops of 4 National Museum “Earth and man”, Sofia, 4 bul. Cherni vrah, the Lugorie region to the east (see also Тодорова, e-mail: [email protected] Вайсов 1993). 5 Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Llandinam Building, Penglais Campus, Aberystwyth SY23 Gurova (2008) has argued convincingly that 3DB, U. K., e-mail: [email protected] Bulgarian Early Neolithic chipped stone assem- 6 The session was organized by Maria Gurova (Bulgaria), with co-organizers Clive Bonsall (UK), Barbara Voytek (USA), and blages contain coherent and diagnostic formal flint Dušan Borić (Serbia/UK) toolkits across the vast Karanovo I–II culture area. 10 Clive Bonsall, Maria Gurova, Chris Hayward, Chavdar Nachev, Nicholas Pearce The toolkits are characterized by long, regular talline siliceous rocks (‘flint’) over the past three blades with (bi) lateral, semi-abrupt, high retouch decades. The first to highlight the abundance and and sometimes with rounded or pointed ends, as variety of the flint sources in north-east Bulgaria well as highly (re-) used sickle inserts, all made of was K. Kanchev, who attempted to construct a da- high-quality yellowish-brown or honey-coloured tabase and to link the flint outcrops identified with flint with sporadic whitish spots (usually referred prehistoric artefacts and their circulation (Kънчев to in the literature as ‘Pre-Balkan Platform flint’, 1978, Kънчев и др. 1981). or simply ‘Balkan flint’) (Fig. 1). One of the most Ivan Gatsov presumed north-west Bulgaria challenging questions regarding these toolkits is the to be the region of provenance of the raw mate- identification of their raw material outcrops, sup- rial used for the Early Neolithic assemblages from ply strategy, and the network of their widespread western Bulgaria (Gatsov 1993, 40–41). In the same distribution (local and supra-regional). The spatial publication the Russian specialist, Natalia Skakun, distribution of tools made from this distinctive raw noticed that “certain specimens are probably made material is very extensive: artefacts made of ‘exot- of Dobrudzha flint” (Skakun 1993, 54). ic’ Balkan flint have been reported from Neolithic Two principal types of flint were recognized Greece, Serbia (including Vojvodina), Romania, among the assemblages from the tells of Karanovo Macedonia, and Hungary (for details, see Gurova and Azmak, that referred to as ‘type A’ correspond- 2008). ing to Balkan Flint. The work was done by Ivan Standardized toolkits of Balkan flint were Gatsov and the geologist, Kurčatov, who suggested abundant throughout the “classical” Early Neolithic the abundance of artefacts was due to the proximity Karanovo I and II periods of the Tell Karanovo se- of local flint outcrops, and identified outcrops (more quence, ca 6000 to 5500 cal BC. 7 Since they con- theoretically than actually) in the region of the Sveti tinue to be found until the end of the Karanovo Ilia hills in eastern Thrace, not far from the tells III period at Tell Karanovo, ca 5500–5280 cal BC (Gatsov and Kurčatov 1997, 215). This interpreta- (Görsdorf 1997, 379), this can be regarded as a ter- tion has been quoted repeatedly, but not substanti- minus ante quem for the presence of formal tool- ated by further systematic research. Subsequently, kits. various attempts at Balkan Flint provenancing have Only a few sites in Bulgaria offer the possibil- been made based on visual inspection and macro- ity of studying the formal tools over an extended scopic comparisons. period of time and in a variety of contexts; these are Preliminary examination of a series of arte- Karanovo, Slatina, and Yabalkovo (cf. Fig. 3). Al- facts from Yabalkovo led Zlateva-Usunova to con- though an impressive corpus of flint studies has been clude that “…the predominant raw material with generated over the past two decades, many ques- identified origin comes from deposits in the Upper tions regarding these flint toolkits remain – what Thrace, the Sredna Gora, north [read western] Bul- was their technical origin, where were the outcrops garia and the eastern Rhodopes” (Leshtakov et al., from which the raw material was obtained, what 2007, 201). The same author described two types was the system of procurement and distribution, of flint raw material from Ohoden (beige-wax, and who were the manufacturers (flint knappers), where yellow with whitish spots) thought to originate from were their workshops, and what was the nature and the Dobrudzha region (Zlateva-Uzunova 2009, 70– result of their interactions with neighbouring Early 72). It is worth noting that these flint types appear Neolithic cultural groups and identities? identical to the raw material used at the Yabalkovo site, discussed above. Raw material outcrops of the Balkan In fact, apart from some conjecturing by Nata- flint lia Skakun, the first to presume (albeit theoretically) a northeastern provenance of the raw material used It is worth mentioning the state of the knowl- for the Neolithic big blades was T. Tsonev, in the edge of this topic within Bulgarian archaeology. context of his theory about the role of long blades There have been occasional studies of cryptocrys- in the “communal perception of long distance ex- change through common metaphors” (Tsonev 2004, 7 This age range is based on the 14C evidence from the sites of 262).