Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2007 Social Differentiation in the Late Copper Age and the Early Bronze Age in South Moravia (Czech Republic) Daniel Sosna Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION IN THE LATE COPPER AGE AND THE EARLY BRONZE AGE IN SOUTH MORAVIA (CZECH REPUBLIC) By DANIEL SOSNA A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2007 The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of Daniel Sosna defended on March 19, 2007. _________________________ William A. Parkinson Professor Directing Dissertation _________________________ Daniel J. Pullen Outside Committee Member _________________________ Clarence C. Gravlee Committee Member _________________________ Joseph R. Hellweg Committee Member _________________________ Lynne A. Schepartz Committee Member Approved: _____________________________________ Dean Falk, Chair, Department of Anthropology _____________________________________ Joseph Travis, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii To my parents. All three of them. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is hard to imagine writing the acknowledgements for the dissertation before you approach the end. It requires you to dig deep into your memory to evaluate not only mentors, who have had the most significant impact upon your intellectual development but also people whose various forms of support enabled you to resist the temptation of “ABD.” I will start the acknowledgements with my initial introduction to anthropology. When I began studying anthropology in Brno, Vladimír Sládek was the central figure for my intellectual development; he was and continues to be my teacher, colleague, and close friend until today. Without his stimulation and continuous encouragement to improve, I would probably never have ended up writing these sentences. Vladimír Sládek and the other member of our research team, Patrik Galeta, have never let me succumb to the false feeling that my work was good enough. Although it took me a few years to learn how to absorb their heavy criticism, I have realized that such feedback has been the greatest gift one can get in academia. My advisor William Parkinson certainly has been the most prominent person who literally shaped me after my arrival to the US. His seminars were essential for the development of my thinking about tribal societies and their organization. He has never failed to provide me with critical feedback and he has always kept deadlines. Also, I would like to thank him for helping me to adjust to this foreign environment and to deal with the administrative problems. His help went far beyond the common activities of advisors. The members of the dissertation committee, Clarence Gravlee, Joseph Hellweg, Daniel Pullen, and Lynne Schepartz, provided me with very helpful comments that allowed me to improve the dissertation. They all deserve recognition for their feedback. I am also happy to recognize people and institutions who helped me with the transition to living in the US. The crowd around James Adovasio, Jeff Illingworth, and Olga Soffer was responsible for my initiation into American academia and preparation for future Ph.D. studies during my internship at the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute in 2000. Also, I would like to thank the Fulbright Commission, Florida Eastern Europe Linkage Institute, Department of Anthropology at FSU, and Department of Anthropology at ZČU in Plzeň for financial support. iv Multiple individuals, including curators of collections, scholars, and graduate students, helped me during my research in the Czech Republic. They include: Vladimír Blažek, Marta Dočkalová, Petr Dvořák, Alena Humpolová, Blanka Kavánová, Helena Klanicová, Pavel Kouřil, Petr Květina, Petr Neruda, Erika Průchová, Jakub Rídl, Milan Salaš, Lubomír Šebela, Petr Škrdla, Peter Stadler, Stanislav Stuchlík, and Petr Vachůt. Also, I am grateful to Ivo Budil for granting me a sabbatical semester that was crucial for finishing the dissertation. Stephanie Avena, Hanneke Hoekman-Sites, Kristin Kozelsky, Erin Moore, Michelle Markovics, Joe Quattro, and David Thulman provided me with critical feedback on various drafts of the dissertation and proofread my awkward English. I would like to thank all of them. Naturally, all errors in the final version of the text are my own responsibility only. The members of my family, including Kristin, deserve much more than the few following lines. They believed that I had the potential to pursue a degree in the US. Their love and support was the strongest incentive to continue in the times when I had doubts about whether I could succeed. I cannot imagine that I would have been able to finish without their emotional and financial support. Moreover, my family invested the energy to prevent me from becoming an anti-social being who only lives in a scientific world outside the reality of ordinary human experience. I am deeply indebted to them in many ways. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... IX List of Figures........................................................................................................................XII Abstract................................................................................................................................ XIV CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS ............................................................ 7 Introduction................................................................................................................... 7 Social Differentiation.................................................................................................... 7 Vertical Social Differences .............................................................................. 12 Age and Gender................................................................................................ 17 Institutionalization of Vertical Social Differences........................................... 21 Changes in Gender Relations ........................................................................... 28 Theoretical Basis of Mortuary Studies ....................................................................... 31 Benefits and Problems of Mortuary Studies..................................................... 32 Archaeology and the Body............................................................................... 37 Summary..................................................................................................................... 40 CHAPTER 3 THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND GEOGRAPHIC SETTING...................... 41 Introduction................................................................................................................. 41 The Geomorphological Setting................................................................................... 41 Geological History of South Moravia .............................................................. 41 The Geomorphology of South Moravia ........................................................... 42 Environmental Conditions................................................................................ 45 The Archaeological Setting ........................................................................................ 46 The Paleolithic and Mesolithic......................................................................... 46 The Neolithic.................................................................................................... 49 The Early and Middle Copper Age .................................................................. 51 The Late Copper Age ....................................................................................... 53 The Early Bronze Age...................................................................................... 62 Chronology....................................................................................................... 70 Summary..................................................................................................................... 71 CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES AND MODELS............................................... 78 Introduction................................................................................................................. 78 Vertical Social Differences......................................................................................... 79 Gender Relations......................................................................................................... 87 Summary..................................................................................................................... 89 CHAPTER 5 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................... 95 Introduction................................................................................................................. 95 Data Collection ..........................................................................................................