View from the trenches: Bosnia&Herzegovina (2014)
9 April 2014
EUROFARM, a collaborative international project, funded by the European Research Council and directed by Marc Vander Linden, deals with the introduction of farming practices and associated technologies in the western Balkans.
Dig diary 2014
The March 2014 field season was undertaken in collaboration with several local colleagues and institutions, including the Muzeum of the Republika Srpska (Ms Ivana Pandžić), the Zavičajni muzej Gradiška (Mr Milan Đurđević, Mr Bojan Vujinović), the Republic Institute for Protection of Cultural, Historical and Natural Heritage (Ms Ljubica Srdić, Ljiljana Parežanin), the Regionalni Muzej Doboj (Mr Aleksandar Jasarević), and the Department of Archaeology, University of Belgrade (Mr Gligor Daković, Ms Ivana Jovanović, Ms Marija Radović).
The survey combined field walking and systematic boreholes
to assess the nature of the Holocene landscape cover. In total, over 65 fields
were surveyed (including 96 boreholes), stretching over a two-and half
kilometres long North-South transect, originating from the site of Kočićevo,
excavated over the past few years by members of the project.
Test pits and small trenches were opened in three Neolithic and one Bronze Age settlements, as well as in a multi-period site (Neolithic, Bronze Age and Medieval period). The latter site of Kosjerovo offers an outstanding combination of a Late Neolithic settlement, a Bronze Age burial mound, and a Medieval cemetery, located in the immediate surroundings of the mound.
In addition to this fieldwork, several post-excavation activities were undertaken, including flotation of all samples recovered during the 2013 field season and this year, preliminary analysis of the lithic assemblage of Kočićevo, and bioanthropological analysis of the Late Neolithic skeleton excavated in 2013 on the same site. Various museums from northern Bosnia&Herzegovina were also visited (Gradiška, Banja Luka, Tuzla) in order to evaluate the state of the existing Neolithic collections and the scope for future collaboration.
As part of their commitment to public engagement and dissemination of research results to as wide an audience as possible, members and collaborators of the EUROFARM project lectured as part of a seminar on 'Archaeology and economic development', hosted by the Cultural Centre of the Gradiška municipality during their fieldwork programme.