This study explores and demonstrates processes of cultural change in the
first half of the 6th millennium cal BC, among the Körös and Starčevo
groups of the northern marginal zones of the Balkans. Within this period
and zone, which forms the southern part of the Carpathian basin, clay
was the fundamental and most abundant building block of material
culture, architecture, everyday life and cult practices. Clay walls,
furniture, ten thousands of vessels, hundreds of clay figurines and
other cult objects accumulated as huge piles of clay debris in every
settlement. Traditional system of subsistence patterns ceased to fully
function when these first farmers occupied cool and wet hilly forested
landscapes: the environmental and cognitive challenges gradually led to
the decline of this clay-centered orbit.
At the same time, these changes gave birth to a no-less stunning world
constructed more of timber and stones, with transformations in
subsistence, material culture and rituals. This transition is
inextricably bound up with the formation of the first farmers'
communities of Central Europe, the Bandkeramik (LBK). The need for new
elements of subsistence involved the increasing significance of cattle
over caprinae: this shift infiltrated into ritual activities. The newly
identified large horned cattle figurine type, acting as the cornerstone
of this study, is an embodiment of the last instance among the Southeast
European communities of the clay world, while changes in the depictions
already reflect the transformation of lifestyles. The role of cattle and
their monumental depictions, found in domestic contexts, define methods
for unfolding this phenomenon.
In this fascinating new study, Eszter Bánffy takes a holistic approach
to the definition of monumental early Neolithic clay figurines,
analogies over Southeast Europe, and the reconstruction of rituals
involved in the making and using figurines. She reviews a broad scope of
environmental and (social) zooarchaeological analyses to examine the
concomitant development and significance of early dairying. The target
is to present one possible narrative on the fading of the Southeast
European 'clayscapes', towards the birth of the LBK and the Central
European Neolithic.
