Multiscalar Approach to the Study of Vegetation and Plant Use during the Neolithic Period in the Central Balkans: A Case Study from the Vinca Settlement

在国家科学基金会的支持下，博罗耶维奇博士将与一个多学科的国际团队合作，研究植物遗骸，以揭示与东南欧塞尔维亚新石器时代文化典型遗址文卡遗址的建成环境有关的植物用途和植被开发。该遗址为研究公元前五千年巴尔干中部的经济生产和建筑实践提供了一个难得的机会，在史前时期，定居的农业社区从这个核心区扩展到喀尔巴底盆地。这项研究将提供过去植被的初步数据，以及过去7000年来东南欧中部环境和太空利用的可能变化。该项目将有助于准确确定建筑物的功能、其生命史、遗址的总体功能以及新石器时代晚期植物的使用和自然植被的开发。这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于建立识别微小植物遗骸的新技术和方法，这种方法随后可以扩展并应用于世界范围内的植物物质研究，无论沉积的时间和类型。Borojevic博士将开发样本收集/准备程序，作为评估通过结合微形态数据(薄片)和来自类似种源的植物遗骸的大量浮选产生的准确、有背景的信息的测试案例。其目的是揭示用于燃料、建筑、饲料和铺垫的植物类型，以及它们的使用在空间上是如何变化的(约公元前4500年)。与直接放射性碳测年一起，薄片中的植物遗骸可以提供关于植物物质和人类活动的高分辨率、背景受控的人类沉积和沉积后历史的观点。从分析中获得的综合信息将有助于重建遗址周围的古代植被和生态条件，以便更好地了解人们在开发自然植被时所采用的策略，以及他们在使用不同的植物材料建造不同特征、类型的燃料或饲料时所做的选择。该项目将促进学者之间的合作和交叉培训，并向美国和塞尔维亚的研究生和本科生传播这项新技术。

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Borojevic in collaboration with a multidisciplinary international team will study plant remains to reveal plant use and vegetation exploitation related to the built-environments at the Vinca site, a type site of the Neolithic culture in Serbia in Southeast Europe. The site provides an exceptional opportunity for the study of economic production and building practices in the fifth millennia BC in the central Balkans, a core area from which settled agricultural communities expanded into the Carpathian Basin in the prehistory. The study will provide the initial data on past vegetation and possible changes in the environment of central Southeast Europe and use of space in the past 7000 years. The project will contribute to the precise determination of the functions of the buildings, their life histories, the overall function of the site and the use of plants and the exploitation of natural vegetation during the late Neolithic. This research is important because it will help to establish novel techniques and methodology of identifying minute plant remains, an approach which can then be expanded and applied to the study of vegetal matter world-wide, regardless of the period and type of deposit.Dr Borojevic will develop sample collection/preparation procedures which will serve as a test case for assessing accurate, well-contextualized information produced by combining micromorphological data (thin-sections) with those of bulk flotation of plant remains from similar proveniences. The purpose is to reveal the types of plants used for fuel, construction, fodder, and bedding, and how their use changed spatially (ca. 4500 BC). Together with direct radiocarbon dating, plant remains in thin sections can provide high resolution, contextually controlled views of anthropogenic deposits and post-depositional histories regarding vegetal matter and human activities. The combined information gained from the analyses will enable reconstruction of the ancient vegetation and the ecological conditions around the site in order to understand better the strategies people employ in exploiting the natural vegetation and the choices they make when using diverse plant materials for construction of different features, types of fuel, or fodder.The project will promote collaboration and cross training amongst scholars and dissemination of the new technique to the graduate and undergraduate students in the USA and Serbia.