Innovation and periphery: Interaction in the central and western Balkan region during the Neolithic and early Eneolithic.

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In the course of the 6th millennium cal BC, the Central Balkan area emerged as an important region where several innovations were developed or adopted from the southern region of the Balkan Peninsula such as hierarchical settlement systems, architectural forms which led to the accumulation of settlement mounds, copper metallurgy, certain pottery technologies, and styles. The mentioned innovations exemplarily reflect far-reaching social and economic changes that resulted in the formation of more complex societies with greater specialization and growing social inequality. With time delays, the abovementioned innovations were adopted in areas that were situated peripheral to the innovative regions, including the upland area of Eastern and Central Bosnia. Which concrete mechanisms and triggers determined these processes?Based on intensive preliminary work in Central Bosnia, the present research project aims at formulating a diachronic synthesis of the development in innovative regions of the Central Balkans on the one hand, and in different peripheral highland areas in Eastern, Northeast, and Central Bosnia on the other hand during the 6th and 5th millennia cal BC. The research attempts to answer the questions: 1) To what extent can innovative phases be identified? 2) Can these phases be synchronized with the already fine-chronological and differentiated spatial development in Central Bosnia in the Neolithic and the Early Eneolithic? 3) Can core zones with innovations, border zones, and external zones of the processes be distinguished?Concretely, the project aims, on the one hand, to synthesize already published data on settlement geography, architecture, economics, and various aspects of material culture. On the other hand, results obtained in the course of extensive field surveys in the region Gorazde in Eastern Bosnia during the last years will be processed, augmented, and published. In doing so, for the first time a systematic evaluation of data concerning the relationship between 'centre' and 'periphery' for the Central and Western Balkans during the Neolithic and the Early Eneolithic is to be carried out.