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，Borojevic博士与一个多学科的国际团队合作，将研究植物遗骸，以揭示与东南欧塞尔维亚新石器时代文化的典型遗址-塞尔维亚的古建筑环境相关的植物利用和植被开发。该遗址为研究巴尔干半岛中部公元前五千年的经济生产和建筑实践提供了一个难得的机会，巴尔干半岛中部是一个核心地区，在史前时期，定居的农业社区扩展到喀尔巴阡盆地。这项研究将提供过去植被的初步数据，以及东南欧中部环境和过去7000年来空间利用的可能变化。该项目将有助于精确确定建筑物的功能，它们的生活史，遗址的整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，这种方法可以扩展并应用于世界范围内的植物物质研究，无论存款的时间和类型如何。Borojevic博士将开发样品收集/制备程序，作为评估准确，通过将微形态数据（薄片）与来自类似来源的植物遗骸的大量浮选数据相结合，产生了背景信息。其目的是揭示用于燃料、建筑、饲料和垫料的植物类型，以及它们的用途在空间上是如何变化的。公元前4500年）。与直接放射性碳测年法一起，植物遗骸薄片可以提供高分辨率、背景受控的人类沉积物和沉积后植物物质和人类活动历史的视图。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植物材料建造不同功能，燃料类型，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.