Research project T4_2

The ongoing PhD study aims to investigate social inequality and the emergence of early violence by using different archaeological proxies. As main sources, the settlement system structure in the research areas from the Mesolithic to the Early Bronze Age, the internal settlement organization and cemeteries will be used. Economic statistical methods, such as the Gini coefficient based on burial goods and house size distributions, are going to be major tools to compute degrees of social inequality. In addition, a meta-study of the available bio-anthropological data from cemeteries will provide an insight into the level of violence in the different periods.

The selected research areas (in the Nitra/ Žitava Valleys, Moravian Gate and Lesser Poland) open the possibility to compare the development in different regions at this important interface between Central and Southeastern Europe. By integrating existing data into multi-level analyses on the development of the prehistoric societies (nutrition, access and control of resources, burial practices and violence), the project will identify major aspects of social inequalities.

Collaborators:
Knut Rassmann, DAI: Julia Gresky, Archäologisches Institut der Slowakischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (J. Bátora, Iwan Cheben), Akademie Poznan (S. Kadrow), Niedersächsisches Institut für historische Küstenforschung (F. Bittmann, F. Schlütz).

Grave 593 of the Early Bronze Age cemetery at Vráble (Slovakia) (Stucky 2018, fig. 2).

Sources:
Skorna, H., Kalmbach, J., Bátora, J., 2018. Vráble, Slowakei. Herausbildung und
Niedergang des frühbronzezeitlichen Siedlungszentrums – Untersuchungen zu Wirtschaft,
Sozialstruktur und politischer Organisation eines Sozialverbandes und seines Umfeldes.
Überblick und die Arbeiten in der Siedlung 201’. E-Forschungsberichte des DAI, 1, 101-
108.
Stucky, K., 2018. Vráble, Slowakei. Die Forschungen auf dem frühbronzezeitlichen Gräberfeld. Die Arbeiten seit 2015. E-Forschungsberichte des DAI, 1, 96-100.

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Project by Henry Skorna hskorna@roots.uni-kiel.de