New “Balkan Fashion” Developing Through the Neolithization Process: The Ceramic Annulets of Amzabegovo and Svinjarička Čuka
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Stojanovski, D., Horejs, B., 2025. New “Balkan Fashion” Developing Through the Neolithization Process: The Ceramic Annulets of Amzabegovo and Svinjarička Čuka. Open Archaeology 11.
Abstract
We are presenting a first overview of the ceramic annulets found in Neolithic contexts in the Balkan Peninsula, which we are interpreting as bracelets with a very specific short-term use and function. Based on available information, we are revealing their geographical and chronological distribution. The ceramic bracelets appeared within the first farming communities of the Central Balkans at the break from seventh to sixth millennium BC. They are not abundant, always fragmented and found in residential contexts at Neolithic sites north of the Aegean between 6000 and 5400 BC. The assemblages from the two Neolithic sites Amzabegovo and Svinjarička Čuka, both on the Vardar-Morava neolithization route into Europe, are presented here as case studies. Based on our data, we reveal their physical properties and their place in the ceramic production, their diversity and evolution, as well as their possible function and relation to social aspects as part of the Neolithization process.