Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research

Vinca Skeletons Studied in Situ at the Gomolava Site, YugoslaviaAuthor(s): Srboljub ZivanovicSource: Current Anthropology, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sep., 1977), pp. 533-534Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for AnthropologicalResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2741413Accessed: 26/11/2010 07:31

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RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS

[The Editor welcomes short statements-normally from 300 to 1,000 words-of research results and conclusions. Such statements should not include detailed supporting data, but should make a clear reference to the location of such data (published or unpub- lished) so that interested readers may refer to the material. Sentences should be specific rather than vague. Abstracts of theses may be included, provided they present conclusions rather than only describe what was done. The date of submission will be included, as well as the address of the contributor, so that colleagues may correspond.-EDITOR.)

Vinca Skeletons Studied in situ at the Gomolava Site, Yugoslavia

by SRBOLJUB ZIVANOVIC

Department of Anatomy, Medical School of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, Charterhouse Square, London ECIM 6BQ, England. 7 II 77

In August 1976, during a visit to Yugoslavia, I was asked by Dr. Bogdan Brukner, Director of Excavations at the Gomolava site at the village of Hrtkovci, near Sremska Mitrovica, on the left bank of the River Sava,; to examine a number of Neolithic skeletons in well-preserved graves from the Vin6a period. Some of these graves were in such good condition that the National Museum in Belgrade and the Vojvodjanski Museum in Novi Sad had decided to remove them intact and prepare them for permanent display. Archaeologists were quite rightly afraid that the human bones, particularly some skulls, would be damaged during this process and therefore wished to obtain as many anthropological data as possible before the removal started. To this end, I studied the human remains at Gomolava in situ.

The only account of the human skeletons from the great Neolithic site at Vin6a, 15 km. from Belgrade, is that of Schwidetzky (1971-72). She had difficulty in identifying the human remains from the site and in understanding the findings of the excavator, M. Vasit, from the fragmentary remnants of his original manuscript, most of which was lost during World War II. Vasie (1932) had the impression that the skeletons found at the site were of different racial types. Some looked more robust than others, and this led Vasit to conclude that the Vin6a population was a mixed one. B. Males, in a personal communication to Vasic in 1937, expressed the opinion that the Vin6a skulls were of the Mediterranean type. Schwidetzky identified ten skulls from Vin6a and described signs of advanced gracilisation. In her first report (1957), she had stated that these skulls were basically Northern with Mediterranean features. Later, she concluded that they were Mediterranean with Cro-Magnon features. It was not easy to give an opinion on the basis of such limited and fragmentary material. Unfor- tunately, no one could give a definitive answer as to the anthro- pological characteristics of the people who developed the well- known Neolithic Vin6a culture, because no other skeletal remains had been preserved either from Vin6a or from other sites of the same period.

During the excavations at Gomolava in summer 1976, 20 graves with human skeletal remains were uncovered. There were 7 male (1 adultus, 5 maturus, 1 senilis I), 7 female (1 juvenilis, 2 adultus, 4 maturus), and 6 children (5 infans I and 1 infans II). All were buried in a .contracted position. These skeletons are more gracile than the Mesolithic skeletons from Iron Gate Gorge (Padina type), although similar to them in

many features. It must be pointed out that half the skeletons found at Gomolava are children or very young individuals and half of the adult skeletons are female; this is why these skeletons appear gracile as opposed to some skeletons of earlier periods (fig. 1).

The skulls of the skeletons found at Gomolava are dolicho- cranic, chamecranic to orthocranic, and tapeinocranic to metriocranic. The orbits are square and hypsiconchic and the nose mesorhine. The supraorbital torus is medium in size, and the glabella is low. The occipital torus is not large and usually takes the form of an irregular, slightly prominent ridge. Flattening at the lambda is slight or absent. The pterion is of the "H" type. The zygomatic bones are medium in width, with slight lateral and forward protrusion. The root of the nose is of medium width. The subnasal and canine fossae are small and shallow. Prognathism is not marked. Mandibles are large with a high body, wide ramus, medium notch, and slightly everted angles. Mental protuberances are small to medium. The torus auditorius is absent, and the mastoid processes are large in males and medium to small in females.

The long bones of the postcranial skeleton are gracile in female and young individuals and more robust in males. Estimated stature, calculated by Pearson's formulae, ranges between 155.75 cm and 175.11 cm in males and 145 cm and 160.17 cm in females. The average male was approximately 165.5 cm tall and the average woman 154.5 cm. The pilastric index ranges between 84.62 and 120.00 in males and 88.89 and 100.00 in females. The platymeric index ranges between 80.00 and 90.91 in males and 93.10 and 106.46 in females, indicating that femora are more eurimeric than stenomeric. Tibiae are euricnemic. with the cnemic index ranging between 68.42 and 79.41 in males and 68.75 and 75.00 in females. These values are not much different from indices found in recent Yugoslav skeletons.

Full details of all the morphological features and anthro- pological observations and measurements will be given in a

Fio. 1 Skeleton No 10 (rnfans II) in situ at Gomolava .

Vol. 18 * No. 3 * September 1977

later report following the completion of excavations at Gomo- lava. These first results and observations in situ lead to the following preliminary conclusions: The Vinca population at Gomolava probably developed from an earlier Cro-Magnon Paleo-European race of the Padina type, but it showed signs of an advanced gracilisation. (The first signs of gracilisation in a Cro-Magnon population in Yugoslavia are seen in Padina skeletons C14-dated at 7381 B.C. or 9331 ? 58 B.P. [BM1146]). The population at Gomolava was homogeneous, as all the skeletons possess the same anthropological characteristics.

These skeletons cannot be classified as Mediterranean. They belong to a later variety of the Proto-European population of the Padina type with more marked gracile characteristics.

References Cited SCHWIDETZKY, I. 1957. "Die Vinca-Schadel." Vorldufige Mitteilung,

Ber. 5, Tagung der Deutsche Gesellschaftfur Anthropologie, Freiburg, 1966, pp. 117-19.

1971-72. Menschliche skelettreste von Vinca. Glasnik Antropoloskog Drustva jugoslavije 8-9:101-12.

VASIC, M. 1932. Preistoriska Vinea. Beograd.

Technological Investigations of Mesoamerican "Thin Orange" Ceramics1

by CHARLES C. KOLB Department of Anthropology, The Behrend College, The Pennsyl- vania State University, Erie, Pa. 16510, U.S.A. 20 I 77

A highly diagnostic ceramic often used as a relative-chronologi- cal "marker" of Classic Teotihuacan Period archaeological site occupation in the Mesoamerican Meseta Central is Thin

Orange Ware. The pottery is heavily distributed in Teotihuacan culture sites in the Basin of Mexico, but has also been found in sites as far northwest as the state of Jalisco and as far south as Honduras, with quantities reported from localities in the Guatemalan highlands and Yucatecan lowlands (Kolb 1973). Chronologically, the ware appears earliest in the Teotihuacan Valley Pre-Classic Patlachique Phase and continues into the Post-Classic Oxtotipac Phase, although its primary association is during the Tlamimilolpa and Xolalpan Phases of the Classic Period (Kolb 1973, 1976; see table 1).

This thin-walled, "orange"-colored (reddish-yellow) ceramic

TABLE 1

BASIN OF MEXICO, PARTIAL CHRONOLOGY

GOODMAN- MARTINEZ- THOMPSON TEOTIHUACAN MAPPING

CORRELATION TEOTIHUACAN VALLEY PROJECT INAH PROYECTO TEOTIHUACAN (Weaver 1972:3) PROJECT (Millon 1965:fig. 5) (Muiller 1966)

800-850 Xometla

750-800 Xometla/Oxtotipac Oxtotipac Proto-Coyotlatelco

650-700 Metepec Metepec Teotihuacan IV (Metepec)

600-650 Late Xolalpan Late Xolalpan Teotihuacan III-A (Late Xolalpan) 550-600 (Maquixco)

450-500 Early Xolalpan Early Xolalpan Teotihuacan III (Early Xolalpan)

400-450 . . . Teotihuacan II-A/III 350-400 Late Tiamimilolpa Late Tiamimilolpa (Late Tlamimilolpa)

300-350 Early Tlamimilolpa Early Tlamimilolpa Teotihuacman

II-A

200-250 Miccaotli Miccaotli Transition

150-200 Apetlac (Early Miccaotli) Teotihuacan II (Miccaotli)

100-150 . Teotihuacan I-A (Late Tzacualli) 50-100 Teopan (Late Tzacualli) Late Tzacualli Teotihuacan I (Early Tzacualli)

sB.C./A.D.-50 Oxtotla (Early Tzacualli) Early Tzacualli Proto-Teotihuacan

100-50 Patlachique (Patlachique)

150-100 (Chimalhuacan) Proto-Teotihuacan 200-150

Tezoyuca/Patlachique Tezoyuca/Cuanal'an IV (Tezoyuca) 250-250 0uanalPanaIII 300-250 Cuanalan III

1 I wish to acknowledge the encouragement and helpful criti- cisms of William T. Sanders and Frederick R. Matson, both of The Pennsylvania State University, and Garman Harbottle of the Brookhaven National Laboratory. This research was partially funded by The Pennsylvania State University Central Fund for Research (1968) and a National Science Foundation Institutional

Grant to Bryn Mawr College (1971). The ceramic specimens obtained by the Teotihuacan Valley Project, 1961-65, are stored in the Archaeological Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa. 16802, U.S.A.

CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY