Key human-animal interactions in Neolithic Southeastern Europe: new faunal evidence from Bulgaria

Summary

Southeastern Europe has always played an important role in the story of the spread of Neolithic lifeways from the Near East into Europe. At times it has been seen as a bridge, barrier, or mosaic (Tringham 2000). As essential components of the "Neolithic Package", animals have been critical to the telling of this story. The availability of zooarchaeological data for the Neolithic in southeastern Europe has been uneven over the years, with some countries enjoying more coverage than others. Bulgaria lies at the heart of the Balkan Peninsula and is home to some of the more spectacular developments related to the spread of Neolithic lifeways. This paper presents new faunal evidence from several early and late Neolithic sites in Bulgaria and examines how our current understanding of the animal bone data stands in relation to some of the long-standing research questions in Bulgarian prehistory. In so doing, it reevaluates these issues within a social zooarchaeological framework, arguing that animals are constituents of Neolithic society, and that viewing them as such will have fundamental implications for the way zooarchaeology is practiced in the future.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage