Early Bronze Age Burial Structures of the Eastern Adriatic and Their Possible Connections with the Aegean

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The paper discusses connections between the eastern Adriatic coast and the Aegean during Early Bronze Age. This is the period when Cetina Culture saw its birth in the hinterland of the eastern Adriatic coast (present day Croatia). The pottery typical of the Cetina Culture subsequently spread to the Italian and northern Adriatic coasts, central Balkan Peninsula, Albania, and the Aegean, whereas the associated features were recognised as far as Sicily and Malta. It is fairly safe to suggest that such a wide radius of pottery dissemination was a product of an economic exchange. Bronze objects discovered in the Cetina tumuli, and the fact that the initial area of the Cetina Culture contained no metal sources, leads us to conclude that metal was obtained through trade, and that the Cetina people may have traded their pottery (or its contents) for metal, possibly from the Laurio mine in Greece. The Cetina culture chronologically coincides with the period of spreading of tumuli in Greece, which may have been a side-effect of contacts between the two areas. The paper explores the similarities of burial structures of the Cetina region and the Aegean, especially of their architectural forms, burial ritual and typical grave goods.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25503