NEOSOL: Sediment Archives of Neolithisation along the Vardar-Morava

The change from hunter gatherer to settled farming communities (‘Neolithisation’) is among the most pivotal transformations in human history. Having started around 10,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent, this revolution in ways of life reached the Balkans by the late 7th millennium BC. In the central Balkans, the Vardar-Morava river served as one of the primary corridors by which farming came to Europe. While past studies have addressed many aspects of Neolithisation along this crucial corridor, we still have only bare outlines of everyday life in the first settlements, and our understanding of their development is limited. The complex shifts that occurred between mobile, semi-mobile and sedentary modes of living, as well as the development of subsistence practices, are poorly understood.

While research has traditionally focused on the ‘macro’ objects retrieved from archaeological sediments, intense human activity within ancient settlements leaves behind distinctive and extensive microscopic traces within the soil. These ‘micro’ remains are a largely untapped source of information that can yield clues about the nature and organisation of settlements, their development and decline, as well as post-depositional processes that contributed to the formation of the sites.

To exploit these micro traces, the NEOSOL project will study the composition and depositional arrangement of the sediments that accumulated within three early Neolithic settlement sites: Amzabegovo (North Macedonia), Svinjarička Čuka and Drenovac (Serbia). These sites are under active excavation, allowing new samples to be collected from a variety of contexts including buildings, pit dwellings, open spaces, fireplaces, bins and middens.

The central method is soil micromorphology, which uniquely enables undisturbed soil to be studied under a microscope. The tiny soil components and their relationships will be examined using plane- and cross- polarised light. Fluorescent microscopy and spectroscopic methods (FTIR, XRF and SEM-EDX) will be used for further identification of minerals, chemical compounds and organic molecules. Analysis of starch and silica phytoliths will help to identify plant remains, while sediment aDNA may shed light on the animals present in the settlement, and even the inhabitants themselves. Such highly detailed information about the composition and arrangement (‘microstratigraphy’) of sediments will enable key inferences to be made about built spaces (construction, function, seasonal/permanent modes of use, length of use), domestic and craft activities, use of open areas, and waste management. Radiocarbon dating will provide a solid framework for tracing change within settlements and drawing comparisons across the region.