Cultural resilience of prehistoric peripheries: A case study of South Bohemia

0562190 - ARÚ 2023 RIV CZ eng A - Abstract
Vondrovský, Václav - Chvojka, O. - Hlásek, Daniel - John, J. - Šída, Petr - Pták, M. - Šálková, T. - Ptáková, M.
Cultural resilience of prehistoric peripheries: A case study of South Bohemia.
28th EAA Annual Meeting (Budapest, Hungary, 2022). Abstract book. Prague: European Association of Archaeologists, 2022 - (Kleinová, K.). s. 175. ISBN 978-80-88441-02-1.
[Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists /28./. 31.08.2022-03.09.2022, Budapest]
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT EF16_019/0000728; GA ČR(CZ) GA21-16614S
Institutional support: RVO:67985912 ; RVO:68081758
Keywords : culture * periphery * radiocarbon dating * identity
OECD category: Archaeology; Archaeology (ARUB-Q)
https://submissions.e-a-a.org/repository/preview.php?id=14885

The region of South Bohemia (Czech Republic) represents a specific area of prehistoric occupation. Generally higher altitudes, less fertile soils and local wetlands set certain limits for agricultural communities in comparison to those inhabiting the neighbouring loess lowlands spreading across drainage basins of the upper Elbe, Morava, and Danube. In our case study we track the cultural development of South Bohemia in a long-term perspective from late Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to complex society of the Bronze Age. Comparing a comprehensive dataset of radiocarbon dates, we have identified several periods of differences in cultural development of South Bohemia and neighbouring lowland regions. Despite new cultural systems with distinctive materiality and cultural manifestation emerged in lowlands, they reached South Bohemia with considerable delay, or they are even completely absent in local archaeological record. We argue that this trajectory was governed by the cultural conservatism strengthening a distinctive identity of South Bohemian communities rather than their physical isolation since the inter-regional distribution networks remained uninterrupted. The paper demonstrates that there can be more variable reality beneath blocks of archaeological cultures and their generalised spatio-temporal development. Even for temperate landscapes lacking extreme gradients of high mountains or arid areas it should be considered patchier image where progressive core regions interweaved by inner peripheries with different development.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0334611