Raiko Krauß

University of Tuebingen | EKU Tübingen · Institute for Prehistory and Early History and Medieval Archaeology

In the following paper, we present the main results of our now completed studies of the Varna I cemetery, based on the excavations undertaken by Ivan Ivanov in the years 1972-1991. The richness of the assemblages is singular in Old World prehistory. To tackle the question of its internal , chronological development, we applied correspondence analys...

This volume presents the results of research on pre-industrial mining in the region along the south-eastern Bulgarian Black Sea coast. During rescue excavations some prehistoric settlements with traces of early copper processing were uncovered. This initiated a thorough investigation of the copper ore deposits of Burgas, Rosen and Medni Rid that we...

This special issue of Quaternary International contains a selection of contributions from the international Conference entitled “LBK & Vinča - Formation and Transformation of Early Neolithic Lifestyles in Europe in the second half of the 6th millennium BC” held from 21st to 23rd of March, 2019 in Tübingen (Germany).

Excavations in the centre of the Carpathian Basin reveal an unusual adaptation of the Neolithic way of life to local conditions. Fishing and the use of other aquatic resources are of particular importance.

This article deals with the beginnings of Bulgarian archaeology and its special relations to ancient studies in the German-speaking world. The article was written on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Archaeological Institute Sofia (1921-2021).

During the Early Holocene, climate was the major factor causing fires, but whether during the Mesolithic (~11.5–7.4 cal ka BP) people co‐shaped their environment by means of fire remains of debate. Few studies have tackled this question by linking high‐resolution multi‐proxy palaeoecological studies from near Mesolithic occupation sites. An Early H...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between ~10,500 and ~400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between ~...

This article publishes a new series of radiocarbon dates from Tell Yunatsite, Southern Bulgaria. Context-based excavations undertaken over a large surface area, as well as a small test trench, provided a long stratigraphic sequence (11 “building levels”) covering a large part of the Chalcolithic period in Thrace (5th millennium BCE). Bayesian stati...

A women’s burial of the Early Bronze Age that was uncovered near Ammerbuch-Reusten, Tübingen district in autumn 2020 shows clear relations to burial rites of the Final Neolithic in central Europe. The only grave good was in the rear of the burial. A small spiral ring made of gold wire at the left side of the burial at hip level, which can be consid...

The Upper Neckar and Ammer River valleys in southwestern Germany correspond to the southwestern limit of the overall distribution of the oldest Linear Bandkeramik (LBK) culture. More than 200 Neolithic sites are known from this region, with one of the oldest sites located in the vicinity of the village Ammerbuch-Pfäffingen, 10 km west of Tübingen,...

This paper discusses the chronological development of the Early Iron Age on the lower course of the Danube. The four-stage development proposed by one of the authors about 20 years ago (Early Stamped Pottery; Sboryanovo; Tlachene; Basarabi) is re-evaluated and supported with new finds from northern Bulgaria and radiocarbon dates.

The geochemical analysis of oxhide ingots from Eastern Bulgarian museums is a compulsory step towards a convincing explanation of these objects. Being the hallmark of Late Bronze Age trade in the eastern Mediterranean, oxhide ingots are among the few commodities passing over the economic and cultural confines of the Aegean into continental Europe....

This special issue of Quaternary International contains a selection of contributions from the international Conference entitled “LBK & Vinča - Formation and Transformation of Early Neolithic Lifestyles in Europe in the second half of the 6th millennium BC” held from 21st to 23rd of March, 2019 in Tübingen (Germany).

The Upper Neckar and Ammer river valleys in southwestern Germany correspond to the southwestern limit of the overall distribution of the oldest Linear Bandkeramik (LBK) culture. More than 200 Neolithic sites are known from this region, with one of the oldest sites located in the vicinity of the village Ammerbuch-Pfäffingen, 10 km west of Tübingen,...

The region of the upper Neckar and Ammer river valley is situated on the south-westernmost periphery of the overall distribution area of the earliest LBK in Europe. In a small side valley of the Ammer, we have been able to investigate in the past few years the two sites ‘Lüsse’ and ‘Unteres Feld’ which have provided important information about the...

Already during the Late Neolithic period, various types of fortifications were developed in the Balkans, the number of which increased significantly during the Copper Age. The increase of fortified settlements runs parallel to the development of metal weapons and shows concentrations in those areas where most early copper weapons occur. The emergen...

In this contribution we expand on the hypothesis that the emergence of the Neolithic lifestyle within the Fertile Crescent, as well as its subsequent geographic dispersal, was not an overall slow and gradual process, as assumed in Wave-of-Advance Modelling. In many aspects, the emergence and spread of the Neolithic is better described as Event Sequ...

Although geographically widely separated, the Formation of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in the Pannonian Basin and the Transformation from Starčevo to Vinča in Southeast Europe are chronologically largely parallel. Structurally they are very different. The LBK encompasses geographic expansion, as well as socially homogeneous and egalitarian set...

Aquiring and implementing knowledge about how to exploit tangible resources, in particular local raw materials, as well as intangible resources (e.g. knowledge, techniques, trade routes) and augmenting this with intensive exchange has been one of the most important developments in prehistory. As a sub‐project of the Tübingen Universities Collaborat...

European farmers' first strides from the south The early spread of farmers across Europe has previously been thought to be part of a single migration event. David Reich and colleagues analyse genome-wide data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and the surrounding regions between 12000 and 500 BC. They analyse this in combination...

In the following paper, we present the main results of our now completed studies of the Varna I cemetery, based on the excavations undertaken by Ivan Ivanov in the years 1972–1991. The richness of the assemblages is singular in Old World prehistory. To tackle the question of its inter­nal, chronological development, we applied correspondence analys...

Farming was first introduced to southeastern Europe in the mid-7th millennium BCE - brought by migrants from Anatolia who settled in the region before spreading throughout Europe. However, the dynamics of the interaction between the first farmers and the indigenous hunter-gatherers remain poorly understood because of the near absence of ancient DNA...

Festschrift to the 65th birthday of Ernst Pernicka

Close examination of the geographic position of Early Neolithic settlements in SE-Europe shows that the oldest sites are almost exclusively situated in some very specific biogeographic areas. These earliest Neolithic settlements are all concentrated in a region that Pavle Cikovac calls the Sub-Mediterranean-Aegean (SMA) biogeographic region. It cov...

In diesem Aufsatz werden verschiedene Arten bildlicher Darstellungen von Rindern aus dem Neolithikum Anatoliens, Südost- und Mitteleuropas besprochen. Mit dem Prozess der Neolithisierung gelangte das Hausrind als eines der wichtigsten Zuchttiere nach Europa. Bereits seit dem Paläolithikum spielte die wilde Spezies des Rindes, der europäische Aueroc...

The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive climate-archaeological platform for precipitation-related Early Neolithic archaeological, archaeozoological and archaeobotanical studies in the Near East. To begin, a review of Near Eastern and Southern European (cold-climate) archaeology is given for two topics (1) climate-related end of the Neol...

Climate-Archaeology of the Near Eastern Early Neolithic with details of the Near Eastern Moist Period.

The focus of this paper is a comparison of the dynamics of the tell periods in the Carpathian Basin and the Eastern Balkan region. Discussed are the theories about the causes of the emergence and the abandonment of tell settlements in both regions. As a result, a theory is developed, according to which the abandonment of the tell tradition in one r...

The gold objects from the chalcolithic cemetery Varna I are still considered as the earliest evidence for the use of gold by man. The unequal distribution of the objects among the 329 graves has given rise for the hypothesis that the community of Varna was socially differentiated. Hitherto no evidence for a similar site could be found in the whole...

An Obituary of the Grande Dame of Bulgarian Archeology, Henrieta Todorova 1933-2015.

This volume provides an insight into the current state of archaeological research in Southeast Europe and its adjacent regions, spanning chronologically from the Aurignacian to the beginning of the Neolithic period. In ten contributions by leading experts in this field, specific topics in regions ranging from the Aegean Sea, the Carpathians, and We...

This volume provides an insight into the current state of archaeological research in Southeast Europe and its adjacent regions, spanning chronologically from the Aurignacian to the beginning of the Neolithic period. In ten contributions by leading experts in this field, specific topics in regions ranging from the Aegean Sea, the Carpathians, and We...

Recent advances in palaeoclimatological research combined with new radiocarbon data from West and Northwest Anatolia, the Aegean, and Southeast Europe have led us to the formulation of a new hypothesis for the temporal and spatial dispersal of Neolithic lifestyles from their core areas of genesis. This hypothesis, which we term the ‘Rapid Climate C...

Investigations of a balk in the centre of the prehistoric settlement of D∫uljunica-SmərdeΠ comprised a sequence of archaeological deposits from the very onset of Neolithisation in Southeastern Europe throughout the end of the Early Neolithic. The arrival of Neolithic lifeways in the region coincides with the end of a period for which palaeoclimate...

A b s t r Ac t The study presents archaeobotanical analyses of four Early Neolithic sites (Koprivets, Orlovets, Dzhulyunitsa, Samovodene) from Northeast Bulgaria. Those archaeobotanical data are linked to comprehensive series of 14 C dates for the early Neolithic in northeastern Bulgaria allowing their attribution to high resolution radiocar-bon ch...

Butler, Thomas: Remarks on the Restoration of St. Methodius’s. Canon to the Great Martyr, St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki – Endler, Dietmar: Phileas Fogg in der Oberthrakischen Ebene Intertextuelles bei Ivan Vazov. Autoren. Figuren. Zitate – Graewert, Tim: Die Konsolidierung des bulgarischen Rechtsstaats. Neue Reformimpulse für die Judikative durch...