Henrieta Todorova (ed.). Die prahistorischen Graberfelder (Durankulak II; 2 volumes).

Bailey, Douglass W. ; Hofmann, Daniela

HENRIETA TODOROVA (ed.). Die prahistorischen Graberfelder (Durankulak II; 2 volumes). 732 pages, figures, 209 plates, tables. 2002. Sofia: Deutsches Archaologisches Institut; 954-426-465-5 hardback 86 [euro].

The publication of the late Neolithic cemetery at Durankulak in north-eastern Bulgaria is a monumental achievement by one of the pre-eminent Bulgarian archaeologists of the modern era. Durankulak's 28 chapters (by 13 specialists) and superb catalogue bring the site's brilliance to a world audience. Potentially, the cemetery's 1204 Hamangia and Varna culture burials are the most important resources for understanding prehistoric society in Central and southeastern Europe. While the high quality publication matches the splendour of the gold, copper and spondylus found in many graves, significant problems in data presentation and intepretation frustrate the critical reader. Indeed, the volumes tell us more about the practice of Bulgarian archaeology than they do about Durankulak in its prehistoric context.

Frustrating are the absence of explicit statements of research aims and the failure to push interpretation beyond assigning graves to age and sex groups. Most disappointing is the reluctance to place the site's extraordinary contents within established debates on the archaeology of death. Chapters by Kalin Dimitrov and Gasine Schwarz-Mackensen make some effort in this direction but they do not have any impact on the wider interpretation of the site. Though Dimitrov notes that burial helps define community relationships among the living and the dead, he also proposes that grave goods document a belief in life-after-death and that the deceased's spirit simply continued the status it held in life. Schwarz-Mackensen describes a provocative range of ethnographic case studies but then fails to show their relevance to Durankulak.

More disappointing is Durankulak's failure to reassess the chronological assumptions inherent in the traditional Hamangia and Varna cultural sequences. For example, is Hamangia I really chronologically distinct from Hamangia II or III or IV? Might each Hamangia and Varna 'phase' represent different but contemporary practices of consumption, display or deposition? Absolute dating of even a sample of burials would have put these questions to the test. Tragically, materials from only six graves were dated; and only three returned usable dates. If funding is the issue, then a major internationally supported dating project is a priority. Lacking absolute dates, excavators date burials to cultural phases via ceramic form and decoration. Burials without diagnostic ceramics are assigned the dates of the closest neighbouring grave that contained phase-characteristic ceramics.

It is equally difficult to accept Durankulak's interpretions which read patterns of grave goods as direct reflections of social organisation. Thus there were three social strata. Half of the burial population occupied a middle stratum, and (as children are present in each stratum) social position was hereditary. Men were more important than women and children because male burials had more (and more varied) grave goods. Women with exceptional goods (e.g. ochre, figurines) are explained away as priestesses. Graves without bodies (cenotaphs) are for people who died while away from home: the presence of fewer 'female' than 'male' cenotaphs (identified by 'female' grave goods) shows that women stayed at home more than men. Cenotaphs containing figurines are either the burials of family idols or symbolic burials of missing shamans. To be fair, Durankulak makes explicit attempts to measure and compare graves in terms of value points that are based on the time invested in grave good production as well as other factors: a large ungulate skull equals 5 points, a deer skull 3, and copper objects are awarded points according to weight.

This literal reading of material culture is surprising, as Durankulak conclusively undermines the traditional use of grave goods to assign sex to the deceased. The catalogue provides sexing as suggested by grave goods (and body position) and as proved by biological analysis. In many cases, sexing by grave goods is contradicted by biology: skeletal examination showed that 29 graves identified by grave-good types as female were male (or possibly) male. Ninety six proposed as male, by grave goods, were shown to be anthropologically female. Even excluding the uncertain male graves, 10 per cent of the burials have a biological sex that contradicts the sex as determined by grave goods. The potential for re-thinking established sex and gender trends in mortuary treatment in the Neolithic Balkans is huge. Unfortunately, it is not clear which system of sexing was used in calculating trends in the various analytical chapters. This confusion makes it impossible to assess, or even accept, any of the interpretions of sex-based status or demography. More complex issues of identity and gender are completely ignored.

Archaeologists interested in the movements of prehistoric people and the contacts between culture groups will find Durankulak valuable, especially the detailed studies of copper and shells. Of interest to all is the documentation of feasting: associations of skull fragments, teeth and, sometimes, other animal bones (most commonly wild ass, sheep and cattle) with ceramic vessels on their own or within a burial. This attention to non-grave archaeology within a cemetery and the non-burial activities that surrounded death is very welcome. Also intriguing are almost 100 necessaire kits (a flint blade, a unio shell, an awl and a smoothing stone) usually found in small pots in graves, interpreted as tools for sewing or for working other materials. Durankulak's documenation of animal bones found in burials, especially the large numbers of deer teeth, is excellent and will stimulate discussion on Neolithic relationships of humans and animals and on the perception of concepts such as domestic and wild. It is disappointing that the authors do not take forward these debates. Discussion is limited to suggestions that hunters gave deer teeth as gifts of honour to people of high social rank, or that families (sic) flaunted their wealth by slaughtering particular species and quantities of animals.

Most valuable and, on its own, worth the cost of the publication is the catalogue (in Bulgarian and German). The list of burials with all available information (e.g. anthropometric and materially determined sex, age, body position, grave goods, cultural phase) is a welcome source for students and scholars of the European Neolithic and, indeed, of mortuary archaeology in general. Such complete presentation, along with the site plans and specialist reports, marks a significant moment in the development of Bulgarian archaeology, at which the remnants of earlier, less satisfactory methods and interpretations are being superceded by a new scientific openness. Full data-sets are available for debate and readers can work through the catalogue, follow up the specialists' proposals, and draw their own conclusions about Hamangia and Varna society. It is a positive and exciting atmosphere that breaths new life into the archaeology of the Neolithic in Bulgaria and the surrounding region.

DOUGLASS W. BAILEY & DANIELA HOFMANN

School of History & Archaeology, Cardiff

University, Cardiff, UK.