Taking the Deer by the Antlers: Deer in Material Culture in the Balkan Neolithic
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Open AccessArticle
Institute of Archaeology, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
Arts 2024, 13(2), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020064 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 2 December 2023
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Revised: 20 March 2024
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Accepted: 21 March 2024
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Published: 30 March 2024
Abstract
Prehistoric communities had strong ties with the animal world that surrounded them—animals were prey, sources of food, and raw materials, but also threats and mysteries, and certain animals often had an important place in the symbolic realm. With the process of domestication and the switch to animal husbandry as the main source of animal food, these relations changed considerably, and a certain dichotomy between “the domestic” and “the wild” may be noted in numerous past communities. When it comes to the Neolithic period in the Balkans, domestic animals had an important place in subsistence and economy, and it seems that cattle had a particularly prominent symbolic role. Wild species preserved some of their significance in both subsistence and symbolic realms, especially cervids (red deer, roe deer, and fallow deer). In this paper, the place of deer in the material culture of the Neolithic communities in the Balkans will be analysed: skeletal elements of deer were used for the production of diverse items, including non-utilitarian ones, or were part of ritual depositions, and deer representations are encountered in other materials, such as clay figurines. The symbolic meaning of deer cannot be reconstructed with certainty; however, it is probable that deer were tied with territoriality and the landscape.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Vitezović, S.
Taking the Deer by the Antlers: Deer in Material Culture in the Balkan Neolithic. Arts 2024, 13, 64.
https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020064
Vitezović S.
Taking the Deer by the Antlers: Deer in Material Culture in the Balkan Neolithic. Arts. 2024; 13(2):64.
https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020064
Chicago/Turabian Style
Vitezović, Selena.
2024. “Taking the Deer by the Antlers: Deer in Material Culture in the Balkan Neolithic” Arts 13, no. 2: 64.
https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020064
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