ПРАИСТОРИЧЕСКИ КУЛТУРНИ БЛОКОВЕ И ЕТНОКУЛТУРНИ КОМПЛЕКСИ НА БАЛКАНСКИЯ ПОЛУОСТРОВ
PREHISTORIC CULTURE BLOCKS AND ETHNOCULTURAL COMPLEXES IN THE BALKAN PENINSULA

Summary/Abstract: The concept of archaeological culture is the principal building material in the historical thinking of the specialist in the field of prehistory. Recently, with the rapid increase of archaeological sources, this concept proved to be too narrow to be used for understanding wide-range historical phenomena. The application of the systems-structure approach made it possible to introduce such concepts as "cultural-historical area", "culture block", "ethnocultural complex", "cultural zone", etc. They characterize different levels in the inner structure of culture whose hierarchical order is as follows: socio-cultural system, culture block, ethnocultural complex, culture. This structure necessitates strict differentiation between general supraregional and local phenomena. These are phenomena from the cultural sphere having the highest semantic load in terms of ornamentation, sign system, etc. The following culture blocks are derived for the Balkan Peninsula: Early Neolithic Balkan-Anatolian block, Early Neolithic Mediterranean block (mid-7th to mid-6th millennium В С), Balkan Late Aeneolithic block of the cultures with graffito ceramics (mid-5th to 4th millennium B. C), the block of the transition from the Aeneolithic to the Bronze Age (4th millennium B. C). The dynamics of the internal development of these blocks is traced and it is found that in the case of continuity in the development the typology of the new block was generated already in the previous block, namely during its last phase, parallel with the dying out of the old typologies. When the phenomena manifest discontinuity, this line of development is disturbed, though the block as a whole may preserve the cultural values through the so-called indirect continuity.

• Details
• Contents