060085 SE Construction and Reflection of Archaeological Cultures of the Prehistoric Balkans (2019S)

The focus of the course is on a critical examination of previous knowledge of prehistory in South Eastern Europe. Particular attention is paid to developments from the early Holocene to the Iron Age dealing with Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age cultures. Concrete cultural horizons with their archaeological sources are discussed in the context of their spatial and political origin and definition. Sedentarism and settlement systems, burial and deposition customs, technologies and material cultures form the framework for the critical examination of prehistory in Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, FYROM and Bulgaria. Cross-national and cross-lingual topics will be used to examine prehistoric cultural phenomena interregional. Current debates such as migrations, aDNA and population genetics are used as case studies in the examination of latest findings.