The relations among farming practices, landownership, and social stratification in the Balkan Neolithic period

The analysis of plant remains from the Opovo site enabled me to reconstruct potential vegetation, different aspects of plant uses, agricultural practices, and wild plant procurement during the fifth millennium B.C. Opovo is located in northern boundary of the Vinca culture which is one of the most prominent Neolithic cultures of the central Balkans. Mixed-oak forests and marshland surrounded the site, and not steppe and marshland vegetation, as previously thought.;The Opovo settlers occupied the site year-round. They cultivated crops, including einkorn, emmer, barley, legumes, and flax, and gathered water chestnuts, fruits, and perhaps some weedy herbaceous plants. By examining taphonomic processes, I infer possible locations of crop processing activities within the settlement.;Plant and animal data from Opovo revealed evidence for a combination of crop cultivation, wild plant procurement, hunting, herding, and fishing. These different activities fostered also dietary diversity. A combination of environmental and social factors permitted a mixed economy that incorporated products from fields and uncultivated nature which were available to all settlers. In the areas where a mixed economy was practiced, the exploitation of wild resources was probably not limited by property rights of certain individuals, while households could have maintained individual rights to arable land as long as they kept cultivating it. This type of landownership might not have led to enduring social stratification.;On the basis of the identified plants and their ecological requirements, using ethnohistoric data, I infer the possible locations of ancient fields, and examine the types of landownership that existed during the Vinca culture. A dispersed field system and more intensive water chestnut procurement could have been used as a risk reducing strategy in case of crop failures.;Detailed ecofactual analysis has shown that the Opovo site is an excellent example of diverse subsistence strategies used within a general cultural context of the Vinca culture which is commonly perceived as a typical agricultural society. The Opovo site is a small Neolithic settlement that continued practicing a mixed economy at least a millennium after the establishment of agriculture in the central Balkans.