High heat on the tell: An archaeobotanical view on house burning and socioeconomic relationships at the Neolithic Vinča site (SE Europe)

Buildings destroyed by fire are frequently discovered at sites of the Neolithic Vinča culture of south-eastern Europe. The social context and practical aspects of prehistoric house burning have long been studied through the analyses of architectural and artefactual remains and through experimental building and firing of wattle-and-daub structures. In contrast, very few studies have used the remains of plant foodstuffs from within and under the house rubble to address the cultural and technical particulars of this widespread tradition. At the Neolithic Vinča tell, several burnt buildings preserved hoards of wild pear and emmer grain, along with minor traces of other plant foods. Three of these burnt buildings date to the final decades of the Neolithic Vinča settlement, whose dissolution and abandonment seem to have been abrupt and continue to puzzle archaeologists. We examine the find-context and morphological characteristics of the wild pears and emmer and use our observations to discuss whether the burning was deliberate or accidental. Based on the archaeological and other available evidence, we suggest that these Vinča houses were set ablaze intentionally. Further, we propose that the prominence of emmer and pear can reflect a possible economic differentiation among the households and perhaps even incipient specialisation in food production. Our assumption is that such tendencies would have, in effect, both increased and decreased the economic independence of individual households. This would have had (negative) implications for social relationships in the time of apparently eroding social cohesion of the Vinča community.