Stone tools from locality Crkvine in Stubline
Authors: Antonovic Dragana , Saric Josip 
Published: April 2013

Stone artifacts from excavations in Crkvine in 2008. originate from two
stratigraphic units, both chronologically defined as the final stage of the
Vinca culture: 1. distruction layer above and 2. from the floor of House
1/2008. None of the stone artifact types showed any specific regularity in
vertical distribution. However, in the southern part of the Structure/House 1
there is higher abundance in horizontal distribution of both types of tools.
Abundance of cores, blades for rejuvenation of the cores and unretouched
blades among the chipped artifacts suggest that, most probably, this object
was a working place where the artifacts were made (Fig. 9/1). Ground stone
artifacts - all rought-out and final products, whole and fragmented pieces,
ground-edge and abrasive tools, are equally distributed in the House 1/2008
as well as in the distruction layer above it. Only non-determined fragments
and pieces of raw material, both defined as products of making stone tools,
are far more numerous in the distruction layer above the House 1/2008. Higher
concentrations of finds are situated in the House 1/2008, especially in its
southern part, on the floor and above it, while the number of finds out of
the House significantly decreases (Fig. 9/2). Such distribution of ground
stone artifacts indicates that the production of stone artifacts was done
within the household (large number of flakes of ?light white stone?, presence
of grindstone and whetstone), as well as that there occurred active
preparation of food within the Vinca?s objects (querns and pounders within
the houses). Findings of numerous quartzite, chert and jasper pebbles out of
the House 1/2008, 2 metres away from the northeastern angle of the House
(pottery group 1), could not be connected with production of chipped and
ground stone artifacts. There are no any traces of treatment and utilization
on the pebbles, and the pebbles themselves do not belong to raw material of
good quality due to small dimensions and numerous natural fractures. We
suppose that the pebbles present waste material and that the Pottery group 1
represented a dump place next to the house. It is possible that this stone
material was crushed and added in clay used for making pottery vassels. This
conclusion is done on the basis of two facts: within the Pottery group 1there
were found numerous ceramic fragments that could not be used for
reconstruction of any vessel, and ceramics from the locality Crkvine was
baked from soil with lot of fine grained quartzite. Taking into consideration
that only the small part of the setlement (practically one hose) was
excavated in 2008, it is still too early to make general conclusions about
the mentioned distribution of the stone findings. Moreover, in this part of
the locality, the Vinca layers are disturbed by a necropole from 17-18.
centuries, and maybe that could made increasing of stone findings
distribution abouve and around the graves, in southern part of the House
1/2008. Obsereved as whole, with all defined basic types of chipped
artifacts, this collection does not provide observation of possible local
characteristics which could specifically and obviously indicate big
diferences between material of the Late Vinca and older neolithic period.
Number of samples is too small with prevailed unretouched flakes and blades
which represent more than a half of the findings, while the retouched samples
show an average degree of production quality. The artifacts do not exhibit
unusual and for previous periods unknown technological procedures in making
tools. The retouched artifacts fit to the already defined typological frame
which, at the end of the Neolithic, unequivocally announce gradual
degradation and slow extinction of the technology which has labelled the
largest period of prehistory and established the fundament of civilization.
The largest significance of this small collection is obvious in the presence
of white and grayish-green chert artifacts, which indicate the same primary
sources of raw material. These sources were most probably used by population
of the locality Kremenite njive in Barajevo and Salitrena pecina in the
vicinity of the Brezdje village, near Valjevo. Typology and raw material
structure from Trench 5/2008 in Crkvine in a whole are in accordance with the
general image of the ground stone industry in the final stage of the Vinca
culture. Among the tools prevailed abrasive artifacts (grindstones,
whetstone, pounders and querns), while ground-edge tools are significantly
rare appearing only as adze or as extremely rare occurrences of chisle.
Non-defined fragments are most abundant , at first place the flakes made of
?ligth white stone? representing half-fabricates of the polished stone
industry. This implies that the production of tools from this raw material
was local in character, possibly even organized within households. The
habitants of this Late Vinca settlement, according to the raw material used
for their massive tools, most probably have undertaken stone exploitation
from quarries. Striving to select appropriate row material for making high
quality querns, they discovered a greywacke deposit and used the same raw
material for making other abrasive tools as well. The presence of other rock
types indicates that alluvium material in the vicinity of the locality was
possibly used, as well. The presence of abundant ?light white stone?
artifacts confirms that the raw material was exploited from a narrow local
area. Utilization of this type of raw material cannot be connected with the ?
ligth white stone? found on contemporaneous localities in the vicinity:
magnesite was used in Vinca, diatomite on Ilica brdo, tuff in Crkvine near
Mali Borak. It is most likely that each settlement exploited deposits of the
given stone type in its immediate vicinity. The Late Vinca settlement in
Crkvine had a surface of more than 16 ha, however, only a small area (in 2008
two trenches of total surface of 89 m?) was so far archaeologicaly
investigated. Accordingly, the conclusions about raw material exploitation,
production and usage of stone tools are considered preliminary. Metal is not
registered in Crkvine, but we assume that its existence was known to the
habitants of this settlement, and that they even used it. It is confirmed by
a finding from the structure 1/2008. It is represented by ceramic figurines
who carry perforated hamer-axes of the the Plocnik type made from copper, as
well as by the fact that small metallic tools for ephemeral usage appear in
even in Early Neolithic settlements. If the stone tools were used only as
cheaper replacements of those made of metals, than the careless behaviour of
the habitants from the Vinca settlement in Crkvine towards the ?out-of-date?
types of tools and the production of good quality grind tools, probably used
in additional mechanical treatments of metallic tools are not unusual.