The Iron Gates rescue excavations project and the shaping of archaeology in Socialist Yugoslavia

Abstract

The construction of the water dam and hydropower plants in the 1960s–1980s on the Danube in the Iron Gates region, which is at the same time the border between present-day Serbia and Romania (at the time, the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Republic of Romania), was the reason for large scale rescue excavations projects, known as Iron Gates project I and II (Đerdap I and II). These excavation projects were the largest rescue excavation projects ever carried out in the region and at the same time the most important event in the development of archaeology in socialist Yugoslavia. The excavations included a large number of already known important sites from the Roman and Medieval times, such as a system of defensive forts from Traian Dacian wars, but also led to the discoveries of a series of very important prehistoric sites, including the discovery of the first traces of the Mesolithic in the region. In this paper we will explore the course of these excavations and the consequences and impact they had on the archaeology in Yugoslavia. New discoveries changed then-current theoretical models and interpretations. Furthermore, the methodology of excavations changed considerably, in particular, these projects initiated the establishment of the minimum requirements for documentation of excavations and the creation of standardised methodological practices. Also, they had a considerable impact on the development of institutions, in particular The Institute of Archaeology, as well as impact on personal carriers. Last but not least, foundations for regional and international cooperation were laid. Cooperation was established with archaeologists from Western countries, in particular with experts in subdisciplines that were not practised in Yugoslavia – anthropology, zooarchaeology, etc., but also with archaeologists in the region, including the collaboration with Romanian archaeologists that were excavating on the other Danube bank, which was particularly politically sensitive at the time.