dc.description.abstract | Architectural, artefactual and subsistence evidence from sites of the Late Neolithic Vinča culture network (5400-4500
BC) in southeast Europe suggests that the autonomous household was the basic socio-economic unit. Archaeological
reconstructions posit that one or several adjacent buildings define individual households, and that these (groups of)
structures were the context of economic, social and ritual activities. How/where/when these activities were conducted
was likely defined at the communal level, prescribed by supra-household social controls and embedded in ideological
framework. Although no clear indications of social stratification are observable at Vinča culture sites, some interhousehold status competition would have been present and was negotiated through mechanisms such as sharing and
exchange, and communal works and events, the latter, for instance, documented by the faunal evidence of feasting.
Within the community-wide pattern of behaviour that ensured cohesion, social differentiation could have been
maintained through household-specific food-related practices, food choices and culinary traditions. These could have
served to emphasise individual affinities and identities, to delineate the smallest social units, without damaging the
sense of community. As such, they may have even been encouraged. In this presentation, we look at the archaeobotanical
and zooarchaeological evidence of food production and consumption from a selection of Vinča culture households, and
reconstruct the sources of food, their origin and seasonality. We compare the observations for individual cases, in order
to identify potential inter-household differences in the choice and use of (key) resources. We speculate on what effect
such differences could have had on the social fabric of the community: whether through them the social bonds were
strengthened, undermined, or both; and whether this was of relevance in the context of the dissolution of the Vinča
culture. | sr |