Late Neolithic chronology in the contact zone between the south edge of the Carpathian Mountains and the Pannonian plain. The case study of Vršac region

Abstract

The Late Neolithic period in Southeast Serbian Banat is marked by a host of Vinča culture sites located between the Danube and the Vršac mountains, the south end of the Carpathian mountain range in this area. It is a predominantly flat landscape enclosed by extensive former marshes of Mali and Veliki Rit in the northwest, Vršac mountains in the northeast, and Deliblato sands and River Nera in the southwest and the southeast. Over 40 late Neolithic sites are known throughout the area, most from surveys, but some also excavated. Between 2020 and 2022, as part of the Regional Absolute Chronologies of the Late Neolithic in Serbia project, funded by the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, At and Potporanj sites were radiocarbon dated to produce detailed, Bayesian statistical model-based chronologies that could be used as a local chronological reference for future researchers of the Late Neolithic in the region. In this chapter, we present unified chronological data attributable to the beginning and ending phases of the Neolithic in this region.