Ever since its discovery and subsequent investigation by Dragoslav Srejović in the 1960s, Lepenski Vir was by far the most famous Mesolithic/Early Neolithic site in the Iron Gates region of the Danube. Although Srejović produced early monographs offering general information on Lepenski Vir's chronology, architecture, burials, and major finds categories (Srejović, Reference Srejović1969, Reference Srejović1972, in Serbian and English respectively)—with more data on its unparalleled art provided in subsequent years (Srejović & Babović, Reference Srejović and Babović1983)—it was obvious to the archaeological community that not all had been said on this unique site, since the first monograph had appeared while the site was still being excavated and the second was a slightly adapted version of the first. It felt almost unfair that a two-volume work focusing on Vlasac, another major site in the area also on the right (modern-day Serbian) bank of the Danube, had been published before things were cleared up in terms of publication of Lepenski Vir (Srejović & Letica, Reference Srejović and Letica1978).
In the Iron Gates region there are at least fifteen sites with burials dating from early prehistory (c. 12,500–5500 bc, including the Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic). Four of these sites—Lepenski Vir, Padina, Schela Cladovei, and Vlasac—contained large numbers of graves, mostly within formal disposal areas or ‘cemeteries’. The burials represent a range of mortuary practices, including single inhumation in various body positions, multiple inhumation, cremation, and excarnation. Of these four sites, detailed information (comprising a catalogue of the burials) was only ever provided for Vlasac (Srejović & Letica, Reference Srejović and Letica1978). With the publication of this volume by Dusan Borić, we finally have a comprehensive work on various aspects of mortuary practices at Lepenski Vir, while the other two sites, Padina and Schela Cladovei, are still awaiting their turn.
Structured into ten chapters and two appendices, the volume is bilingual, with the Serbian and English texts running in two parallel columns. Captions in both Serbian and English are also provided for the very rich and high quality illustrations—mainly taken from the site's archive, which was for a long while in the possession of Srejović, but is nowadays held at the University of Belgrade. The volume starts with a Preface in which the author explains the relevance of his work some fifty years after the discovery and excavation of the site: despite various publications over the years having tackled aspects of the funerary data from Lepenski Vir, this is the first time that archaeology and bioarchaeology have come together in a comprehensive synthesis of the mortuary practices at the site.
The first two chapters (‘Landscape Setting, Research History, Stratigraphy, and Chronology of Lepenski Vir’ and ‘Material, Methods, and Approaches’, respectively) deal with the geographical context of Lepenski Vir, the material analysed, and the methodologies used in the study of mortuary practices, both in this volume and more generally. The second chapter in particular offers an almost too comprehensive explanation of archaeothanatology and theoretical approaches to mortuary practice in archaeology and anthropology.
Chapters 3–5 discuss chronologically the mortuary evidence at the site during the Mesolithic (9500–7300 bc), the Mesolithic/Early Neolithic transition (6150–5950 bc), and the Early/Middle Neolithic (5950–5500 bc) respectively. This evidence is situated within the broader themes of biology, chronology, mortuary treatment, trauma and pathology, and subsistence and mobility on the one hand, and within the wider context of the Iron Gates on the other. It is not very clear though what happens in the region during the Late Mesolithic—a period not represented at Lepenski Vir itself. Perhaps this would have helped with explaining why the site becomes a ‘central place’ for the region during the transition period.
During the post-Neolithic periods human burials at Lepenski Vir were apparently scarce (Chapters 6–8, ‘The Copper Age’, ‘Roman Period’, and Medieval Period’): one Chalcolithic (Sălcuța) child burial; probably two individuals dated to the Roman period; and four to the medieval. Despite their small numbers these burials are significant, given that they benefit from radiocarbon dates, stable isotope results, and osteological analysis, and given the fact that no other discoveries in the area are backed by such evidence. On the other hand, only thirty-four of the 202 Lepenski Vir burials have direct AMS radiocarbon measurements, so it is not implausible that more of them might turn out not to be Mesolithic/Neolithic when dated.
Chapter 9 (‘Social Bioarchaeology of Lepenski Vir in a Comparative Perspective’) brings together the data from the previous six chapters. Drawing on all the existing archaeological and bioarchaeological data, it discusses the diachronic changes undergone by the studied populations within a larger context consisting primarily of south and southeastern Europe and southwest Asia. Thus, scrutiny falls upon aspects of population (demographic factors, subsistence practices and diet, stature and sexual dimorphism, health, skeletal markers, violence and trauma), activity markers, and certain mortuary practices (such as illustrated by defleshing and cutmarks). A most interesting discussion concerns the presence in burials of both locals and incoming (‘foreign’) individuals, as suggested by the strontium isotope studies.
Much of the book having looked at the way things changed over time, the last chapter (Ch. 10, ‘Dimensions of Mortuary Practices: Schemes of Practice, Social Organization, Personhood Construction, and Beliefs’) discusses not only these particular changes but also the continuities existing in burial practices at Lepenski Vir during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. Borić goes beyond the mere archaeology of the burials (orientation, posture, treatment of the corpse) in an attempt to decipher the social and symbolic processes underlying the burials per se. Grave offerings were noted in a small number of burials, but their number together with elements of demography, body treatment, and site architecture seem to have been enough for the author to suggest an outline of various aspects of gender, social relations and organization, personhood construction and beliefs, and cosmology and ontology.
Special importance is given to the sculpted boulder artworks, although these are by no means unique to Lepenski Vir. Their number and artistic expression make the site unique, but—as noted by the author much later in the chapter—they are also present, albeit in smaller numbers and with poorer artistic expression, at least at Padina (several examples) on the right bank, and Cuina Turcului (one example) on the left (modern-day Romanian) bank of the Danube.
Emanuela Cristiani's Appendix A is an important addition to the book and provides detailed descriptions of the microscopic investigations of human bones from twenty-four individuals, bones that showed traces of secondary manipulation. The text is accompanied by good-quality, high-resolution photos of the observed traces and cutmarks. Although a similar attempt was undertaken earlier by Wallduck (Reference Wallduck2014) in an unpublished PhD thesis, this is the first time that a detailed, bone-by-bone and scratch-by-scratch account is given for these particular skeletons. It is a little surprising that these analyses were not briefly summarised at the end of the Appendix.
Appendix B is the long-expected first catalogue of the burials at Lepenski Vir. Each entry contains a description of the burial, information on the burial's context, sex/age estimates for the respective individual, relative dating, and absolute dating where available.
Written over a period of five years (2010–2015), it is remarkable that it took the author almost as long to uncover the surviving information and re-interpret it in this volume as it took D. Srejović to excavate the site. As long as the excavation period of the site may appear (1965–1970), it was a titanic job to record all the buildings, burials, and other features under the pressure of the power-station and dam construction. It is also true that excavation and recovery standards would have been different in other circumstances, not pressed by time and probably political factors, which may understandably have led to possible discrepancies or contradictions in the archaeological records. Time takes its toll when it comes to curation, and it is perhaps worth pointing out that the present day collection is the surviving collection—which was rediscovered in stages, as various publications suggest. The 202 burials in the catalogue (compared to the 134 reported in the original documentation) might as well be considered another stage in this rediscovery, and further items might bring new insights on the matter in the future.
Working with old excavations and refitting the puzzle of their archaeological archives is a difficult task, one that at times requires personal interpretation, especially where discrepancies or a lack of clarity in the recorded information are concerned. In the case of the sites in the Iron Gates Gorges (and not only at Lepenski Vir, but all the other Serbian and Romanian sites), archives, collections of finds, and personal interpretations are all that we are left with, since all sites but two (Vlasac and Schela Cladovei) were submerged following the building of the two hydro-electric dams Iron Gates I and II. Hence, stratigraphic cultural sequences can no longer be checked and compared with previous records. This is another aspect that Borić manages to do well: propose a revised cultural sequence different from that of Srejović, without appearing to do so—an essential skill when it comes to working within (and not upsetting) local Balkan archaeologies.
Lepenski Vir was indeed a special place, unique for the Iron Gates and the Mesolithic of Europe. Perhaps it is true that the people buried there were selected in a special way, as we are led to think by Borić, but in this case so were most of the people buried within the Iron Gates ‘cemeteries’: it is hard to conceive that the c. 300 burials uncovered elsewhere in the region could represent the entire Mesolithic/Early Neolithic population for over 6000 years.
Bearing all of the above in mind, the volume does reflect the importance and significance of Lepenski Vir for improving understanding of the mortuary practices in the Iron Gates region. That said, a wider discussion integrating more of the other Iron Gates sites would have benefited the present work, especially when it comes to the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition period.
