Beyond the Bounds of Western Europe: Paleolithic Art in the Balkan Peninsula

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Beyond the Bounds of Western Europe: Paleolithic Art in the Balkan Peninsula Aitor Ruiz‑Redondo1,2,3 · Diego Garate4 · Manuel R. González‑Morales4 · Ivor Janković5,6 · Jacques Jaubert2 · Ivor Karavanić6,7 · Darko Komšo8 · Steven L. Kuhn9 · Dušan Mihailović10 · Óscar Moro Abadía11 · Marc Vander Linden12 · Nikola Vukosavljević7

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract Paleolithic art offers unique perspectives on prehistoric societies and cultures. It is also considered a key component of modern human behavior. Until recently, Paleolithic artworks were thought to be geographically restricted to a very few areas, especially southwestern Europe. Discoveries of art in other parts of Europe and other parts of the globe have challenged this vision, expanding the documented distribution of this important cultural phenomenon. As a consequence, there has been renewed interest in less well-known areas, with the goal of determining whether the current lack of art is a reflection of a past reality, the product of limited research, or a matter of preservation. One of these regions is the Balkan Peninsula, a key area for understanding Upper Paleolithic societies given its location at the crossroads of several migration routes into Europe. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the Paleolithic symbolic products, including both rock art and portable art from the Balkans. Recent research has led to new discoveries and insights into the symbolism of this long-neglected area. The present review, combining existing literature and new fieldwork, sheds new light on social and cultural interactions in this part of the continent and leads to a better understanding of its role within the European Upper Paleolithic cultural sphere. Keywords  Upper Paleolithic · Rock art · Portable art · Balkan Peninsula · Southeastern Europe · Symbolic behavior

* Aitor Ruiz‑Redondo [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article

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Journal of World Prehistory

Introduction The production of art (‘imagery’) was a major cultural phenomenon for many Paleolithic societies. Archaeologists have traditionally considered its emergence as one of the first expressions of symbolic thought and expression in human history (Mellars 1989; Mithen 1996; d’Errico 2003). In the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology, production of images by Paleolithic peoples is considered one of the archaeological signatures of modern human behavior (d’Errico 2003; Mellars 2005; Zilhão 2007) and one of the major innovations of the ‘Upper Paleolithic Revolution’ (Mellars 1989; Straus 1996; Kuhn et al. 2001; Bar-Yosef 2002). For most of the twentieth century, almost everything archaeologists knew about Pleistocene art in general, and rock art in particular, concerned sites in Western Europe, especially southwestern Europe (see, for example, Leroi-Gourhan 1965; Mellars 1989; Gamble 1984; Bahn and Vertut 1997). The privileged position of this area was related both to the h