Historical picture of development of Bronze Age cultures in Vojvodina

Abstract

As a contact zone subject to the influences of the Pannonian Plain to the north, the Balkans to the south, the Carpatho-Danubian region to the east and the sub-Alpine region to the west, Vojvodina is exceptionally important for the study of the Bronze Age of these regions. It witnessed the processes of integration of certain cultures only to see them disintegrate again. At times almost the entire territory was dominated by a single culture, while at others completely divergent cultures developed simultaneously in each of its three constituent regions: the Banat, Srem and Backa. In the latter half of the Early Bronze Age an attempt to establish control over an extensive territory was made by the Vatin culture which, in its westward and southward expansion, covered the central and southern Banat, and most of Srem reaching as far as Sumadija and the Lower Morava Valley. The Vatin population was driven out by the Encrusted Pottery people descending from the central and western Pannonian Plain. They remained there through several developmental phases extending into north-western Bulgaria and part of the Romanian Banat. At the end of the Middle and in the Late Bronze Age, in Srem the Banat and around the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a new culture emerged, marked by large necropolises containing cremation burials. In its expansion it covered the territory previously inhabited by Encrusted Pottery peoples. At the same time, northern Vojvodina became occupied by the Hugelgraber culture penetrating down the Tisa and Danube rivers. In the final phase of the Bronze Age there appeared black burnished pottery attributable to the widespread eastern Gava complex. In western Vojvodina this complex confronted the central-European, sub-Alpine and west-Pannonian varieties of the Urnenfelder culture. This confrontation, as well as numerous hoards dated to Ha A1-A2 C, mark the end of the Bronze Age in these regions.