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Where’s the Fire? Detection of Combustions Features and Analysis of Hearth-Centered Activity Areas with Lithic Analysis from the Aurignacian in Šalitrena pećina, Serbia

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Abstract

One of the important aspects of human life during prehistory was fire. However, in situ detection of combustion features in Paleolithic sites can sometimes be difficult because of post-depositional processes and the geology of the site. Excavation techniques can also reduce the visibility of combustion features. It has been demonstrated that sometimes when evidence of fire is missing from the sediments, the spatial distribution of the burnt artifacts can be used to detect the position of combustion features. In an effort to better understand fire use behavior in Aurignacian communities, we studied Aurignacian layers from Šalitrena pećina. During excavations, two combustion features were detected. First goal of this paper was to analyze the spatial distribution of burnt lithics to confirm the identification of these combustion features and to identify other combustion features that may have had a smaller imprint in archeological matrix. This method was useful, and beside two already mentioned, one more combustion feature was detected in the Aurignacian layer. A second major goal was to understand technological behavior around combustion features.

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Acknowledgments

We kindly acknowledge Prof. Dr. Dušan Mihailović for valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Excavations were organized by National Museum in Belgrade and funded by the Ministry of Culture and Information, Republic of Serbia. Authors acknowledge Mihailo Radinović for the help with statistics in our study and anonymous reviewers for valuable comments.

Funding

This study is a result of the project 177023 financed by Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Republic of Serbia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Senka Plavšić & Sofija Dragosavac

  2. National Museum, Belgrade, Serbia

    Bojana Mihailović

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  1. Senka Plavšić
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Correspondence to Senka Plavšić.

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Supplementary Fig. 1:

Combustion feature 1—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 392 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 2:

Combustion feature 2—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 493 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 3:

Combustion feature 3—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 643 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 4:

Combustion feature 1-adjacent zone—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 880 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 5:

Combustion feature 2-adjacent zone—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 835 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 6:

Combustion feature 3-adjacent zone—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 563 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 7:

Marginal zone 1—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 1080 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 8:

Marginal zone 2—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 925 kb)

Supplementary Fig. 9:

Marginal zone 3—technological categories per raw material units (JPG 815 kb)

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Plavšić, S., Dragosavac, S. & Mihailović, B. Where’s the Fire? Detection of Combustions Features and Analysis of Hearth-Centered Activity Areas with Lithic Analysis from the Aurignacian in Šalitrena pećina, Serbia. J Paleo Arch 3, 585–611 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-020-00061-6

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