Haemus - an e-journal for the history and archaeology of the Balkan peninsula

Dear colleagues, contributors and scholars,

We are pleased to announce the establishment of HAEMUS, a new academic e-journal devoted to the history and archaeology of the Balkan Peninsula. On this site, you will find details about our aims, our activities and our forthcoming publications. 

We hope that the different profiles of the contributors, as well as the articles dealing with a va­riety of topics and aspects, will help accredit HAEMUS as a stable, peer-reviewed journal of quality that can serve as a source of knowledge on the Balkan Peninsula through the ages. 

By adopting a policy of Free and Open access, we will be ensuring that the submissions reach a wide audience, especially among young scholars, who often have difficulties in obtaining the latest significant scholarship due to steep prices and general inaccessibility.

HAEMUS Journal - Call for Papers 2012

In the beginning, the journal will be published annually, with the possibility of a semi-annual publication, depending on the number of submissions. Research articles will be called for on all aspects of the history and archaeology of the Balkan peninsula, from prehistory and antiquity to our times, including studies of clas­sical and modern science.

The journal will contain the standard co­lumns for these types of publications: articles and papers, dis­cussions, essays, biographies, bibliographies, reviews, summaries, etc. The articles, published in English, will be accessible to the wider academic community, as well as to the devotees of history and archaeology who will have the opportunity to read them in an electronic version.

We sincerely hope that the quality of the articles, as well as the contributors’ se­rious and thorough approach, will spark an interest in the academic community dealing with historiography, thus helping to establish a long-lasting and efficient scholarly cooperation.

The founders of HAEMUS,

Vojislav Sarakinski, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje, Macedonia
Vasilka Dimitrovska, University of Goce Delčev, Štip, Macedonia

Welcome to Haemus journal 

Original Coat of arms in color, courtesy of Haemus NGO
Design and emblazoning: Herald Jovan Jonoski, Mth

Official web site: Haemus.mk
Social media accounts:

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Academia.edu,Scribd, Linkedin

A Day with Field Archaeologists in the Republic of Macedonia

6:00 am

I wake up. My colleague who came from the Archaeological Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia is my guest these days. We drink our first cup of coffee and exchange opinions about today’s trip. We have a really busy agenda and we begin slowly to sort out and prepare all the equipment we need for the field.

07:00 am

We are on the highway from Skopje to Eastern Macedonia. The road to the small town of Kochani takes no more than 1 hour and 15 minutes. Our colleague, archaeologist Ilinka Atanasova is already waiting for us. Together we leave Kochani towards the archaeological site of St. Atanas located a few miles from this city. The prehistoric site of Eneolithic period with outstanding findings of female figurines has been attracting the attention of the scientific community for several years, since it was prospected and excavated in 2008. But we are more focused on the chipped stone material that is my subspecialty in archaeology. While our colleague is explaining the artefacts of the site, we are observing profiles of the trenches where in the soil there are still embedded flint tools.

Eneolthic figurines from the Republic of Macedonia, St. Atanas site

10:30 am

Our visit to the mine “Opalit” is scheduled before. This mine for non-metals (opal, agate, chalcedony, opalized tuffa) is located 1 km from the site of St. Atanas. Several years ago this mine was my topic of interest as a possible location where prehistoric communities of the region and beyond obtained raw material for their stone tools. The same goes for my colleague from Bulgaria, who tests the assumption that some raw materials for stone tools found at prehistoric sites along the Struma in Bulgaria came from this deposit. We walk around and observe the surface deposits in search of possible quarries made by prehistoric communities. We take photos and document the information for my doctoral dissertation.

13:30 pm

We arrive at the Institute of History and Archaeology at the University of Stip, my home institution. A meeting with prof. d-r. Blazo Boev, my mentor for the thesis, is very useful. The long talk covers all my notes from today and personal opinions on the subject of local resources for stone in prehistoric Macedonia. Any information fills in and shapes my thesis towards this topic.

14:45 pm

Driving to the city of Vinica, our final destination for today. In a local “Terracotta Museum” there is a small collection of ground and abrasive stone tools from the archaeological site ‘Vinica Fortress’. I feel a moral and professional responsibility to help with this topic, since I’m the only archaeologist in Macedonia working with stone artefacts from prehistory. While I am getting all information about the field notes and stratigraphy, I am thinking about possibility to come again with my mentor. We could work together and process this collection for scientific publication. In the meantime we managed to visit the site ‘Vinica Fortress’, the fortification from the time of Justinian I, which is a trademark of the town of Vinica.

Ground and abrasive stone tools vrom Vinica Fortress (Eneolithic)

17:00

We get back to Skopje. We are home and I began to check and answer emails, facebook and twitter messages. My archaeological day has not yet been completed. I need to sort all impressions, notes and photos from the past day in the folders to be usable in the future for me or for someone else.

*   *   *

This article was written as part of the action for ‘Day of Archaeologists’ (June 29, 2012). The goal is to raise public awareness of cultural heritage and the responsibility that archaeologists have about it.

My theses about the neolithic stone industry from Rug Bair

On 30.05.2011 in 12:30 h. at the Archaeology Department at the Philosophical Faculty (University of Belgrade), I defended my thesis titled: 'The chipped and ground stone industry from the neolithic site of Rug Bair at Gorubinci, in a wider regional context', before the commission consists of: Ph. D. Dusan Mihailović (mentor), Ph. D. Nenad Tasić, Ph. D. Dragan Antonović and Ph. D. Boban Tripković. I received a degree of Master of science (M. Sci.) in archaeology, which is the one step of a doctorate, and considering the importance of my work, the next degree is not so far away. :)

A moment from my presentation in the hall 'Dragoslav Srejović',

Philosophical Faculty, University of Belgrade, Serbia

The chipped and ground stone industry from the neolithic site of Rug Bair at Gorubinci, in a wider regional context

-Abstract-

This paper covers the unpublished stone artifacts from 1970s, taken from a trench from the excavation at Rug Bair, and today housed in the Museum and Institute for protection of Stip, Macedonia. Through the stone material, an attempt was made a more comprehensive picture of the raw material, technical and typological characteristics of the Neolithic stone industry at this site to be gained as well as its relationship with related simultaneously industries.

All stone artifacts from the site at Rug Bair, village of Gorobinci (Saint Nicholas), were divided into three main groups: chipped, ground and grind/abrasive stone tools. The access to this material is reduced to petrographic and technological-typological analysis and definition of basic categories and types of tools, based solely on morphological characteristics of artifacts. The results of the technological and typological analysis and analogy with other stone industries in the Neolithic cultures of the southeastern Balkans, contributed to further clarify, in a regional context, certain processes that occurred in the Neolithic period in the territory of the Republic of Macedonia and the Balkans.

The stone industry from Rug Bair

View more presentations from Vasilka Dimitrovska

A small number of artifacts from the Neolithic stone assemblages from the Republic of Macedonia are the result, above all, the lack of knowledge about the lithic materials, the absence of sieving and flotation, as well as the personal choice of researchers which type of findings is to be kept for the assemblage. Stone tools have not been yet analyzed in detail in the Macedonian Archaeology and Neolithic or New Stone Age in Macedonia, and are still identified only with the ceramic production.

This thesis is an attempt by a methodological way, to sublimate in one place all aspects of the stone industry which will contribute and enable to further studies about this topic in the Republic of Macedonia.

Key words: neolihic, Rug Biar, Amzabegovo-vrshnik, Macedonia, row materials, chipped, ground, abrassive, tools.