Starosedeoci pod stećcima?

The article offers a critical analysis of prevaling interpretations of identity in previous studies of burials associated with stećci.

Abstract:

The phenomenon of the burials under the stećci, in spite of the long history of research, still deserves additional attention of scholars. These are interments of the deceased in the context of the monumental funerary markers (stećci), highly prominent in the landscape, typical for the period between the 12th and the 16th centuries. This funerary practice is most intense during the 14th and 15th centuries, and there are indications that it occurs even after the 16th century. In the region of the Western Balkans, more than 72 000 monuments have been registered, mainly in Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the 20th century, when these monuments were interpreted in the culture-historical archaeological key, researchers aimed at identifying a single religious or ethnic group intrinsically linked to this burial practice. Some of the solutions for the attribution of stećci were their ascription to the Bosnian Church, or to the Mediaeval Vlachs. The dedicated researchers, such as Šefik Bešlagić, recognized even under the traditional paradigmatic framework that the phenomenon of stećci is highly complex and that exclusive attribution to one ethnic/religious group is not highly plausible. Subsequently, with the interpretations of Dubravko Lovrenović in the beginning of the 21st century, stećci are interpreted as an interconfessional phenomenon. While the exclusive attribution to the Bosnian Church is easily refuted on the base of the inscriptions mentioning other confessions, the issue of the Vlachs as the conveyors of this material culture has remained unresolved in certain ways. The solution was sought for in the domain of physical anthropology. Starting from the 1970s, in the papers on the skeletal remains recovered from the necropolises with the stećci, the interpretation is offered that these are homogenous communities, with dominantly brachycranial characteristics, identified as the Dinaric anthropological type. The next interpretive step was to link them to the allegedly autochthonous Medieval non-Slavic Vlachs, understood as an ethnic group that derived from Antiquity or prehistory. The aim of the present paper is to critically reconsider the methodological core of the argument that the people buried under the stećci were of the Dinaric type, seen as the indigenous population, from the point of view of the history of Yugoslav archaeology.

L’inhumation sous les stećci constitue un phénomène complexe, caractéristique de la période allant du XIIe au XVIe siècle, avec une fréquence maximale aux XIVe et XVe siècles. Cette pratique comprend des tombes monumentales jusqu’à présent recensées sur plus de 72000 monuments à travers les Balkans occidentaux, principalement en Bosnie-Herzégovine. Les interprétations traditionnelles, basées sur le paradigme historico-culturel de l’archéologie yougoslave, ont essayé d’associer les stećci à un groupe ethnique ou confessionnel – le plus souvent à l’Église bosnienne ou aux Valaques médiévaux. La recherche contemporaine, notamment les travaux de Dubravko Lovrenović, a indiqué le caractère interconfessionnel de ce phénomène. A partir des années 1970 du XXe siècle, une approche physico– anthropologique apparaît, interprétant les restes squelettiques sous les stećci comme appartenant à des populations homogènes et brachycéphales, identifiées comme le type anthropologique dinarique. Par la suite, on a conclu que ces communautés étaient des Valaques ethniques, des habitants autochtones non slaves, associés aux populations préhistoriques. L’objectif de cet article est d’examiner de façon critique cet héritage méthodologique et interprétatif, à travers l’analyse de l’histoire de la pensée archéologique en Yougoslavie socialiste. On se focalisera notamment sur les questions du rapport entre l’anthropologie physique et l’archéologie dans la construction du récit sur l’origine et l’identité des communautés qui gravaient des stećci pour leurs défunts.