Notes on Columbella shells from the Bronze age necropolis Mokrin, Northern Serbia

Abstract

The cemeteries of the Maros culture have been the subject of archaeological investigations since the 19th century. One of the best known is the Mokrin necropolis, located in the northern part of Serbian Banat, near the town of Kikinda. Although general picture of funerary practices executed at the Mokrin necropolis has already been formed, some details in the primary publication of the finds attracted our attention and resulted in a small-scale study on presence of Columbella shells in the graves. They occur in the graves with more opulent fittings, equally in the graves of males and females, but mostly adults. Their usage in clothes and accessories is restricted to a single zone: head, chest or waist. The accessible shell items were examined, both the ones that had been published as fossils and the ones that had not, and eventually we were able to dismiss the assumption that the beads were made out of fossils. After the re-examination we came to the conclusion that the available morphological characteristics were not sufficient to diagnose all of the items with any certainty to the level of species. In accordance with it goes the determination of them as Columbella sp., but also the assumption that we actually deal with the C. rustica species, being that it is the only member of the Columbella genus inhabiting the Mediterranean. Looking at the Mediterranean as the place of origin of the Collumbelae in Mokrin gave us more solid base to claim the existence of networks of long distance trade and exchange.