Biography

Goce Naumov is an Assistant Professor at Goce Delćev University and an Educator at the Museum of Macedonia. His research focuses mainly on the Neolithic of Pelagonia and Lake Ohrid. In addition, his interests cover diverse areas such as chronology, corporeality, burials, households, and visual identities in the prehistoric Balkans, particularly their involvement in symbolic and social processes.

Naumov has directed and contributed to numerous archaeological excavations at prehistoric sites in Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, Slovenia, Turkey, the USA, and Russia, and has organized exhibitions in Macedonia, the USA, Canada, Serbia, and Italy. He has collaborated on various international projects with the Field Museum in Chicago, the University of Basel, the Spanish National Science Council, the German Archaeological Institute, the University of Padova, the State University of New York, the Catalhoyuk Research Project, and the University of Bern, among others.

Naumov is the author of five monographs and 90 articles, and has served as editor of several books and exhibition catalogs. He is the founder and president of the Center for Prehistoric Research and is actively involved in the Macedonian Archaeological Association, the European Association of Archaeologists, and the Prehistoric Society. In addition to his academic interests, Naumov is a member of the jazz bands Sethstat and Next to Silence, recording and performing in Macedonia and throughout Europe.

Project Abstract

The project examines the reconstruction of past time using archaeological methods, digital tools, and anthropological theory. It examines the accuracy of the approaches and the consistency of the resulting findings. As a case study, the project will focus on a specific methodology applied in a specific area during a specific period: the application of radiocarbon dating in relation to the beginning of the Neolithic in the second half of the 7th millennium BC in the Balkans. Dates from recently investigated sites in the region will be recalibrated according to the latest calibration curve and additionally statistically modeled using the OxCal program provided by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. This will provide a more precise chronological sequence showing when and where the first Neolithic settlements appeared and how long they were occupied. These will be discussed in the light of new dates from Anatolia and the Balkans. In addition, Bayesian modeling will be used to determine the exact chronological sequence and, in particular, to trace phases within settlements as well as the temporal relationship between them. 

The chronological determination of the appearance of numerous new villages in the Balkans within a few centuries will be integrated into an overview of anthropological theory. The apparent temporal vibrancy of the Early Neolithic will be observed through Gell's anthropological theory of time, particularly diffusionism and (pre)historical particularism. The phenomenological theories and symbolic anthropology of Bourdieu, Geerz and Durkheim will also be considered, and how the cultural constructs emerged from novel economic, social and symbolic settings in the second half of the 7th millennium BC. This will provide insight into the time perception of Neolithic communities as they transformed the social and natural environment of areas already inhabited by indigenous hunter-gatherer societies. In this way, it will be possible to examine the concept of time in Mesolithic and Neolithic communities and how it was intertwined with the economy, society and rituals. 

Curriculum vitae

Academic Positions

Since 2017

Assistant Professor, Goce Delčev University, Štip.

2009-2012

Adjunct Lecturer, Ss Cyril and Methodius University.

Fellowships and Projects

2024

Fellow at the Einstein Center Chronoi, Berlin. 

2016-2023

Director of the international research fieldwork projects at Vrbjanska Čuka, Veluška Tumba and Vlaho (Pelagonia).

2017-2020

Researcher in the European Research Council project in Macedonia.

2015-2018

Project co-director of the Swiss National Science Fund project in Macedonia. 

2017

Researcher and seminar lecturer at the University of Bern.

2012

Fellow at the State University of New York.

2011

Fellow at the University of Padova.

2018-2025

National coordinator of the ‘First Kings of Europe’ exhibition in New York, Chicago and Ottawa.

Selected Publications

2022, co-authored with Eleonora Petrova Mitevska. "Social Change and Elites in the Prehistoric Central and Southern Balkans." In The First Kings of Europe: From Farmers to Rulers in Prehistoric Southeastern Europe, edited by Attila Gyucha and William A. Parkinson, 26-41. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.

2020. "Domestication of Tells: settlements of the first farmers in Pelagonia." In Current Approaches to Tells in the Prehistoric Old World: A cross-cultural comparison from Early Neolithic to the Iron Age, edited by Antonio Blanco-González and Tobias L. Kienlin, 111-124. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

2020. "Neolithic wetland and lakeside settlements in the Balkans." In Settling Waterscapes in Europe: The Archaeology of Neolithic and Bronze Age Pile-Dwellings, edited by Albert Hafner, Ekaterina V. Dolbunova, Andrey N. Mazurkevich, Elena Pranckenaite and Martin Hinz, 111–135. Heidelberg: Propylaeum. https://doi.org/10.11588/propylaeum.714.

2013. "Embodied houses: social and symbolic agency of Neolithic architecture in the Republic of Macedonia." In Tracking the Neolithic house in Europe - sedentism, architecture and practice, edited by Daniela Hofmann and Jessica Smyth, 65-94. New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5289-8_4.

2009. Patterns and Corporeality: Neolithic Visual Culture from the Republic of Macedonia. Oxford: Archaeopress.