Prehistoric communities had strong ties with the animal world that surrounded them—animals were prey, sources of food, and raw materials, but also threats and mysteries, and certain animals often had an important place in the symbolic realm. With the process of domestication and the switch to animal husbandry as the main source of animal food, these relations changed considerably, and a certain dichotomy between “the domestic” and “the wild” may be noted in numerous past communities. When it comes to the Neolithic period in the Balkans, domestic animals had an important place in subsistence and economy, and it seems that cattle had a particularly prominent symbolic role. Wild species preserved some of their significance in both subsistence and symbolic realms, especially cervids (red deer, roe deer, and fallow deer). In this paper, the place of deer in the material culture of the Neolithic communities in the Balkans will be analysed: skeletal elements of deer were used for the production of diverse items, including non-utilitarian ones, or were part of ritual depositions, and deer representations are encountered in other materials, such as clay figurines. The symbolic meaning of deer cannot be reconstructed with certainty; however, it is probable that deer were tied with territoriality and the landscape.

中文翻译：

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以角取鹿：巴尔干新石器时代物质文化中的鹿

史前社会与周围的动物世界有着紧密的联系——动物是猎物、食物来源和原材料，但也是威胁和神秘，某些动物往往在象征领域占有重要地位。随着驯化过程和转向畜牧业作为动物食物的主要来源，这些关系发生了很大变化，在许多过去的社区中可能会注意到“驯养”和“野生”之间的某种二分法。谈到巴尔干地区的新石器时代，家畜在生存和经济中占有重要地位，而牛似乎具有尤为突出的象征作用。野生物种在生存和象征领域都保留了一些重要意义，尤其是鹿科动物（马鹿、狍子和小鹿）。本文将分析鹿在巴尔干新石器时代社区物质文化中的地位：鹿的骨骼元素被用于生产各种物品，包括非功利性的物品，或者是仪式沉积的一部分，以及鹿的表现也出现在其他材料中，例如泥人。鹿的象征意义无法确定地重建；然而，鹿很可能与领地和景观联系在一起。