To whom does Serbian archaeology belong? The case of Belovode and Plocnik

The long-standing archaeological research of the Serbian Vinca culture sites of Belovode and Plocnik has been strengthened with the joint collaborative work with the UCL Institute of Archaeology in the past 6 years. This collaboration yielded scientific demonstration of the world?s earliest copper smelting amongst the excavated materials, c. 7000 years old. In the six years since the first publication of this finding in 2010, a number of detailed analytical studies followed, together with another breakthrough discovery of the world?s earliest tin bronze artefact. This artefact was excavated in a secure context within a Vinca culture settlement feature at the site of Plocnik, which was radiocarbon dated to c. 4650 BC. On the basis of the early metallurgical results from Belovode, the UK Government funded a large international collaborative project from 2012-2015. This included Serbian, British and German teams all of whom brought substantial experience and cutting-edge technology to the study of the evolution of the earliest known metal-making in its 5th millennium BC Balkan cultural context. This project?s forthcoming publications, including a major monograph published by UCL Press, which will be free to download, promise to shed new light on the life of the first metal-making communities in Eurasia, and also outline integrated methodological approaches that will serve as a model for similar projects worldwide. The open, balanced and respectful research atmosphere within our core project team is currently being challenged by an unsubstantiated controversy. This controversy arises from accusations against the project team members by Dusko Sljivar, a once an extremely supportive and prominent member of our team. Each of these accusations by Dusko Sljivar is completely contradictory to his own previous documented work, and have therefore easily been refuted. The work by Dusko Sljivar in question encompasses: two decades of excavations at the sites of Belovode and Plocnik; including single-authored and joint publications prior to 2012, including those with Miljana Radivojevic and Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic; and official field documentation, either signed off solely by him, or together with his co-excavator at the site of Plocnik, Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic. The first accusation, published in 2014, saw Dusko Sljivar deny, together with another colleague, the veracity of his original field journal notes on the context of the previously mentioned tin bronze foil,