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Jelena Bulatovic

Researcher

Department of Historical Studies
Mail
jelena.bulatovic@gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Jelena Bulatovic

Jelena Bulatović is a zooarchaeologist and studies animal remains from archaeological sites. Jelena’s original background is in prehistory, specifically the Neolithic, Eneolithic and Bronze Age in the western Balkans. After graduating in archaeology from University of Belgrade (Serbia), she received her master’s degree and doctorate in zooarchaeology at the same university. Her thesis, ‘Archaeozoological Aspects of Social and Cultural Changes in the Central Balkans During the Fifth Millennium BC’, completed in 2018, focused on defining the economic strategies of animal exploitation practices at three archaeological type-sites: Vinča-Belo Brdo, Pločnik and Bubanj and revealing certain diachronic trends and differences at the regional level during the transition from the Late Neolithic to the Early Eneolithic.

The scope of Jelena’s work has been the economic, social and dietary aspects of animal use in the western Balkans since the Early Neolithic and the onset of agriculture (ca. 6200 BC) until the beginning of the Late Iron Age (ca. 400 BC). The main questions she is trying to answer in her research include how the strategies of animal exploitation changed over time at the local and regional levels. Although her focus is on prehistoric periods, Jelena is also interested in medieval pastoralism, livestock and hunting strategies, as well as the non-economic roles of animals in past societies.

Jelena has been working as a researcher at the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Gothenburg since 2021. She is associated with the ERC Synergy project COREX – From CORrelation to EXplanations: Towards a New European Prehistory (grant no. 951385, principal investigators: Kristian Kristiansen, Mark Thomas, Kurt Kjær), where she integrates and analyzes zooarchaeological and faunal isotope data from European prehistoric sites. Since 2024, she has been engaged as a zooarcheologist on the Understanding Urban Identities (UUI) project (scientific director: Serena Sabatini).

Before joining the Department of Historical Studies, Jelena was a researcher and research associate at the University of Belgrade from 2010 to 2021. During this period, she was a collaborator on numerous Serbian and international (bio)archaeological projects, in which she played an active role as a zooarchaeologist or zooarchaeological advisor in the selection and contextualization of faunal samples from Balkans sites for various analyses.

Since 2011, Jelena has authored and co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications. She analyzed animal remains from more than 40 prehistoric and historic archaeological sites from Serbia and other western Balkan countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro) and participated in numerous archaeological field research in the region.

Jelena teaches parts of undergraduate and master’s degree courses related to zooarchaeology, zooarchaeological methods and analyses, as well as zooarchaeological quantification techniques.