Vinča culture

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Map of European Neolithic at the apogee of Danubian expansion, c. 4,500-4,000 BC.
Map of European Neolithic at the apogee of Danubian expansion, c. 4,500-4,000 BC.

The Vinča culture was an early culture of Europe (between the 6th and the 3rd millennium BC), stretching around the course of Danube in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Republic of Macedonia, although traces of it can be found all around the Balkans, parts of Central Europe and Asia Minor.

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[edit] Discovery

The Vinča Culture derives its name from the village of Vinča, located on the banks of Danube, 14 km downstream from Belgrade (at the 1145th nautical kilometer), where the largest and most significant prehistoric, Neolithic settlement in Eastern Europe has been discovered in 1908 by the first archaeological excavation team led by Miloje M. Vasić, the first schooled archeologist in Serbia.

Owing to Vasić's enormous energy and efforts, the central and at the same time most important part of prehistoric Vinča was excavated between 1918 and 1934. Interrupted by wars and financial troubles, but also aided by the Archeological Institute of Imperial Russia, as well by the British patron Sir Charles Hyde, Vasić excavated the largest collection of prehistoric objects of art which are located today in the collections of museums and universitites throughout the world. The excavation site was visited by numerous prominent scholars of the time: Veselin Čajkanović, Ch. Hyde, J. L. Myres, W. A. Hurtley, Bogdan Popović.

At that time it was believed by both Yugoslav and Romanian archaeologists that the Vinča culture began around 2700BC. However carbon dating of the Tartaria tablets, discovered by Nicolae Vlassa at Tărtăria in Romania in 1961, pushed the date of the civilization back to before 4000BC.

In the sixth millennium B.C., the prehistoric settlers of Vinča settled the area of the Central Balkans which is bordered by the Carpathian Mountains in the north, by Bosnia in the west, by the Sofia Plain in the east and the Skoplje Valley in the south.

[edit] Architecture

In the older Starčevo settlement, located in the deepest layers of Vinča, mud huts with tent roofs were discovered in which the settlers of Starčevo lived and were also buried. During the period of the Vinča Culture, houses were erected above ground with complex architectural layouts and several rooms, built of wood that was covered in mud. The houses in the settlement are facing northeast - southwest, with streets between them, so that the first urban settlement in Europe was erected at Vinča, being older than the cities of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Owing to significant economic development during the early Neolithic Period, veritable metropolises were created on the territory of the Central Balkans at Vinča, Divostin, Potporanj, Selevac, Pločnik and Predionica.

[edit] Economy

Beside agriculture and the breeding of domestic animals, the Neolithic settlers of Vinča also went hunting and fishing. The most frequent domestic animals were cattle, although smaller goats, sheep and pigs were also bred. The settlers of Vinča cultivated the most fertile prehistoric grain species. A surplus of products led to the development of trade with neighboring regions which supplied salt, obsidian, or ornamental shells. The local production of ceramics reached a high artistic and technological level whose quality has not been tarnished even after several millennia. Objects fashioned out of bones, horns and stone indicate great skill and dexterity of the craftsmen who produced tools for all branches of Vinča economy.

[edit] Spiritual life

The Neolithic settlers of Vinča ascribed great importance to spiritual life as is reflected by the enormous number of cult objects (figurines, sacrifical dishes, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic dishes). Their artistic and stylistic development was conditioned by the teachings of old settlers, as well as by contacts with neighboring peoples and their beliefs. Anthropomorphic figurines have a characteristic dignified stance and their number (over 1000 examples at Vinča alone) exceeds the total number of figurines discovered in the region of the Greek Aegean. Life is represented on these objects as embodying the cycle of birth and death of Nature, along with the desire of man to get Nature's sympathy or to mollify it in the interest of survival. Shrines were discovered in Transylvania with complex architectural designs, indicating the involvedness of the rituals which were conducted in them. The figurines and ceramic dishes discovered in the broad region spanning from Gornja Tuzla to Tǎrtǎria have signs which some scholars suppose to be primitive forms of writing (see Old European Script). Indeed, if the inscriptions on the Tartaria tablets are pictograms, as Vlassa argued, they would be the earliest known writing in the world. This claim however remains controversial; most experts consider the Tartaria finds to be an example of proto-writing rather than a full writing system.

[edit] Discovery of copper

In the region of Eastern Serbia, at Bele Vode and Rudna Glava, in crevices and natural caves, the settlers of Vinča came in contact with copper ore which they began fashioning with fire, initially only for ornamental objects (beads and bracelets).

[edit] Decline

During the middle of the fourth millennium, the entire region of the Vinča Culture underwent stagnation, followed by deep crises and a decline in cultural and economic development. Cattle-breeding, nomadic peoples from the north and the east, who were not interested in agriculture but used copper weapons for some time already, appeared at the fringes of the region. Nearly all Vinča settlements perished in fires, while the remaining population, following copper shoots rich with ore, withdrew to inaccessible mountainous regions where they settled. During this period, the site at Vinča was settled by Copper Age (Eneolithic Period) peoples - the Baden culture, the Kostolac culture and the Bordogkerestur culture. They settled briefly, but left behind exceptional works of spiritual culture, most notably the Baden culture anthropomorphic figurines which have only been discovered at Vinča in such quantities. Bordogkerestur graves are rich with burial offerings - ceramic dishes, which indicate a complex ritual of burial.

During the succeeding prehistoric era, the Bronze Age, a temporary dugout settlement was erected at Vinča by settlers who belonged to the Vatin Culture. Behind them they left bell-shaped idols of great artistic and aesthetic craftsmanship which these shepherd warriors created shortly before they were described in the Greek myths of Apollo's Hyperborean Cult and the teachings of Jason and the Argonauts[citation needed].

During the period of the New Era, beside the brief appearance of Romans, Vinča also became an important medieval Slavic necropolis where burials were conducted from the 7th to the 17th centuries.

[edit] Vinča today

Excavations at Vinča were continued in 1972 thanks to the Committee for Archeological Investigation of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and are still continuing today. The overall result of the century-old investigation of this Culture have placed it at the very top of the world cultural heritage. In 2001 the International School of Archeology opened, giving an opportunity to interested archeologists from the rest of the world to take part. The Danube shoreline has been declared an archeological park according to the general urbanistic plan of the Museum of the City of Belgrade, with a permanent exhibition at the Museum which is shown to interested visitors by a custodian-guide. Since year 2002, the Tourist Organization of Belgrade has been organizing exclusive boat visits to Vinča.

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

Gimbutas, Marija A. (ed.) "Neolithic Macedonia as reflected by excavation at Anza, southeast Yugoslavia." Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, 1976. OCLC# 3073058

[edit] External links

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