Talk:Vinča signs

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Contents

[edit] Slavic mythology ?

The inscription could be read as STRRBOG (LTR), which sounds similar to Stribog, Slavic god of wind. The letter B is topped with an arrow and in the bottom left corner there is image of, possibly, bow and arrow; in Slavic mythology, Stribog's winds are helping the arrows to fly. It could be concluded that this is an amulet of precision.

LOL! I think it's obvious that the Slavs didn't lived in that region 3000 BC. Interestingly enough, the some Hungarians also claimed that the same clay tablet is "Hungarian" script. :) [1].

I wrote: could be read. Of course, other readings are possible. It is mathematically proven that deciphering a short text is impossible - you will end with several versions of the text that make sense. Unless much more material is found, the reading of the tablets will remain forever disputed. As for Slavs, it is not impossible that Slavs adopted a god from an older culture. Nikola

Both these theories are complete non-sense. Both the Slavs and the Hungarians were not living in this region at that time. Bogdan 19:40, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think this whole article is nonsense - 'Vinca alphabet' gets one hit on google, and the claims of 6th millennium B.C. is just frankly absurd.

The dates are found out by radiocarbon dating, now it could be wrong for even a millenium according to some... Nikola
In Romania there is not such a village named Tordos.The neolithic round tablet in discussion is from the neolithic site of Tartaria,Alba County Romania.
Tordos is the Hungarian Name of "Turdaş". The objects of Tordos were found earlier than the Tartaria tablets. bogdan ʤjuʃkə | Talk 08:24, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Most of Vinca writings are precursor of writing.They are related to economic (marking) and to religion.Most of them are on pottery.But some of the tablets seem to have real writing on it.Most of the signs are found in pre-cuneiform Mesopotamian writing,and all of them are found in Azilian-Glozel writing (also undeciphered).The most plausible hypothesis is that Danubian neolithic was conected with either Old-Iberian civilisation (wich in turn has conected vith Saharan civilisation) and with Near-East.My opinion is that Danubian civilisation (more precise Vinca civilisation) produced one early realwriting system.The problem is the reduced number of tablets with this writing.In this case,till no more tablets will be found,the trend is that those tablets have an Near-Eastern origin.The new NTC (Neolithic continuity theory)theory of Mario Alinei is for a more older origin of languages in Europe.Also it is for a autochronuos origin of Celts (Old South-Iberians) and Slavs.So the writers could be also slavs.The Danubian civilisation and especially Vinca has the suficient signs data-base for many alphabets.Also is an known fact that this civilisation expanded in Europe in all directions.As somebody observed above,scientist are for a similarity of Vinca writing with linear A,linear B and Ethruscan writing,considering the former as progenitor of latters.If one combine the early emergence of Indo-European branches with the area of this emergence precisely in Danubian area,the result is a possible writing in ancient variants of the folowing languages in decreasing probability order:euskara/old-iberian,albanian-illyrian,greek,serbo-croat.If "imported",the languages could be mainly:sanscrit,sumerian.I studied for some months this writing and I checked those languages could be.Beside a "Danubian origin" the second probable origin is the ancient Phoenicia/Palestinian territories.Because some 2 signs (2 out of 15)are pointing to Egypt and South-Arabia.But a more real and plausible originof the signs is from old Saharan civilisation wich has the newer and remnant alphabets from older times,the Ethiopic and Numidian alphabets.Especialing the Numidian is very easy to use and have very simple geometric elements as "basic bricks" for letters.I advanced my deciphering variants in order to be validate (one of them) by scientists.One of my variants wich is related to Turanians is allready validated by the Turkey scientist Polat Kaya.But personally I am not yet convinced that is the real,right,ultimate variant/reading. I am Eugen Rau,from Timisoara Romania.

It sounds like a national myth

Funny :) Of which nation? Vincan? :))) Nikola

and this article certainly wants NPOVing if not outright deleting. Morwen 19:45, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Try searching for "Vinca script". Nikola
I did - that gets me NINE hits, oh joy. This article is just a pile of lies. Morwen 22:36, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
"vincha script" OR "vinca script" OR "vinca alphabet" OR "vincha alphabet" gives 24. What is the basis for your conclusion that this article is "a pile of lies"? Nikola 22:44, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
It should be moved to Vinca culture since we don't know whether it's really an alphabet. Bogdan 19:50, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Vinca culture should be about, surprisingly, Vinca culture. Perhaps this could be moved to Vinca script, but I think that it is shown quite convincigly that the script is an alphabet. Nikola
Also, the chronology is all wrong. The symbols shown are pretty much identical to Etruscan. If Phoenician was derived from this, then they must have changed and then changed back again to exactly the same form, or remained mysteriously identical for a few thousand years...
Yeah, your right. Unless the Thracians (or whoever made these) invented the time machine.
I don't see why. The oldest symbols are from 6th millenium BC, and the newest from 3nd millenium BC. I don't see why the symbols couldn't have lived a thousand years more and be adopted by Etruscans (or perhaps Etruscans are descendants of Vincans), without any Phoenician influence. Nikola
The problem is, we know the Etruscan came from the West Greek, and we know the Greek came from the Levant (probably Phonecian), etc. all the way back to the Sumerian invention. — B.Bryant 09:34, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Nikola, that's a pretty probable idea. From what I read, the script was written before the indo-europeans settle in Europe, and the only non-indo-europeans in Europe in antiquity were the Etruscs and the Basques, so it will not be impossible that the Vincans migrated toward Etruria. Bogdan 08:47, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
No, you should say that Etruscan and Basque are the only remnants of pre-IE European culture that you know of. Moreover, it doesn't matter where the Etruscans came from, because we already know where their alphabet came from. — B.Bryant 09:34, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This is kookery, nothing else. Morwen 19:57, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
from the article: "But comparison with other scripts revealed that all marks of Vincan script exist in Etruscan alphabet"
Actually this is wrong, because some of the symbols on the Tartaria tablets are not found in the Etruscan alphabet ([2]).
But these symbols are found on the tablets only. This symbols are found repeatedly on various artifacts - as I said, more then 1000 of them. There are more symbols that are not in the alphabet (see Omniglot page) but they are also not used consistently. Perhaps I should have made it clearer. Nikola 22:31, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Morwen's time machine

Now I conclude that User:Morwen has a time machine because he conducted an opinion poll among scholars, and found that this is not accepted by the majority of them, in five minutes. :)))))) Nikola 22:52, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

No, I know this because it is not accepted in any of the books I've read about writing systems, and it would certainly be mentioned, if it wasn't a fringe theory. Morwen 22:55, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
I'd be quite interested to see photos of these inscriptions. Would that be possible? Morwen 22:57, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
There's an unsorted pile of individual symbols at Omniglot, and there's the book, if you can find it (it has no photos, only drawings).
I could photocopy the inscriptions and mail them to you or only describe them if you think that would be accurate enough if you apologise for calling me a liar and promise to work on the article constructively. Nikola 09:37, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
No, I called the article a pile of lies, not you a liar. I am willing to believe you are parrotting other people's lies and believe them. ;) Morwen 10:33, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
On second thoughts, I withdraw that. It was instead a pile of dubious conjecture presented as fact. Morwen 11:55, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Well, my limit is reached. You'we shown yourself incapable for anything but insults. I no longer recognize any of your edits. Nikola 05:25, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Time for a fresh look

I don't know whether Nikola is aware of it, but the article is actually somewhat misnamed; the more common names are "Vinca-Tordos script" or "Old European Script". Google on those terms and you'll find a lot more information about it. It definitely isn't a national myth, but the theory that the scipt is a precursor of Etruscan seems to be something of a fringe view. I think the article does need to be modified to reflect the range of opinions rather than presenting the fringe explanation as the definitive version. There are also some serious factual inaccuracies (for instance, the article refers to the 6th millennium BC, but this is clearly a mistaken reference to the artifacts being dated as 6000 years old).

I'm reworking the article to fix these problems. Hopefully this will settle some of the controversy that it seems to have provoked. :-) -- ChrisO 14:56, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Okay, rewrite done. My observations:
  • Radivoje Pesic's theories on the Vinca script are kooky, or at least on the far fringes of opinion. I haven't found a single source to support them, and Etruscan's origins in early Greek seem to be pretty much unassailable. As the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and Pesic simply doesn't seem to have it. On the other hand, I've found quite a few sources suggesting that Pesic is some kind of Serbian ultranationalist with an agenda to "prove" that there was a Slavic presence in the Balkans in prehistoric time, which is similarly a very fringe view.
  • For that reason, although Nikola has done a nice job of providing a (presumably Pesic-inspired) table comparing Etruscan letters to Vinca symbols, I don't think it's appropriate to retain it. It would be a bit like illustrating an article about the building of the Pyramids with a picture showing flying saucers lifting the blocks into place - an interesting theory but too far out to have that kind of coverage n a "mainstream" article. One possibility might be to move the table to an article about Pesic with a fuller explanation of his theory on the Vinca script.
  • We need to rename this article. It's far from clear what kind of writing system the Vinca script represents - whether it's an alphabet or something else - and the present title represents a very disputed viewpoint. I'd suggest moving the text to a new article called "Old European Script" (the most widely accepted name) with redirects from "Vinca Alphabet" and "Vinca Culture".
Comments welcome... (ducks) -- ChrisO 01:26, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

This is a very good rewrite. Secretlondon 13:39, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

Nobody's objected to the changes I made a month ago, so I've now removed the neutrality sign and renamed the page as proposed earlier. -- ChrisO 20:04, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Rubbish!

This is a load of rubbish, and blatant Serbian Nationalism. But does deletion help? Yak 19:05, Feb 10, 2004 (UTC)

It's unproven, yeah, but its not just some Serbian nationalist fairy tale. Many anthropologists and linguists who are not Serbs seem to accept that it COULD be a sort of proto-writing, and many others do not. I've seen an interesting (and fairly long (full book page) graph showing marks found in Vinca "writing" compared to Linear A sighns and there are many similar looking signs. That may be coincidence, and this may be a red herring. However, I think its unwise to just dismiss it out of hand as a product os Serbian (or any other) nationalism. None of us were there, none of us know if these were just decorative scratchings, a primitive iconographic writing, or whatnot. I'd say that dismissing those ideas with no evidence is as unscientific as making unfounded claims that its a primitive writing system. 68.225.88.31 09:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I thought Gimbutas was from the Baltic states - Lithuania, wasn't it? I agree that the suggestion that the O.E.S. is some sort of proto-Slavic script is absurd, but the nature and meaning of the symbols is nonetheless an interesting if somewhat peripheral issue. -- ChrisO 19:55, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The page history and the discussions above suggest that deletion won't help unless/until a certain True Believer loses interest. But we can at least keep qualifiers on the claims until we can get away with a delete or a total re-write. I shudder to think what other linguistic claims may be lurking undetectced in Wikipedia. — B.Bryant 07:50, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
You should have seen the article before I rewrote it. :-) -- ChrisO 08:31, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Radivoje's claims

It's reassuring to see some wholesome humor and skepticism about the "Ole European Script." So many drawings, so few photos. So many single symbols, so few sentences. So many "chance" discoveries, so few datable "in situ" contexts. So many "connoisseur"'s private collections, so few large archaeological museums.... The constant subtext: "Writing and the alphabet were invented in Slavic areas of Europe." Wetman 08:01, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Bah, everything is true in someone's imagination. — B.Bryant 08:19, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I think that we should remove any trace of nationalism (i.e. Slavic Nationalism) from this article. It's a fact that at that time there were no Slavs, no Germans, no Latins, etc. There were only Indo-Europeans. And they weren't yet in Europe, either.
What Radivoje claims is absurd, these are only his claims, not sustained by any proofs, nor by any real historian. I think they don't belong in an encyclopedia. Bogdan | Talk 14:28, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Radivoje's claims are certainly pretty far out and I agree with your assessment of them, but I don't think this by itself should justify removing any mention of them. Wikipedia already includes articles on pseudoarchaeology which cover even more extreme claims - take a look at Ancient astronaut theory, for instance. An encyclopedia should be encyclopedic, after all. -- ChrisO 16:16, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Yes, but we don't use in other history articles pseudoarchaeological proofs. I think the whole Radivoje's point should be on another article that is link from here. Bogdan | Talk 16:33, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)
You can't have it both ways. :-) If his claims are too wacky to merit being included in an encyclopedia, they certainly don't merit their own article! -- ChrisO 08:48, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Bogdan. People are going to hear about it elsewhere, so we might as will provide a (hopefully) sane presentation of what is going on. — B.Bryant 11:17, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)
To be honest, I'm not too bothered about what is done with Radivoje. Just be aware that if you delete the paragraph about his claims and the aforesaid True Believer reverts it, you will need to have some good arguments to back you up. I wouldn't want to see this article subjected to an edit war. -- ChrisO 11:49, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Marija Gimbutas

I tried to improve the section on Marija's theory, which was not very accurate. I was her research assistant for two years at UCLA. She was a better scholar than some of her groupies are. Evertype 21:44, 2004 Dec 27 (UTC)

I must attract your attention to the folowing facts: Europe was populated from Aurignacian (40.000BC) from above Black-Sea route leaving the Proto-Iberians and Ucrainian spots.The origin area was somewhere north of Lake Baikal.The genetic material and probably language was Central-Asian/Turanian type.From Grawettian (20.000BC)we have the Balkan spot.Was originated in Near-East fertile crescent.The route was south of Black Sea.The language and people unknown,but my opinion is that had some of Indic component.Those migrations were responsible for 80% of genetic material of actual Europeans.Those populations gave the basic language of Europe,wich was not IE.The only relic and remnant of those language,to have an immage is euskara.The other 20 % is from the neolithic period (10.000-5.000 BC)Has an Central-Asiatic-Caucasian base,but much more in contact and influence with India and Australic-Asian areas.One observe and realise that neolithic is toward 10.000BC in Near-East, late in Balkan area,and much late in Europe.In Europe,before and into paleolithic most of Europe was of Proto-Iberians,the hunter-gatheres of paleolithic.The language non-IE,Turanian type.Later,in neolithic the Danubian population expanded in all directions and "pushed" the old-Iberians to Western-Europe. The neolithic langage of Danubians from a point was IE (either if autochronuos or not).In neolithic in Europe there emerged the main IE brunches.Out of this this IE theory is mainly an didactic-one.The situation is more complex:why not a "bifocal" PIE !?? If agriculturalist or Danubians or "Kurgans" are responsible for IE languages,"imported" or autochronuos at a point it is not so important.Maybe long time the scientists will be same divergent,and as a herd will follow the most autoritative scientists at different times.As in fashion could be seen.As one said: As weird could be ,the Kurgan hordes seemed to bring IE in Europe (my coment:of Turanian stock,but carriers of IE).See also: http://groups.msn.com/1-stWorldVincadecyphered Eugen Rau I am asking myself and I invite you to give at least a guess of the language,or at least of the type of language used by the Vinca culture people by 5.000-4.500BC.
Sign your post or I will not bother with this. Evertype 14:37, 2005 Apr 7
(UTC)Eugenrau:

I was strucked how many signs of Tartaria round tablet(TRT)are in other ancient scripts.I made a comparison work,resulting "An partial,experimental Alphabet"(in fact is a silabary,but for work reasons I not defined the secon letter/wowel from the begining).Like S is in fact Sa,se,etc. but don't matter at the begining to precise if really it is a,or e,or u etc.I "produced" many texts from sumerian...up to albanian.You may see those texts as in modern days the designers are putting their products "to work" in computers so-named "simulation".Till one day.You know that there is in the method of decipherment something wich is telling:if one is expecting to appere some "markers" as river names,known kings,countries,mountains wich have a "constancy" some hundred yars or more up to 1K and this is happening,then so thats'it!.Such a moment had come:only in one quadrant,No.2 situated right/up fom the letters S un under it the letters R,B,O,L where S is binded with B w can have,in sumerian :SUB=prey;SIB=exorcism/shepperd;SUBA=priest;ARB-EL=The 4 Gods;BAR=soul,to shine;ARAL=the netherworld;SU-BAR=who are from high peaks,northeners;BARA:king,pass-over;BAU=primeval animistic deity of "deepwaters";;euRi=Lord;Elod/up,high ;Baal=Lord;eS=ltar SuR,aSuR=Sun-God;ShuBuRe=big Goddess of fertility;iRa=Nergal;Ba=omen Suari=Subari(we have allready);eReS=the name of Ereschigal Ra(hurr)=to give;...one must think of so many words and so much ideatic charge in a text of..only 5 letters.So was Iwas to the point to became convinced that I am on the right track.In fact I deeply realised that first I put in my computer search-engine those letters S(or Csi or XI in other writings) with RBO under it,and I obtainet:RBO ,reading from right to left:EBER,EBRI,EVRI,and vith XI at the end:Evree-it,the early linguistic root for hebrew people.The o is in fact"aleph" wich can be used for any wowel.But I have a question for you all here:if to see far in future one need imgination how about seeing in "past" ?? So what about ARBOL or Su ARBOL? (Proto-iberian arbol=tree su=under;tree cult?, etc.)what about Arbeli,the plural for Ar-ab (ab,beli the denomination of paternity in old hbrew/arabian for singular respectively plural).Arbeli/Arberi?? Surbo/srbi/(rbija:the old pro-root for serbian people )Sorbians,those slavic people in past times in the western-Europe?.I took those letters and words from my imagination? What about the idea to make a brain-surgery to those with above-medium imagination level,in order to reduce it? O.K. This tanlet has the disc-shape;it is a sun-disc,with the equal-arms cross.Those symbols,togheter with the square&cross,(generally every kind of crosses ) togheter with other images and simbols as the bull,lion,some birds,stick/erected things and even phaluses, were ancient symbols for;the movement and cycles of the sun and moon and human and nature fertility/sexuality.

 From the most ancient times,people were not indifferent to the death issue.They first sought to the  death was as "another kind of life","another some-how attenuated life" or "kind of sleep".They were not sure if the soul (to read:spirit) of the dead are between them in day-time or in the night was roaming,others as pelasgians thought that their dead relatives are part of family ,they put dishes for them and in harder times asked for advice or help,the so named "heros" and "her" culture from Sumer to Greece .The thought for the death was as they were gone to "netherworld" or "underworld'.Sumerian underworld was named ARALE,and as in their life there were also in the "underworld" 2 rivers,where one have to be carried with a boat..(the future Styx?).Th "netherwold" was named also A-Ha and Ari.Somwhere at their confluence was Edin,the future Eden ,the future heaven.They had not a definite idea of what will happen to them exactly  or the time of their staying.As the Sun everiday was going  under the Earth and the Oceans,dying and with their hard pray and with the help of the gods "was ressurecting" to a new life,so they waited and asked,praised for the ressurection of their soul.So it is the story of our tablet ;it is a little "prayer-book" of our ancestors.Maybe the entire ritual associated with ,lasted some time,maybe hours,and they surely were chanting and dancing (see future hora,at the initial phase an ritualic dance,later only an joy-dance,at hebrews and thracians/romanians).These kind of written "prayers",more exactly spells,once reinforced with the power of the gods were not more,nevermore important.But they have to be kept all the time before out of the sight of others,better in dark places,in order not to be exposed to the adverse forces,of the evill/evil-eye.By short out of malfic forces action.Even when they wrote such spells,they were thinking about it,so we have the text in quadrant 2 divided by the line of B(a.. wich is common with one of the tooth of the comb-like S(e,i..u).Iffor the rest of the tablet we can talk of "reading" for the No2 quadrant,the more propiate term i "reading+decipherment".This no2 is the equivalent of the active substance in our modern drugs.This tablet was an amulet carring an spell/charm wich have the purpose of assuring to semebody (a dead person ) ressurection  in & from the afterlife.   Eugenrau
I don't know in wich fase was the people religion exactly between a pure animistic one and the begining of apperance of antropomorphic deityies.                                                      Regarding the language/languages.Neolithic language was not too much different from the paleolithic language.Was the primary language of the hunter-gatherer people. I am not engaging myself in "who was the first" issues.Not regarding the people,nor regarding the time and place of appearance of the 1-st World writing.It seems that was an ancient "Lingua Franca" as akkadian was in his time in an definite area.This language ,as one can see the papers related to the subject a kind of primitive,aglutinative language akin to mande,euskara,sumerian.They had no time to "flex" too much the language.For the place of origin....don't know.Could be Older Armenia-Canaan,more precise Armenia-Ararat(Nemrut-Dag)this is my 1-st choice...Or around Black-Sea/Lake so why not 1k kms around the shores(so could enter in equation the Danube area or Ukraine).Dnieper-Donets is a little far from the above-designed area.My opinion is that between 5.000 and 4.000  BC the language was between the phase of respectively pre-proto-IE and proto-IE.The sumerian language is not  a IE language,but have something of it in it.This language was the layer "under" many of later languages (so named substrate).I detected some of IE lnguages in my searchings related to this tablet.So as it happened in reality as some schollars hypotethied that Pre-Proto-IE mooved across Romania and Macedonia from eastern-Turkey to the steppes..to the place to become roto-IE.And/or the Dniepper/Donets people and language,as Proto-IE mooved some yers earlier than sought  from the steppes to Boian (Romania) region and possible Vinca area.Or better both movements,maybe not exactly at the same time.The D/D people was known as "Guda" people as I have in my text (at me Guda=priest,as in lithuanian).Guda=kuti=guti=getae=gots=future kurds.The old people of King and God Zagg=Za-Ga-Ga wich came from Zagros mountains. Zaga>Dzaga>Daga-people (Dag=mountain in turkic),maybe Dagi/Daki,Daci.             There are strong evidences for the fact that many main consonant roots were "transported" in time and space by migrating people from a region to another.I will tell you about ARB:"the Proto-nostratic root and denomination for all is pertaining to spelling,magic,scorcering,etc",so why not all those primitive animistic people not called thmselvs with different names after their departuring areas:e-beri,i-beri,su-bari/sorbi/srbo,and ar-beri.regarding the people.Many of my preliminary and pure pesonal conclusions are matching with the opinions and searchings of Mr:L.Luca,Cvali Sforza and Mario Aliney for an much older point for begining of the IE-isation processus.Throw on me with rocks,but..I am to the point to bet for a (Pre)-Balto-Slavic people for the Vinca people.Note in the presen-day ucrainian and slovenian languages those Su,Ga,Za and so on words,as in sumerian language.I wonder if kaza-Ga are not the kaza=goat (latvian/lithuanian)people ,future Kazachas.In fact Kazag/Kazakh/Casca/Caucas-ga/ka people.The branch wich was gone to the North-East."Note": "ga" :very much used ending-particle (and) for nominativ,in sumerian language. One must note also that if the genetics had showed evidences of some 3 main migration wawes in neolithic to Europe,in reality there were much many of them,in different times with different places of origin.The Starcevo and Vinca cultures people were expanding to all directions to Europe (and farther?)For the moment I will stop here.I am veryinterested what your opinions are,my friends. See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1sum.jpg   up to ...4.jpg        Thankyou verymuch for giving your time for my text.    Eugenrau

[edit] Notability of Pešić's theory

I'd never heard of Pešić or his theory before reading this article. Does he have any supporters or much of a profile in Serbia? I'm concerned that we seem to be giving undue weight to a fringe viewpoint here. We don't cite Erich von Daniken's claims in the Egyptian pyramids article, for instance. -- ChrisO 20:08, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Like any undeciphered script, the Vinca symbols attract crackpots in swarms. Unless we can show Pesic was received in any way at all off Serbian nationalist internet fora, I don't think we should mention him, per WP:UNDUE. dab (𒁳) 22:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
I've never seen any references to Pešić in the English-language literature on this topic, so I'd guess that his views aren't taken seriously by mainstream archaeology. One would have thought that he would at least have been mentioned otherwise. -- ChrisO 22:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
come on, of course they aren't. I mean, Etruscan, Slavic? He could at least have argued for some Bronze Age connection, but this is too unlikely to look into for more than five seconds. dab (𒁳) 22:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
All very von Danikenesque. :-) -- ChrisO 22:57, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

we can entertain a fringe/pseudoscience section (compare Indus script). Pesic can languish there, but I will insist on keeping him there unless and until a scholarly review of his book is presented (that is, one that does not come to the conclusion that the book is trash). No peer review, no screen time on Wikipedia. dab (𒁳) 16:28, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

googling around, I find that sr:Radivoje Pešić has some notability, or should I say notoriety. He is an archaeologist, but it seems he is more noted as an all-out nationalist extremist [3]. Serbian nationalism is, of course, not an academic subject but led to real bloodshed little more than 10 years ago, and is still holding the region captive. This article is on the Neolithic, and we have to keep it from becoming a battlefield of current day nationalist disputes in the Balkans. dab (𒁳) 16:37, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

He strikes me as being rather like the German archaeologists in the 1930s and early 1940s who sought to "prove" the Aryan ancestry of the Germans - pseudoarchaeology in the service of ethnic nationalism. At any rate, professional qualifications notwithstanding, he's plainly not a mainstream source and I agree that we shouldn't give him much more than a mention given his lack of prominence. -- ChrisO 19:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] move

I moved the page to "Vinča signs". The old title, "Old European script", was POV: there is no evidence that the the symbols encoded language, nor that they were part of a "European" culture, so both 'European' and 'script' are inappropriate. 'Vinča signs' is the terminology used in Daniels and Bright, and is fairly neutral; 'Vinča symbols' would also be good. kwami 12:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What the heck does "matristic" mean?

What the heck does "matristic" mean? I cannot find it in any dictionaries. I suggest either linking to a definition or rephrasing with actual words. --Logomachist (talk) 07:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not even in the OED, so I removed all three instances of it from Wikipedia. It means woman-centered. — kwami (talk) 08:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
it's Marija Gimbutas' term and as such relevant to the topic, but it needs to be introduced of course. It means something like "somewhere between matriarchal and matrilineal; we're being second-wave feministic btw." dab (𒁳) 08:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)