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Vinča culture
The Vinča culture [ʋîːnt͜ʃa], also known as Turdaș culture or Vinča-Turdaș culture, is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southeast Europe, dated to the period 5400–4500 BC. It is named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo, a large tell settlement discovered by Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasić in 1908. As with other cultures, it is mainly distinguished by its settlement pattern and ritual behaviour. It was particularly noted for its distinctive dark-burnished pottery.
Farming technology first introduced to the region during the First Temperate Neolithic was developed further by the Vinča culture. This fuelled a population boom that produced some of the largest settlements in prehistoric Europe. These settlements maintained a high degree of cultural uniformity through the long-distance exchange of ritual items, but were probably not politically unified.
Various styles of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines were hallmarks of the culture, as are the Vinča symbols, which some conjecture to be the earliest form of proto-writing. Although the Vinča culture has not been conventionally considered to be part of the Chalcolithic or "Copper Age", it featured the earliest known example of copper smelting.
The Vinča culture occupied a region of Southeastern Europe (i.e. the Balkans) corresponding mainly to modern-day Serbia and Kosovo, but also parts of Southernmost Hungary, Western-Central Romania (Oltenia, Transylvania), Western Bulgaria, Eastern Croatia, Eastern Bosnia, Northern Montenegro and North Macedonia. John Chapman (1981) previously included Greece and excluded Hungary and Croatia (as new findings and conclusions were not known at the time).
This region had already been settled by farming societies of the First Temperate Neolithic (such as the Starčevo culture) and during the Neolithic demographic transition, population sizes started to grow. During the Vinča period, improvements in technology and changes styles of pottery accelerated. Sustained population growth led to an unprecedented level of settlement size and density. Areas that were bypassed by earlier settlers were also settled. Vinča settlements were considerably larger than those of almost all other contemporary European cultures (with the exception of Cucuteni–Trypillia culture), and in some instances their size surpassed the cities of the Aegean and early Near Eastern Bronze Age a millennium later. Settlement sizes may be grouped into 1-1.9 ha, 4-4.9 ha and 20-29 ha. One of the largest sites was Vinča-Belo Brdo (today a suburb of Belgrade in Serbia), covering 29 hectares (72 acres) with up to 2,500 people.
Early Vinča settlement population density was 50–200 people per hectare, in later phases an average of 50–100 people per hectare was common. The Divostin site was occupied twice between 4900 and 4650 B.C. and an estimate based on 17 houses suggests a lifespan per house of 56 years. 1028 houses were built on the site during that period with a final population size estimated to be between 868 and 2864. Another large site was Crkvine-Stubline from 4850/4800 BC. It may have contained a maximum population of 4,000. The settlement of Parţa maybe had 1,575 people living there at the same time. It is considered that unlike other cultures of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic Age "there is no evidence for any proto-urbanism nor specialised military, religious or administrative centres", though the settlements did have defensive formations.
The origins of the Vinča culture are still debated and there exist two mainstream theories, as stated by Marko Porčić (2016), "currently there is no sufficient evidence to accept or to reject out of hand any of the hypotheses proposed for the issue of the origins of the Vinča culture". It is also debated whether it can be conceptually considered as a "culture" or a "phenomenon".
The first hypothesis is that the Vinča culture developed locally from the preceding Neolithic Starčevo culture—first proposed by Colin Renfrew (1969) and Ruth Tringham (1971). This became accepted by many scholars, showing "strong links with the contemporaneous Karanovo (phases III to Kodžadermen-Gumelnita-Karanovo VI) in Bulgaria, Precucuteni-Tripolye A in Moldavia and Ukraine, Dimini in Greece, and the late manifestations of the Starčevo culture and early Sopot culture in eastern Croatia". However, the evidence is not conclusive, and according to recent research "the earliest Vinča sites in the south seem to be as early as those in the north" and lack local continuity.
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Vinča culture
The Vinča culture [ʋîːnt͜ʃa], also known as Turdaș culture or Vinča-Turdaș culture, is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southeast Europe, dated to the period 5400–4500 BC. It is named for its type site, Vinča-Belo Brdo, a large tell settlement discovered by Serbian archaeologist Miloje Vasić in 1908. As with other cultures, it is mainly distinguished by its settlement pattern and ritual behaviour. It was particularly noted for its distinctive dark-burnished pottery.
Farming technology first introduced to the region during the First Temperate Neolithic was developed further by the Vinča culture. This fuelled a population boom that produced some of the largest settlements in prehistoric Europe. These settlements maintained a high degree of cultural uniformity through the long-distance exchange of ritual items, but were probably not politically unified.
Various styles of zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figurines were hallmarks of the culture, as are the Vinča symbols, which some conjecture to be the earliest form of proto-writing. Although the Vinča culture has not been conventionally considered to be part of the Chalcolithic or "Copper Age", it featured the earliest known example of copper smelting.
The Vinča culture occupied a region of Southeastern Europe (i.e. the Balkans) corresponding mainly to modern-day Serbia and Kosovo, but also parts of Southernmost Hungary, Western-Central Romania (Oltenia, Transylvania), Western Bulgaria, Eastern Croatia, Eastern Bosnia, Northern Montenegro and North Macedonia. John Chapman (1981) previously included Greece and excluded Hungary and Croatia (as new findings and conclusions were not known at the time).
This region had already been settled by farming societies of the First Temperate Neolithic (such as the Starčevo culture) and during the Neolithic demographic transition, population sizes started to grow. During the Vinča period, improvements in technology and changes styles of pottery accelerated. Sustained population growth led to an unprecedented level of settlement size and density. Areas that were bypassed by earlier settlers were also settled. Vinča settlements were considerably larger than those of almost all other contemporary European cultures (with the exception of Cucuteni–Trypillia culture), and in some instances their size surpassed the cities of the Aegean and early Near Eastern Bronze Age a millennium later. Settlement sizes may be grouped into 1-1.9 ha, 4-4.9 ha and 20-29 ha. One of the largest sites was Vinča-Belo Brdo (today a suburb of Belgrade in Serbia), covering 29 hectares (72 acres) with up to 2,500 people.
Early Vinča settlement population density was 50–200 people per hectare, in later phases an average of 50–100 people per hectare was common. The Divostin site was occupied twice between 4900 and 4650 B.C. and an estimate based on 17 houses suggests a lifespan per house of 56 years. 1028 houses were built on the site during that period with a final population size estimated to be between 868 and 2864. Another large site was Crkvine-Stubline from 4850/4800 BC. It may have contained a maximum population of 4,000. The settlement of Parţa maybe had 1,575 people living there at the same time. It is considered that unlike other cultures of the Neolithic-Chalcolithic Age "there is no evidence for any proto-urbanism nor specialised military, religious or administrative centres", though the settlements did have defensive formations.
The origins of the Vinča culture are still debated and there exist two mainstream theories, as stated by Marko Porčić (2016), "currently there is no sufficient evidence to accept or to reject out of hand any of the hypotheses proposed for the issue of the origins of the Vinča culture". It is also debated whether it can be conceptually considered as a "culture" or a "phenomenon".
The first hypothesis is that the Vinča culture developed locally from the preceding Neolithic Starčevo culture—first proposed by Colin Renfrew (1969) and Ruth Tringham (1971). This became accepted by many scholars, showing "strong links with the contemporaneous Karanovo (phases III to Kodžadermen-Gumelnita-Karanovo VI) in Bulgaria, Precucuteni-Tripolye A in Moldavia and Ukraine, Dimini in Greece, and the late manifestations of the Starčevo culture and early Sopot culture in eastern Croatia". However, the evidence is not conclusive, and according to recent research "the earliest Vinča sites in the south seem to be as early as those in the north" and lack local continuity.
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