Vinča culture

Geography and demographics

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 ha 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. though the settlements did have defensive formations.

Origin

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.

According to the second hypothesis—first proposed by V. Gordon Childe (1929) and Milutin Garašanin (1982), and based on typological similarities, paleodemography and archaeogenetics—the Vinča culture and those of 'Dark Burnished Ware' developed by a second wave population movement from Anatolia to the Balkans after demographic-cultural decline and discontinuity between Early-Late Neolithic in the Central Balkans. Recent studies suggest the possibility of both local and migratory origin, which may also be related to the emergence of Dudești and Boian culture in Romania.

Archaeogenetics

The 2017 and 2018 archaeogenetic studies on 15 samples show that all except one belonged to the paternal Y-DNA haplogroup G-M201 (G2a2a; G2a2a1; 2x G2a2a1a; G2a2b2a1a-PF3346), while the remaining sample belonged to haplogroup H-P96. Their maternal mtDNA haplogroups belonged to H, H3h2, H26, HV, K1a1, K1a4, K2a, T2b, T2c1, and U2 respectively. According to ADMIXTURE analysis they had approximately 90-97% Early European Farmers, 0-12% Western Hunter-Gatherer and 0-8% Western Steppe Herders-related ancestry, and were closest "to the samples from Neolithic Anatolia and to those of Transdanubia LBK and Starčevo, and from the Early Neolithic period from Germany ... consistent with the presumed direction of Neolithic demic movement from Anatolia through the Balkans to central Europe".

A 2021 study found that Neolithic farmers, including those of the Vinča culture, produced much less cytokine levels for inflammation than earlier hunter-gatherers, an evolutionary introduction to the European genomic heritage which helps the immune system of recent Europeans.

Chronology

There are several divisions of the culture. According to J. Chapman (1981), they can be divided into two main phases which are subsequently divided into four sub-phases (A-D), each closely linked with those of its type site Vinča-Belo Brdo and dated between 5700 and 4200 BC. According to the most recent radiocarbon dating based on 76 dates (1996) Vinča-Belo Brdo spanned between 5200 and 4500 BC; on 155 dates (2009) it was dated between 5400/5300-4650/4600 BC; and on 600 dates (2016) it was concluded that the culture existed between 5400/5300 and 4500 BC.

There were many significant changed to the Vinča C phase's pottery styles, settlements and pyrometallurgical activities. There was also an increase in ritual figurines called "Vinča C shock" and "Gradac Phase" (Vinča B2-C1). The phenomenon was particularly strong in the South-Moravian and Kosovian variation of the culture.

Decline

In its late Vinča D phase, the centre of the Vinča network shifted from Vinča-Belo Brdo to Vršac.The long-distance exchange of obsidian and Spondylus artefacts from modern-day Hungary and the Aegean became more important than that of Vinča figurines. Eventually the network lost its cohesion altogether and fell into decline. It is likely that, after two millennia of intensive farming, economic stresses caused by decreasing soil fertility were partly responsible for this decline.

According to Marija Gimbutas, the Vinča culture was part of Old Europe – a relatively homogeneous, peaceful and matriarchal culture that occupied Europe during the Neolithic. According to this hypothesis, its period of decline was followed by an invasion of warlike, horse-riding Proto-Indo-European tribes from the Pontic–Caspian steppe. This "New Age sentiment" viewpoint was prevalent until the 1990s, when evidence started to emerge of violent massacres and defensively-enclosed fortified settlements in the Neolithic period.

Economy

Subsistence

Most people in Vinča settlements would have been occupied with the provision of food. They practised a mixed subsistence economy where agriculture, animal husbandry and hunting and foraging all contributed to the diet of the growing Vinča population. Compared to earlier cultures of the First Temperate Neolithic (FTN) these practices were intensified, with increasing specialisation on high-yield cereal crops and the secondary products of domesticated animals, consistent with the increased population density. In the late Vinča period (Vinča D; c. 4850-4500 cal BC) the first toggling harpoon appeared.

Vinča agriculture introduced common wheat, oat and flax to temperate Europe, and made greater use of barley than the cultures of the FTN. These innovations increased crop yields and allowed the manufacture of clothes made from plant textiles as well as animal products (i.e. leather and wool). There is indirect evidence that Vinča farmers made use of the cattle-driven plough, which would have had a major effect on the amount of human labour required for agriculture as well as opening up new area of land for farming. Many of the largest Vinča sites occupy regions dominated by soil types that would have required ploughing.

Areas with less arable potential were exploited through transhumant pastoralism, where groups from the lowland villages moved their livestock to nearby upland areas on a seasonal basis. Cattle were more important than sheep and goats in Vinča herds and, in comparison to the cultures of the FTN, livestock was increasingly kept for milk, leather and as draft animals, rather than solely for meat. Seasonal movement to upland areas was also motivated by the exploitation of stone and mineral resources. Where these especially rich permanent upland settlements were established, people would have relied more heavily on pastoralism for subsistence.

Although increasingly focused on domesticated plants and animals, the Vinča subsistence economy still made use of wild food resources. The hunting of deer, boar and aurochs, fishing of carp and catfish, shell-collecting, fowling and foraging of wild cereals, forest fruits and nuts provided for a significant part of the diet at some Vinča sites. These, however, were in the minority; settlements were largely located with agricultural rather than wild food potential in mind, and wild resources were usually underexploited unless the area was low in arable productivity.

Industry

Generally speaking craft production within the Vinča network was carried out at the household level; there is little evidence for individual economic specialisation. Nevertheless, some Vinča artefacts were made with considerable levels of technical skill. A two-stage method was used to produce pottery with a polished, multi-coloured finish, known as 'Black-topped' and 'Rainbow Ware'. Sometimes powdered cinnabar and limonite were applied to the fired clay for decoration. The style of Vinča clothing can be inferred from figurines depicted with open-necked tunics and decorated skirts. Cloth was woven from both flax and wool (with flax becoming more important in the later Vinča period), and buttons made from shell or stone were also used.

The Vinča site of Pločnik has produced the earliest example of copper tools in the world. However, the people of the Vinča network practised only an early and limited form of metallurgy. Copper ores were mined on a large scale at sites like Rudna Glava, but only a fraction were smelted and cast into metal artefacts – and these were ornaments and trinkets rather than functional tools, which continued to be made from chipped stone, bone and antler. It is likely that the primary use of mined ores was in their powdered form, in the production of pottery or as bodily decoration.

Major Vinča sites

• Belogradchik
• Crkvine
• Drenovac
• Fafos
• Gomolava
• Gornja Tuzla
• Pločnik
• Rudna Glava
• Selevac
• Tărtăria
• Turdaş
• Vinča-Belo Brdo, the type site
• Vratsa
• Vršac

Gallery

File:Tatárlaka.PNG|The Tărtăria tablets File:Prishtina Goddess on the Throne (cropped).jpg|Vinča figurine, the Goddess on the Throne File:Vinca figurine 1.jpg|alt=|Double-headed figurine File:Vinca clay figure 02.jpg|Vinča figurine, British Museum File:Hyjnesha muze.jpg|Vinča figurine File:Vinca pottery 1.jpg|Vinča pottery File:Exhibition MainHall.jpg|Vinča pottery File:Prosomorphic lid 2.jpg|Pottery with sculpted lid (reconstruction) File:Амфора из Винче.jpg File:Gradeshnitsa Tablet.jpg File:Керамичен жертвеник - с. Слатино, ранен халколит.jpg File:Narodni muzej Kraljevo - antropomorfna figurina, pečena zemlja, vinčanska kultura, IV milenijum p.n.e.jpg File:Vinča exponents 17.jpg File:Cultura di vinca, idolo, serbia 4500-3500 ac ca. 01.jpg File:Replica of the Altar from the Sanctuary at Parta.jpg|Reconstruction of an altar at the sanctuary of Parța, Romania File:White Hill in Vinča, profile and approach.jpg|Vinča-Belo Brdo excavated tell site File:Плочник 01.jpg|Reconstruction of houses at Pločnik, Serbia File:Завичајни музеј Јагодина - изглед неолитске куће, Винчанска култура.jpg|House interior reconstruction File:Magura cave 006.jpg|Magura cave drawings

References

Citations

Bibliography

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