7,000 Year Old Village Uncovered in Bulgaria

We (me included) have got to get it out of our heads that the cradle of civilization was in the Middle East - it wasn't!  This is one more example of ruins uncovered of an extensive series of settlements in southern Europe to the west of (and around) the Black Sea coast -- "Old Europe."

From Novinite.com
Bulgarian Archaeologists Unearth 7000-Year-Old Village
Archaeology | September 25, 2010, Saturday

A prehistoric home dated back 7000 years has been uncovered by a team of Bulgarian archaeologists at Telish in the central northern District of Pleven.

The team led by archaeologist Ventsislav Gergov is convinced that the home found in a place known as "Laga" is part of a village with at least 30 houses.

"Our ancient predecessor constructed amazingly robust homes, much more robust than many of the contemporary apartment buildings," Gergov believes.

"The walls of the homes were made of stamped clay mixed with cow manure and straw, and were additionally supported with wooden poles. This is how the home becomes monolithic and acquires amazing heating isolation," [insulation?] he explained.

Gergov has found parts of over 40 highly-ornate ceramic vessels inside the home as well as two clay ovens built one over the other.

The excavations of the site will continue for one more week because of lack of funding. All finds will be turned in to the Pleven Regional History Museum.

This is not Gergov's first prehistoric discovery at Telish; a place which has turned out to harbor some of the oldest remains of civilized settlements in the world.

The archaeologist is also the author of a local project exhibiting two reconstructed rammed earth homes modeled after the findings in the prehistoric excavations as part of an open air museum.

Most Ancient Civilization Started in Bulgaria?

We'll see if more is published on this in the future. I am open to the idea of older civilizations than those in the "Fertile Crescent" (which sort of includes ancient Egypt). Not all of our current assumptions about how everything developed and when it developed are necessarily correct, as we are finding out daily! However, for now, I'm taking this "assertion" (it's not really a report) with a grain of salt. What I do know is that the Varna, Vinca and other cultures in Bulgaria demonstrated a great skill with metallurgy at a very early age. Photo: Varna burial, c. 4600 BCE. Standart News November 3, 2009 Krastina Marinova Most Ancient Civilization Was in Bulgaria An ancient civilization, older than the Egyptian, existed in the lands of the coastal city of Varna, reveals the most recent scientific research of a team of archaeologists in Germany. Vladimir Slavchev from Varna Archaeological museum is part of that team. According to this large-scale study, the most ancient civilization in the world lived in the lands between Mangalia to the north and the Kamchiya River valley to the south. All the following societies imitated the local way of life. The old society from the region near Varna set the beginning to all kingdoms, scientists maintain. The burials of noble men and luxury objects unearthed in the famous Necropolis support that opinion. Over 200 valuable objects, among which are 2,000 golden beads, part of Varna's oldest treasure will be displayed in an exhibition in New York. Where and when will this exhibition be in New York??? More about Varna: Wikipedia

Copper Age Shocker

The archaeological site at Plocnik is back in the news, this time with a stunning discovery that could very well change a fundamental archaeological paradigm. Copper Age began earlier than believed, scientists say Europe News Oct 7, 2008, 14:47 GMT Belgrade - Serbian archaeologists say a 7,500-year-old copper axe found at a Balkan site shows the metal was used in the Balkans hundreds of years earlier than previously thought. The find near the Serbian town of Prokuplje shifts the timeline of the Copper Age and the Stone Age's neolithic period, archaeologist Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic told the independent Beta news agency. 'Until now, experts said that only stone was used in the Stone Age and that the Copper Age came a bit later. Our finds, however, confirm that metal was used some 500 to 800 years earlier,' she said. The Copper Age marks the first stage of humans' use of metal. It is thought to have started in about the 4th millennium BC in southeastern Europe and earlier in the Middle East. Archaeologists at the Plocnik site also found furnace and melting pots with traces of copper, suggesting the site may have been an important metal age center of the Balkans. 'All this undeniably proves that human civilization in this area produced metal in the 5th millennium BC,' archaeologist Dusan Sljivar told Beta. The Plocnik site was discovered in 1927 and first excavations began a year later when first neolithic items were found. It is part of the Vinca culture, Europe's biggest prehistoric civilization. Vinca culture flourished from 6th to 3rd millennium BC in present-day Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria and Macedonia. Its name came from the village Vinca on the Danube river, some 14 kilometers downstream from Belgrade. (c) Deutch Press-Agentur

The Remarkable Trypilian Culture (5400-2700 BC)

This sounds absolutely fascinating! I saw it tonight at Art Daily and searched out the exhibition information at the website for the Royal Ontario Museum: Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: The Remarkable Trypilian Culture (5400-2700 BC) November 29, 2008 to March 22, 2009 Who were the Trypillians? How were they able to build the largest settlements in Europe, well over five thousand years ago? And why did they burn them down? These and other questions are explored in this fascinating exhibition that uncovers the secrets surrounding this mysterious people. Nestled in the forest steppes of modern-day Ukraine, the prehistoric Trypillian people lived and prospered between 5000 and 2750 BCE. Highly sophisticated, the Trypillians were both farmers and hunters. Their ability to adapt to different terrain led to their prosperity, and soon they had the largest population growth of any other Neolithic people. They built the largest settlements in Europe at that time, some with an estimated population of 10-15,000 people. Every 60 to 80 years, they burned some settlements to the ground and moved to settle another location. In 1896, Ukraininan archaeologist Vikenty Khvoika discovered one of these settlements near the village of Trypillia. The artifacts he uncovered were instrumental in reconstructing the daily lives of this prehistoric civilization. Ancient Ukraine presents household tools, evidence of clothing, spiritual artifacts and art, all of which help to build the story of how the Trypillians lived, flourished and then all but mysteriously disappeared. This exhibition was organized by the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada and the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, Kyiv in collaboration with the Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, The Archaeological Museum of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, The Odessa Archaeological Museum, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and The Vinnytsia Regional Museum, Ukraine. More information at Art Daily. Extracted: To place the Trypilian culture in context, The Neolithic Revolution examines the development of human societies in Europe from the end of the last Ice Age to the arrival of Copper Age cultures, including Trypilian. Other Neolithic cultures, such as the Halaf, from what is now known as northern Syria and south-eastern Turkey, and the Vinca from what is now known as modern Serbia, are juxtaposed, their artistic legacies having much in common. Here, visitors can study the earthenware portrait of a pensive male face, created by the Vinca approximately 7,500 years ago, and which bears striking similarity to the ‘realistic’ portraits of Trypilia. Spirituality and Artistic Expression highlights various puzzling pieces of ceramic art made by the Trypilians - specifically anthropomorphic figurines (ranging from stylized to quasi-realistic) and containers decorated in various ways (incised, monochromatic, polychromatic). Found in many Neolithic cultures, the female figurines on display, with exaggerated feminine features, are believed by some scholars to represent a ‘great mother goddess’. Other ceramic objects, such as footed platforms, and enigmatic, hollow “binocular” pieces, attest to the spiritual and ritual life of the Trypilians. A continuity/continguity of cultures and images of the great mother goddess - in this case, this is a "bird" goddess, a common iconic form throughout neolithic Europe and the Middle East. The photo is not specifically identified, it is from the ROM website with this under-tag: Photographs by Petro Hrycyk, from the exhibition "Ukraine -- Images from 5000 to 4000 BC: Treasures of the Trypillian Culture", The Ukrainian Museum, New York, 1993.