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Lepenski Vir / Iron Gates Culture

blessmycottonsocks

blessmycottonsocks

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We've all heard of the Vinča culture (aka Danube culture), famed for its technological advances such as copper smelting and (arguable) the oldest known form of writing.
Another even older find, from just 80 miles away, is yielding remarkable archaeological results which, once again, may require a re-writing of the history books.

Lepenski Vir (Lepena Whirlpool - so named for the swirling eddies of the Danube at this point) is a Mesolithic metropolis, comprising the remains of one sizeable town and some 10 satellite villages. It appears to have been in continual residential use for around 2,000 years, with the earliest date estimated at 9,500 BC (so possibly even older than Göbekli Tepe).

First evidence of the Lepenski Vir site was discovered in 1960, but the full extent only came to light decades later, following excavations for modern urban development.

Lepenski Vir, already branded as Europe's first city, comprises houses of varying sizes but all of a remarkably similar trapezoidal shape, featuring stone fireplaces and a curious hollow in the centre of the floor . It has been speculated that this was to house the household totem, as large numbers of bulbous fish-headed (or fish/human hybrids) carvings have been retrieved from the site. Some of these bear a vague resemblance to later Sumerian carvings.

vir.JPG

vir2.JPG

vir3.JPG

Citizens were buried in an elaborate cemetery outside the town, with bodies generally laid parallel to and facing downriver of the Danube. The exception being the skeleton of an elderly man (village chief?) buried cross-legged in a seated position. Analysis of human bones showed a largely pescatarian diet, which may explain the totemic reverence towards fish.

The remarkably advanced culture of this Stone Age Balkan culture has attracted several devotees of pseudo-science and, indeed, Erich Von Däniken has been sniffing around. The second link below does speculate a bit as to the technologies used to build the metropolis and even asks whether a form of proto-script appeared at Lepenski Vir thousands of years before being refined by the Vinča culture. I suppose we can never know whether recurring shapes of diamonds, triangles, trapezoids and chevrons actually meant anything as script/hieroglyphs, or were mere decoration.

Amazing to think that there was such a sprawling urban metropolis in the 10th millennium BC and I wonder what other marvels are yet to be unearthed.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepenski_Vir#Discovery

https://damienmarieathope.com/2019/...-gates-culture-of-the-balkans/?v=32aec8db952d
 
Here's an article focusing on some of the alleged proto-writing found at Lepenski Vir.

The artefact known as the Oracle Stone, reminds me of one of those polyhedral dice used to play table top RPGs and certainly does appear to have some distinct characters incised into it.
It does not seem beyond the realms of possibility that, around 9,000 years ago, some shaman rolled the stone and uttered their divinations based on what symbols landed face-up.

oracle.JPG

Remember, the Vinča script still isn't widely accepted as the earliest form of writing and, whilst some of the crosses and tree-like symbols are almost identical, this artefact from Lepenski Vir is 2 to 3 thousand years older.

http://www.prehistory.it/fase2/yugoslavia2.htm
 
Whilst no archaeologist and merely a very interested amateur, I hope you'll forgive me some speculation here.
The Oracle Stone got into my dreams last night and, on waking, I studied it again.
It struck me that my initial impressions of a distinct similarity to polyhedral gaming dice may not have been far off the mark:

Dice.JPG

So I grabbed my whiteboard and had a play around with some of the symbols.
There does seem to be a clear progression from simple to more complex between several symbols and I believe they represent numerals.
Bear with me please!
This was a culture that relied on fishing the Danube to survive. This life-giving bounty was provided by the graciousness of a fish or fish/human hybrid deity (hence the totem stones). It struck me that a stylised fish skeleton, with its head, tail, central spine and radiating ribs, would be the logical choice for a number system. So I grabbed my whiteboard and experimented with the symbols:

numerals.JPG

The second row of symbols also seem to be related to numbers, with my guess of a five being possibly a stylised spread-fingered hand.
So possibly two counting systems - one for everyday use and one for sacred purposes? Or just higher numbers, maybe raising to the power of five?

In a semi-dreamy state this morning, I envisaged some fishermen approaching the shaman and asking the wise one where the most propitious place to catch fish would be. He would mutter some words, roll the stone and, based on the random result, pronounce "Today, you will head upriver/downriver, far bank/near bank, 100/500/1000/5000 paces and you will find many fish". The random element would ensure that one spot would never get fished-out and so everyone would believe in the shaman's magic.

The squares on the stone left blank are interesting too. Could they represent zero? If that landed up on the stone, perhaps the shaman would advise not to do any fishing today, to let the stocks recover a bit.

All of these Lepenski Vir symbols, along with hundreds of others, appear in the later Vinča script, which prompted me to speculate that they were retained for numerating purposes.

What do you reckon?
 
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I think there are 24 different symbols.
Now it may be that there are more to be found in excavations, but 24 seems a reasonable number for an alphabet?
And it can also be that some symbols represent either letters or numbers depending on context.
 
Victory said:
I think there are 24 different symbols.
Now it may be that there are more to be found in excavations, but 24 seems a reasonable number for an alphabet?
And it can also be that some symbols represent either letters or numbers depending on context.
Click to expand...

That's a great thought!
I suspect though that the similarity between the number of Lepenski Vir symbols and letters in an alphabet (the Phoenician version from around 1,800 BC had 22 letters) is most likely coincidental.

The symbols seem to be a tiny subset and pre-cursor to the Vinča script, in which some 5,000 distinct characters have been discovered - far too many for a true alphabetic script.
That is why I suspected the earlier symbols were simple numbers for tallying purposes of staple goods,. Hence possibly:

fishes.JPG
was more likely to be indicative of "five fishes" than any particular language sounds.

In that respect, I believe the Lepenski Vir and later Vinča symbols are closer in purpose to Cretan or Egyptian hieroglyphs (or indeed Chinese characters).

Whatever their precise meaning and purpose though, it is surely now hard not to accept them as some form of writing, which is around twice as old as Cuneiform - long accepted as the oldest known form of script.
 
Not the best written article I've ever read—there are many unsupported assumptions, many assertions of the significance of items that are not supported with evidence or details.
"Next to the hearth, there was an oval stone that looked like a loaf of dough. It had an oval indent like a half-ball inside." This could have been a rock where grain was ground, instead of a lamp or an alter, it . But not enough details are given to figure out if the assumptions are based on any solid analysis.
Nonetheless, it's a really interesting article for the kind of stuff it describes, and it has great photos! Thanks, Blessmycottonsocks!
 
IbisNibs said:
Not the best written article I've ever read—there are many unsupported assumptions, many assertions of the significance of items that are not supported with evidence or details.
"Next to the hearth, there was an oval stone that looked like a loaf of dough. It had an oval indent like a half-ball inside." This could have been a rock where grain was ground, instead of a lamp or an alter, it . But not enough details are given to figure out if the assumptions are based on any solid analysis.
Nonetheless, it's a really interesting article for the kind of stuff it describes, and it has great photos! Thanks, Blessmycottonsocks!
Click to expand...

The author's first language clearly isn't English, but her enthusiasm was infectious and some of the background details provided certainly added to my knowledge of this remarkable site.
 
Very long and detailed recent article here, recommended if you are seriously into archaeological minutia, exploring the evidence for the full "Neolithic Package" (i.e. the revolution that saw nomadic hunter gatherers becoming farmers, potters, settlement builders etc.) at Lepenski Vir.

Some key points are:
Earliest evidence of occupancy at the site dates back to around 9,300 BC (referred to as Proto-Lepenski Vir). This is a couple of centuries later than had been claimed in earlier articles.
The main urban building phase, incorporating the trapezoidal stone houses, appears to have started around 6,250 BC.
Domed ovens or kilns were present at the site by 6,000 BC (see photo below).
Not only did the citizens of this Neolithic metropolis have a well-organised fishing industry, but they also domesticated relatively large numbers of pigs, goats and cattle including the mighty aurochs. Some dog bones were also found, but with no butchery marks, so presumably man's best friend was there for companionship and perhaps a little hunting.

vir.JPG


https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262563026_When_did_the_'Neolithic_package'_reach_Lepenski_Vir_Radiometric_and_faunal_evidence
 
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