Thread: You know the story about this amazing place that was Neolithic Europe, where Matriarchal societies lived peacefully together growing grains, making art... Then Patriarchal steppe warriors came from Asia and destroyed everything...Unfortunately, one day this was found:
This is a group of 43 figurines and 11 miniature weapon models discovered in Stubline, a Late Neolithic Vinča-culture settlement built around 4700 BCE on an elevated slope near Serbian’s capital Belgrade...Here it is, in situ...
The figurines, were found together but positioned to form smaller groups...
The figurines have no discernible facial features except noses, or no other distinguishing features, except that few are larger than the others, a well known way of depicting the powerful members of society, leaders, commanders...
The papers I read so far agree that this was a depiction of an army, an armed force of a clan, or a tribe, ready to go to war...And these figurines were not made by some barbarians...They were made by the people of Vinča-culture, the most advanced neolithic culture in Europe...
When I saw these figurines first time, my first thought was these must be agricultural implements, knowing how peaceful the Neolithic Europeans were (or so I was taught) 🙂 Unfortunately, these are clubs and axes...Metal, bronze axes...Vinča guys invented bronze...To make weapons
So then I thought, like everyone else did for a while, that this must have been a weird, one of a kind thing...And so far, this is the only such set ever found...But...
After the set discovery, other archaeologists who excavated other Vinča sites, remembered the weird little models of axes found all over Vinča world, which they had no idea what to do with. Suddenly they realised that they were most likely dealing with a Neolithic warrior cult...
But, but...Peaceful Matriarchal Neolithic Europe....This is not possible? If these guys were warriors, waging wars, we should surely have some proof for this? Like fortifications, ramparts, people being killed, houses being burned...Actually we do have proof for all this...
Picture 1, geophysical data for the Vinča settlement Uivar showing concentric ditches surrounding the settlement. The oldest layers were dated to 4830 - 4700 BC.
Picture 2, construction of a typical Vinča fortification palisade
Picture 3. Map of the so called "Obrovac type settlements" of Vinča culture, settlements surrounded by a defensive ditch
The massive Stubline settlement (200 houses), where these warrior figurines were discovered was also surrounded by (most likely defensive) ditches which were expanded as the settlement grew...
The late Neolithic Vinča culture site Pljosna stena, which was from three sides protected by cliffs, was from the fourth side protected by a stone wall..." A stone wall!!! The site is now under artificial lake...
That this is not some late development due to the influence of the bad Patriarchal Asian invaders in the 4th millennium BC....Fortified Vinča site Oreškovica-Selište in Serbia, dated to the last centuries of the sixth millennium BC...Fortifications interpreted as defensive...
...Growing evidence indicates that many Neolithic settlements in Europe were enclosed by a complex system of ditches, ramparts, and palisades..." Why would peaceful people do this? "Maybe to protect themselves from animals?" some would say...Well no actually. From people...
Several settlements of the Gumelniţa–Karanovo VI culture (contemporary to Vinča culture) present traces of settlements being assaulted and mass finds of human remains in their cultural layers....
In Pietrele in Romania, in one of the burnt down dwellings of the Gumelniţa layer, remains of 8–9 people were found, belonging to one family. One of the persons bludgeoned to death and disparate human bones (with animal bite marks) found scattered in the cultural layer as well...
Similarly, in Yunatsite in Bulgaria, numerous remains of inhabitants were found in burnt houses (47 skeletons in total preserved in various states), including ones with evidence of ‘specific cranial trauma made with picks’...
Over a hundred arrowheads found in Druţa I settlement in Northern Moldova of the Cucuteni–Tripolye culture, by all appearances testify to military actions related to an assault on the settlement...
The arrowheads were concentrated on the periphery of the dwellings, at the field side of the headland from where the settlement was attacked from this side. The arrowheads are typical for the Tripolye culture. Tripolye people were killing Tripolye people...They also made these...
Now here is a question: If Vinča guys had all the technological knowhow to make weapons and fortifications and had armies, they were one step away from forming a militaristic society? All they needed was a myth, something that would make them believe in their superiority...
Well they were superior...They invented copper and arsenic bronze metallurgy, invented first symbolic script...But did they believe that they were superior themselves? Were they bunch of well armed, well organised guys with superiority complex???
Here is another question: Did Vinča culture contribute to the development of the first bronze age warrior cultures in Eurasia and North Africa? They had the metal weapons...They knew how to build fortifications... They knew how to wage wars...They had the right attitude...🙂
The only question is did they just hang around Balkans killing each other, or did they one day decide to go to see what's behind that hill...
Sources:

https://journals.openedition.org/acost/217 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329884989_Group_Portrait_of_the_Early_Agricultural_Era_A_Set_of_Figurines_of_Vinca_Culture_from_Stubline_Serbia_in_the_Context_of_the_European_Neolithic_and_Copper_Age_Societies

https://www.academia.edu/5009607/MODELE_MINIATURALE_DIN_LUT_ALE_TOPOARELOR_ENEOLITICE_DIN_SPA%C5%A2IUL_CARPATO-DANUBIAN_Miniature_clay_axes_models_from_the_Carpatho-Danubian_Eneolithic

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324413432_Enclosing_the_Neolithic_World_A_Vinca_Culture_Enclosed_and_Fortified_Settlement_in_the_Balkans

https://www.academia.edu/3619385/Household_and_Community._House_and_Settlement_Histories_in_the_Late_Neolithic_of_the_Central_Balkans_book_in_Serbian_

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263329180_The_Late_Neolithic_settlement_mound_Bordos_near_Novi_Becej_Serbian_Banat_in_a_multiregional_context_-_Preliminary_results_of_geophysical_geoarchaeological_and_archaeological_research

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226425672_Fortifications_and_Enclosures_in_European_Prehistory_A_Cross-Cultural_Perspective

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25622691?seq=1

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229815216_Warfare_in_the_European_Neolithic

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