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Lepenski Vir

Change and Resistance in the Balkans

By K. Kris Hirst </mbiopage.htm>, About.com

"Danube separating Carpathian and Balkan mountains in the Lower Gorge.
View from the Serbian side"

Danube separating Carpathian and Balkan mountains in the Lower Gorge.
View from the Serbian side

In October of 2000, Serbia's freely elected replacement for the
much-despised Slobodan Milosevic, Vojislav Kostunica, finally took
power. One way for us to celebrate this momentous occurrence is to talk
about the deep cultural history of Serbia. Probably the best-known
archaeological site in Serbia is Lepenski Vir, a series of Mesolithic
villages located on a high sandy terrace of the Danube River, on the
Serbian bank of the Iron Gates Gorge. This site was the location of at
least six village occupations, beginning about 6400 BC, and ending about
4900 BC. Three phases are seen at Lepenski Vir; the first two are what's
left of a complex foraging society; and Phase III represents a farming
community.

Life in Lepenski Vir

Houses in Lepenski Vir, throughout the 800-year-long Phase I and II
occupations, are laid out in a strict parallelepiped plan, and each
village, each collection of houses is arranged in a fan shape across the
face of the sandy terrace. The wooden houses were floored with
sandstone, often covered with a hardened limestone plaster and sometimes
burnished with red and white pigments. A hearth, often found with
evidence of a fish-roasting spit, was placed centrally within each
structure. Several of the houses held altars and sculptures, sculpted
out of the sandstone rock. Evidence seems to indicate that the last
function of the houses at Lepenski Vir was as a burial site for a single
individual. It's clear that the Danube flooded the site regularly,
perhaps as much as twice a year, making permanent residence impossible;
but that residence resumed after the floods is certain.

Many of the stone sculptures are monumental in size; some, found in
front of houses at Lepenski Vir, are quite distinctive, combining human
and fish characteristics. Other artifacts found in and around the site
include a vast array of decorated and undecorated artifacts, such as
miniature stone axes and figurines, with lesser amounts of bone and shell.

Lepenski Vir and Farming Communities

At the same time as foragers and fishers lived at Lepenski Vir, early
farming communities sprang up around it, known as the Starcevo-Cris
culture, who exchanged pottery and food with the inhabitants of Lepenski
Vir. Researchers believe that over time Lepenski Vir evolved from a
small foraging settlement to the ritual center for the farming
communities in the area--into a place where the past was revered and the
old ways followed.

The geography of Lepenski Vir may have played an enormous part in the
ritual significance of the village. Across the Danube from the site is
the trapezoidal mountain Treskavek, whose shape is repeated in the floor
plans of the houses; and in the Danube in front of the site is a large
whirlpool, the image of which is repeatedly carved into many of the
stone sculptures.

Like Catal Hoyuk </cs/religionandmagic/a/catalhoyuk.htm> in Turkey,
which is dated to roughly the same period, the site of Lepenski Vir
provides us with a glimpse into Mesolithic culture and society, into
ritual patterns and gender relationships, into the transformation of
foraging societies into agricultural societies, and into resistance to
that change.

Change and resistance. Sound familiar?

Sources

This glossary entry is a part of the About.com Guide to the European
Mesolithic </od/mterms/g/mesolithic.htm>, and part of the Dictionary of
Archaeology </od/glossary/>. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris
Hirst <mailto:archaeology.guide at about.com>.

Chapman, John. 2000. Lepenski Vir, in Fragmentation in Archaeology
</od/anthropolog1/fr/chapman.htm>, pp. 194-203. Routledge, London.

Handsman, Russell G. 1991 Whose art was found at Lepenski Vir? in
Engendering Archaeology: Women in Prehistory
<http://erclk.about.com/?zi=12/gVs>. Joan Gero and Margaret Conkey, eds.
pp. 329-365