<< Other Photo Pages >> Pločnik - Ancient Village or Settlement in Serbia

Submitted by davidmorgan on Wednesday, 24 November 2010  Page Views: 10163

Multi-periodSite Name: Pločnik Alternative Name: Plocnik
Country: Serbia
NOTE: This site is 11.915 km away from the location you searched for.
Type: Ancient Village or Settlement
Nearest Town: Prokuplje  Nearest Village: Pločnik
Latitude: 43.210560N  Longitude: 21.364567E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 5 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 4

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Pločnik
Pločnik submitted by Flickr : 2012-SEPT-27-CETVRTAK- put u Djavolju varos, Plo Site in Serbia Image copyright: Nikolic10, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)
Ancient Settlement in Serbia. A settlement dating from 5500 BCE and inhabited for about 800 years before being abandoned. Recent discoveries have revealed very early use of copper. The photos show a reconstruction of the village [I think - AB]

A 120 hectare settlement belonging to the Neolithic Vinča culture existed on the site from 5500 BCE until it was destroyed by fire in 4700 BCE.

The site was first discovered during railway construction in 1927, but was investigated only sporadically until excavations carried out by the Prokuplje Museum the National Museum of Serbia began in 1996.

The Vinča houses at Pločnik had stoves and special holes specifically for rubbish, and the dead were buried in cemeteries. People slept on woollen mats and fur and made clothes of wool, flax and leather. The figurines found not only represent deities but many show the daily life of the inhabitants while crude pottery finds appear to have been made by children. Women are depicted in short tops and skirt wearing jewellery. A thermal well found near the settlement might be evidence of Europe's oldest spa.

The preliminary dating of a Pločnik metal workshop with a furnace and copper tools to 5,500 BCE, if correct, indicates the Copper Age could have started in Europe 500 years or more earlier than previously thought. The sophisticated furnace and smelter featured earthen pipe-like air vents with hundreds of tiny holes in them and a chimney to ensure air goes into the furnace to feed the fire and smoke comes out away from the workers. Copper workshops from later periods thought to indicate the beginning of the Copper Age were less advanced, lacked chimneys and workers blew air on the fire with bellows. In 2008, a copper axe was found at Pločnik that when dated pushed back the start of the Copper Age by 500 years.

A study published in December 2013 dated some tin bronze artifacts to 4,500 BCE.

Source: Wikipedia

Note: World's oldest Copper Age settlement found
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Pločnik
Pločnik submitted by Flickr : Artefacts from the Vinča excavation. Site in Serbia Image copyright: rowan545 (Rowan Millar), hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (1 comment - Vote or comment on this photo)

Pločnik
Pločnik submitted by Flickr : 2012-SEPT-27-CETVRTAK- put u Djavolju varos, Plo Site in Serbia Image copyright: Nikolic10, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Pločnik
Pločnik submitted by Flickr (Vote or comment on this photo)

Pločnik
Pločnik submitted by Flickr : 2012-SEPT-27-CETVRTAK- put u Djavolju varos, Site in Serbia Image copyright: Nikolic10, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Pločnik
Pločnik submitted by Flickr : 2012-SEPT-27-CETVRTAK- put u Djavolju varos, Plo Site in Serbia Image copyright: Nikolic10, hosted on Flickr and displayed under the terms of their API.

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World's oldest Copper Age settlement found by davidmorgan on Wednesday, 24 November 2010
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A "sensational" discovery of 75-century-old copper tools in Serbia is compelling scientists to reconsider existing theories about where and when man began using metal. Belgrade - axes, hammers, hooks and needles - were found interspersed with other artefacts from a settlement that burned down some
7,000 years ago at Plocnik, near Prokuplje and 200 km south of Belgrade.

The village had been there for some eight centuries before its demise. After the big fire, its unknown inhabitants moved away. But what they left behind points to man's earliest known extraction and shaping of metal.

"It really is sensational," said Ernst Pernicka, a renowned archaeology professor at Germany's Tuebingen University who recently visited the Ploce locality.

Scientists had previously believed that the mining, extraction and manipulation of copper began in Asia Minor, spreading from there. With the find in Plocnik, parallel and simultaneous developments of those skills in several places now seem more likely, Pernicka said.

Indeed, the tools discovered in southern Serbia were made some 75 centuries ago - up to eight centuries older than what has been found to date.

The site at Plocnik, believed to cover some 120 hectares in all, is buried under several metres of soil. Serbian archaeologists have so far exposed three homes - the largest of them, measuring eight by five metres, discovered this year.

The layer of earth it stood on is still blackened from the scorching heat that destroyed the village. It is unclear what caused the fire, but no damage that would indicate an outside attack has been found.

The huts collapsed on their contents, with mud bricks and ashes burying all that was inside - pottery, statues, tools and a worktable. After dusting the still embedded artefacts off, archaeologists began extracting them, most of all hoping to find more precious copper tools.

Scientists are debating whether the Plocnik village led the world to the Copper Age in the 6th millennium BC, particularly as remains of primitive copper smelters were recently found not far away, near today's mines and smelters in Majdanpek and Bor.

The find, which stems from "certainly very, very early in the Copper Age", was a very lucky one, said another expert from Tuebingen, Raiko Kraus.

The Ploce locality was discovered by railroad builders in 1927, but was largely disregarded until 1996, when serious excavations began, eventually yielding the sensational finds.

According to Krause, old settlements may similarly surface in eastern Anatolia when Turkey launches some massive earth-moving project, such as building a dam.

It remains unclear why a comparatively large quantity of copper tools were found at Plocnik. The head archaeologist on site, Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic, said that the village may have been a tool-making or trading centre.

There is also much more to be learned about the ancient inhabitants, apart from the key question of how man developed his tools.

"These people were not wild," Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic stressed, pointing to fine pieces such as statuettes. "They had finely combed hair and adorned themselves with necklaces."

One statue of a woman shows her wearing some sort of a mini skirt. Others wore long and broad scarves. Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic actually helped a Serbian fashion designer set up a show inspired by the clothes of the people who lived there millennia earlier.

Whatever remains to be found at Ploce and elsewhere, "mankind took a major step toward the modern era" during that time, Pernicka said.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/World-s-oldest-Copper-Age-settlement-found/Article1-626425.aspx

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