Archaeologists Discover 'Spectacular' 7,000-Year-Old Settlement
Published May 01, 2024 at 1:14 PM EDT
Updated May 03, 2024 at 6:29 AM EDT
By Aristos Georgiou
Science and Health Reporter
Archaeologists have uncovered a previously unknown prehistoric settlement of "spectacular" size in southeastern Europe. The settlement, which dates back around 7,000 years to the Late Neolithic period, is located near the Tami River in the Banat region of northeastern Serbia, a landlocked country in the Balkans.
"This discovery is of outstanding importance, as hardly any larger Late Neolithic settlements are known in the Serbian Banat region," research leader Martin Furholt from the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology (IPPA) at Kiel University in Germany, said in a news release.
The team has managed to fully map the extent of the settlement using geophysical methods, determining that it covers an area of roughly 11-13 hectares. It is also surrounded by between four and six ditches.
"A settlement of this size is spectacular. The geophysical data also gives us a clear idea of the structure of the site 7,000 years ago," Fynn Wilkes, co-team leader of the German-Serbian research team with the IPPA, said in the release
As well as mapping the site, the archaeologists also surveyed the ground surface of the site in an attempt to find artifacts. This survey yielded material indicating that the settlement is associated with the Vinča culture, which is dated to between 5400 B.C. and 4400 B.C.
More:
https://www.newsweek.com/archaeologists-discover-spectacular-7000-year-old-settlement-1896209