Natural environment and resources, and the long life of the Neolithic settlement at Vinča, southeast Europe

The Neolithic settlement in Vinča near Belgrade, Serbia, was occupied for more than a millennium (c. 5600–4500 cal BC); from about 5200 cal BC the occupation, associated with the regional Vinča culture phenomenon, was uninterrupted. After gradual horizontal expansion in the beginning, the Vinča culture settlement grew vertically. A number of successive occupation levels composed of large, dense agglomerations of buildings formed an artificial mound of more than 10 ha in extent. The long and continuous life in a fixed location was likely facilitated by favourable natural environment offering a range of subsistence options and pathways. This paper reviews previous, and presents more recent, archaeological (i.e. artefactual) and palaeoenvironmental (geological, hydrological, palaeobotanical, faunal) evidence for the Vinča site and uses it to identify natural resources available in the settlement’s surroundings as well as those found in more distant areas. Using the on-and off-site data, it indirectly evaluates economic potential of the different environmental zones around Neolithic Vinča. The impression is that the resources available locally were remarkably diverse, offered a wide spectrum of food and raw materials, and were exploitable throughout the duration of the settlement. In addition to the apparently marked profusion and variety of opportunities in the vicinity of the site, the subsistence behaviour and the nature of landscape use were likely such that they did not have a great impact on the natural environment.