A Serbian-German team of archaeologists discovered a previously unknown Late Neolithic settlement near the Tamis River in Northeast Serbia.
The settlement is dated to between 5400 and 4400 BCE, while the surface material surveyed indicates that the settlement represents a residential site of the Vinca culture with strong influences from the regional Banat culture.
The newly discovered settlement is located near the modern village of Jarkovac in the province of Vojvodina, Serbia. With the help of geophysical methods, the team was able to fully map its extent in March of this year. It covers an area of 11 to 13 hectares, and is surrounded by four to six ditches.
The Science X/ Phys.org portal said the discovery was made by a team from the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence organization of the German Kiel University in cooperation with partners from the Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad, the National Museum Zrenjanin and the National Museum Pancevo.
“This discovery is of outstanding importance, as hardly any larger Late Neolithic settlements are known in the Serbian Banat region,” said team leader Professor Dr. Martin Furholt from the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology at Kiel University.
Parallel to the geophysical investigations in Jarkovica, the German-Serbian research team also systematically surveyed the surfaces of the surrounding area for artifacts.
“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,” said ROOTS doctoral student and co-team leader Fynn Wilkes.
Source: N1
