This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Southeastern Europe and the Balkans are a key region for understanding the European Neolithic. Many ways of life and economic systems that continue to shape our lives today first emerged there in Europe and later spread across the continent.
An archaeological culture named after the Vinča site in present-day Serbia marks a late phase of the Neolithic period in the region. More than 6,500 years ago, people there lived in large settlements for extended periods for the first time. They maintained extensive trade networks.
Pottery and stonework demonstrate extensive knowledge of materials and a wide range of decorative styles. In an article published in the journal Archaeologica Austria, researchers from Kiel University (CAU), the National Museum in Pančevo (Serbia), the Museum of Vojvodina (Serbia) and the University of California, Berkeley (U.S.) have published the latest data on the Vinča site at Opovo Ugar-Bajbuk. "With this data, we can reassess earlier assumptions about the social structure of the settlement and its integration into the region, thereby refining our overall picture of the late Neolithic period," says Dr.
Fynn Wilkes, a postdoctoral researcher in the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at CAU and lead author of the study. Parts of the settlement had been investigated by archaeologists in the 1980s. "Opovo is one of the largest known late Neolithic settlement sites in the southern Banat.
It is therefore also of great interest for understanding supraregional networks during that period," Wilkes explains. Based on the excavations carried out 40 years ago, researchers had estimated the settlement area at around 5 hectares (12 acres) and the population at around 200 people. Opovo appeared to be either a small agricultural village or a moderately active center within the regional trade networks of the late Neolithic period.
From 2022 to 2024, the German-Serbian team carried out new investigations at Opovo. The researchers systematically collected surface finds and used geophysical methods to identify underground structures over a wide area without digging. Building on this work, the team took geoarchaeological core samples at selected points.
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