The Vinca - The Origin of Civilisation?

Written by Ben Kesp

Vinca Pottery

An old European culture predating ancient Sumerian origins! Perhaps the source of Southern and Western European early civilisations! Even suggested to be the founders of the oldest known writing in the world!

That is quite a lot to state in a few lines, however today we are surrounded by online news refuting our early origins of civilisation.  In fact there is so much information out there that conflicts and twists everything we had once known, that one wonders what is truth and what is fiction?  Can we even rely on factual evidence that has been presented?  If we believe in parts of what we read, many dates for early civilisations could be pushed back even further into our past.   Each year we learn something new that throws up new questions on everything we once took for granted.  Main stream history may not be as set in stone as was once written.    

The Vinca civilisation for sure has opened up a whole series of questions and its origins have been pushed back to 5,700 B.C.  The Vinca culture grew up in the region east of Belgrade, Serbia on the River Danube and they are famously known to be the first people to smelt copper in the world. Their culture continued for almost 2,000 years until its demise in 3,500 B.C where they are suggested to have dispersed around the Mediterranean, possibly moving east and west.  Interestingly it is around this time we see the beginning of the ancient unknown monument building cultures of Malta, Portugal, West France, Ireland and Scotland, all around the same time period with many cultural similarities.

Discovered in 1908, the village of Vinca and the Vinca culture tells us they were advanced, having their own script, were urbanised with temples, work shops, large houses, street scapes etc, calling into question the origins of the cities of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Not only was it Vinca but there were many other populated urban areas in the region.  Tools and pottery have been found, highlighting a skilled people who produced sophisticated goods and established many trade routes.

One of the most controversial studies of the Vinca culture are the Tartaria Tablets discovered in 1961, that if seen to be a script predates the earliest Sumerian cuneiform script or Egyptian hieroglyphs.  The symbols are not deciphered as to what they mean nor is it known of what style of writing it is.

As more research is carried out we gradually learn more and more, but what is presented to us as fact must also be questioned.  What should we believe?  There almost seems to be a collective memory loss as to who our ancient ancestors were that today we are still trying to figure out.  Remnants of ancient civilisations and monuments is all that is left with large pieces of the puzzle missing and even destroyed over time by governments, developers, wars and general lack of knowledge and understanding.

The site of the Vinca culture has been inhabited for over 40,000 years so who can dispute that our first urbanised civilisation began in Eastern Europe and that it is the origin of what followed! I will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.  

Read more on the Vinca Civilisation here: Ancient Vinca

Image from ancientwisdom.co.uk