Crkvine

About

Crkvine (Serbian Cyrillic: Црквине, romanized: Church ground) is a Neolithic locality and an archaeological site in the village of Stubline in the municipality of Obrenovac, in Serbia's capital Belgrade. The Neolithic settlement is dated to the 5th millennium BC and was part of the Vinča culture. The research of the site began in 1962 and the locality was declared a cultural monument in 2014. The site gives an unprecedented possibility of researching the architecture and urbanism of the Vinča culture as it marks the previously unrecorded and unique settlement type of this cultural group. Taking into account its geographical position, a regular street-like layout of houses, close economic and, presumably, social connections with the surrounding contemporary settlements and beyond, the Crkvine settlement appears to be a "burgeoning proto-urban society", in the region bounded by three rivers, the Sava, Kolubara and Tamnava.

Crkvine is located in the village of Stubline, which is part of the Obrenovac municipality, which in turn administratively belongs to Belgrade. It is 14 km (8.7 mi) southeast of its municipal seat of Obrenovac, and 40 km (25 mi) in the same direction from Belgrade. As of 2018, there are some 90 archaeological sites on the territory of the Obrenovac municipality, 13 of which are dated to the Neolithic.

Crkvine is situated on a mild slope, bounded by the creeks of Izvorac and Trstenica. Today, the location is surrounded by cornfields as the modern Stubline village developed a bit further from it. The plateau on which the settlement was built is elevated from the surrounding areas, on the feature called Dren Elevation ( Drenski vis ), named after the nearby village of Dren. The locality is on the very edge of Dren Elevation, which itself is 115 to 120 m (377 to 394 ft) high and classified as a deluvial -proluvial plain. It is a secondary river terrace, remains of an old bank of the river Sava which flowed along the Dren Elevation a long time ago, before turning to the present route (roughly 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the north).

The plateau is 500 m (1,600 ft) long while it is 380 m (1,250 ft) wide on the western and 130 m (430 ft) on the eastern end. Despite the low elevation of the settlement locality, 92 to 112 m (302 to 367 ft), numerous distant mountains are visible: Avala, Kosmaj, Rudnik, Suvobor, Maljen, Povlen and Cer, while on the clear days the Stolovi can be seen, too. This allowed an exceptional visual communication with the areas to the south and east but, not with the areas to the north and west, where other Neolithic settlements were located.

The modern name of the locality, Crkvine, means the "church ground". It is based on the long-living myth that there was an old church on this spot. The legend was preserved from generation to generation and some writings from the 19th century seemingly confirm that there is an old church ground in Stubline. As the inhabitants believed in the story, for a long time the locality hasn't been cultivated. However, no remains of an actual church have been found so far.

Just like the surrounding areas, the Crkvine was settled by the members of the Vinča culture. Archaeologists praise the "good choosing of the living place" of the Vinčans. It is believed that the settlement wasn't formed by several families and then spontaneously settled by more and more migrants, but that it was rather settled by a large number of people at once. The older settlement dates from 4700 BC. It occupies the eastern plateau, with some 120 houses, which were protected by the deeply dug double trenches, which presumably offered protection from numerous hazards: enemies, wild animals, flash floods by the surged streams, etc. Some 50 years after it was founded, the settlement spread on the western side of the plateau where further 80 houses were built in time.

After two centuries, the Vinčan communities in this area simply disappeared. It coincides with the vanishing of the entire Vinča culture c. 4600 BC. Though today much is known about the culture itself, the abrupt disappearance remains an enigma. Out of various theories, none is widely accepted.

The first written records which deal with the subject date from 1912, when the oldest villagers of Stubline still claimed the "old church" legend, but also had certain ideas of some human occupation from "ancient" times. The records were made by the teacher from Obrenovac, Vitomir Radovanović, who was archiving them in the school collections in the Stubline school and in the Archaeological Museum in Obrenovac. After the museum was closed in 1961, several hundred artifacts were stored in the Belgrade City Museum.

First artifacts originated from the damage done on the surface, by grave digging or land cultivation. During a small-scale archaeological survey conducted in 1962, the remains of the settlement were discovered. It was clear that the remains belong to the Vinča culture and that there was a potential for further exploration. The first proper archaeological exploration was conducted in 1967. It was headed by Jovan Todorović, a curator of the Belgrade City Museum. The exploration was on the small scale, and Todorović also explored the surrounding Neolithic localities, like Jasenje in Vukićevica, Đurića Vinogradi in Grabovac and Novo Selo, also In Stubline. However, the archaeological surveys and exploration stopped in 1970.

Works were continued with the tentative November 2006 excavation. Geomagnetic mapping and geo-electrical scanning were conducted from December 2007 to 2011. The mapping produced the pattern of almost entire settlement on an area of 16.5 ha (41 acres). Systematic archaeological exploration has continued since 2008. Of total area, the "urbanized" section covers 7.5 ha (19 acres). It was the first major mapping of this kind of any Late Vinča locality in the central Balkans. The northern section could not be mapped because of the vegetation and current village road. Also, as the area below the lowest point of the surrounding trench, 94 m (308 ft), has been regularly flooded until several decades ago, this area was not surveyed either as no building activity was expected on such terrain. As of 2018, explored objects include 5 houses, a primary trench system and the landfill on the southern slope of the locality. Head of the research was Zoran Simić.

At first, the precise dating was not available and from the pottery which was discovered, its features, analogy with other settlements and materials dated by the Carbon-14 method, the existence of the Crkvine settlement was placed between 5250 BC and 4600 BC. This was later narrowed to 4800 BC – 4600 BC.

On 8 October 2014 the locality was officially declared an archaeological site and placed under the state protection.

It was a large, lowland-type Vinča settlement which belongs to the Late Neolithic, Phase D-2 of the Vinča culture. In total, the settlement had at least 218 houses. The houses were built in rows, forming something of a street-like map. Some of the houses were built around smaller open areas, most likely a communal, public spaces. The houses are mostly rectangular, built from the mud-covered wooden construction. It is estimated that such a house, without major restorations, could last from 40 to 100 years. Sizes of the houses varied from 20 m 2 (220 sq ft) to 100 m 2 (1,100 sq ft), with the average size of 57.2 m 2 (616 sq ft). There are 5 houses smaller than 20 m 2 (220 sq ft) and 9 larger than 100 m 2 (1,100 sq ft). This is the largest average house size in the Late Vinča period, except for the Divostin locality. The smallest houses are laid in opposite direction and it is believed that they were not used for dwelling being probably public storages, though the exact use is still unknown.

The conservative figures estimate the population anywhere between 1,000 and 2,000 inhabitants. Calculating that 5 to 7 people lived in one house, the population might be from 1,250 to 1,750. If all houses were contemporary, and given the fact that it is not known how many houses had upper floors, some estimates go up to 2,300, 3,500 or 4,000 people.

In the west, the hill on which is the settlement is separated from the ellipsoid, funnel-shaped depression which today covers an area of 110 m × 45 m × 2 m (360.9 ft × 147.6 ft × 6.6 ft). The origin of the depression is unknown, but such depressions are almost regular features next to many Vinča settlements. It has been suggested that these pits develop as the settlers take materials needed for the construction of the village.

Some 95% of the objects were built in the north-south direction, but several were oriented in the east-west line. One of such edifices, which was unearthed in 2018, covered an area of 8 by 4 m (26 by 13 ft), and had three rooms and two furnaces. The evidence points to the fact that it was burned after it was abandoned which was a custom among the Vinčans. They were burning their houses whether to build another one on its place, to move on another location or simply to clear the space. However, several other theories have been suggested. They include the ritual burning, an accidental, local fire or an enemy attack.

Taking into account the large area of the settlement, the largest surveyed from the Vinča period so far in Serbia, a fact that the houses were built at the same time in the compact rows and how the life was organized, Crkvine is more of a proto-urban town, rather than a village.

The houses surveyed in 2008 were built in the typical Vinča pattern. In the shallow and narrow foundation trenches, the wooden stakes were driven inside. The stakes had 10 to 20 cm (3.9 to 7.9 in) in diameter and were placed 20 to 50 cm (7.9 to 19.7 in) apart. They were then covered with the interwoven wattle and thin branches creating the skeleton of the house which was then covered with the mixture of clay, earth and chaff. The roofs were most likely a gable ones. The floors were made from the wooden rolls which were covered with the similar mixture as the walls. Sometimes the fragmented pottery was added to the floor mix.

The houses mostly had only one room, but some had up to three. They had some kind of furniture and everyday, clay-made "apparatuses" of the day. They included the five-legged tables, small vessels for keeping the grains, pithoi and large mortars and pestles. In some of the houses the light wooden shelves, which fell off the walls, were discovered. The houses had furnaces and fireplaces, which were the central points of the household life. By 2014, two houses were fully explored. Each had two rooms, ovens for food preparation and heating, storage sections and, beside previously listed objects, had an altar, grinding stones, cooking dishes and bucraniums, the ox -shaped architectural ornaments made from unbaked earth.

The excavation of the House 1/2010 in 2010, however, showed a different type of architecture. Because of the preserved, identical plank impressions, either in collapsed walls or in situ, and the absence of daub fragments with wattle impressions, it was concluded that the house was built differently. Apparently, it was constructed of massive planks which were then covered with daub. This is atypical construction method for the Vinča period. The wall planks were massive and heavy and wood of such dimensions was never previously recorded in the Vinčan construction. Along with some other findings, this pointed to the massive roof as these walls are capable of bearing heavier loads than the plain wattle and daub walls. A group of holes on regular distance in the floor is identical to the feature found in Parța, Romania where they were explained as the holes for the sides of a ladder. This, and some other discoveries in Crkvine, tentatively point to the existence of upper floors in the houses, which the thicker plank walls could support. Some other houses from the Vinča period on other localities are known to had upper floors, like Uivar, Parța and Opovo.