A red-haired goddess from Neolithic garbage

The most spectacular and perhaps the most famous artifact from the area of ​​Serbia from the Neolithic period, the Red-Haired Goddess, was not found, as one would expect, in the central place of a Neolithic house or in a building that would have anything to do with religious rites. The goddess was found in - Neolithic garbage.

Namely, the famous clay figurine discovered in 1989 at the site of Donja Branjevina near Odžak in southern Bačka, belongs to the early Neolithic and the so-called Starčevo culture. Her beauty is contributed by her unusual dimensions (height as high as 38 centimeters) and the red pigment used to color her long hair, which is combed back and shaped with a lot of detail. The body of the goddess is somewhat typical of the period - the large buttocks and unsightly upper part give the whole figurine a phallusoid shape.

It was precisely these emphasized gender attributes, and especially the distinct craftsmanship with which it was sculpted, that led researchers to initially claim that the figurine depicts a female deity. However, the Red-Haired Goddess has one leg shorter than the other and can't stand on her own - she doesn't seem to have been made to be on display in front of community members. And finally, precisely because she was thrown into the garbage pit with other garbage, the question of her "divine nature" remains open to interpretation.

photo: prof. Dr. Dusan Mihailović

THE FIRST FARMERS

The Starčevac culture, by the way, lasted from about 6200 to 5500 years BC and is placed in time between the culture that was discovered near Lepenski Vir and the Vinča culture, between which there is a gap of almost a thousand years. "During that period, in fact, there is a complete reversal in the way of life, which brings with it significant changes in society, economy and all other spheres of everyday life", according to the authors of the recently published archaeological encyclopedia The roots of European civilization (Young people's book Belgrade, 2023), prof. Dr. Dušan Mihailović, Dr. Jasna Vuković and Dr. Boban Tripković, archaeologists from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade. "This upheaval is primarily reflected in the beginning of food production. In other words, people no longer rely on hunting and gathering, but begin to cultivate the land, sow grains, and raise domesticated animals. That, the earliest period of the Neolithic on the territory of today's Serbia, represents the Starceva culture".

The roots of European civilization are otherwise a luxurious and impressive edition and a detailed chronology of research into the distant past in these areas. Illustrated with about 500 photographs and sketches, it bears witness not only to ancient people and life in different historical eras and cultures, but also to the dedicated multi-decade research work of a large number of archaeologists. Additional interlayers are testimonies about the state's attitude towards archaeological heritage, cooperation with the scientific community in the world, the struggle for funds for research work and many others.

It is even more significant that it is the first comprehensive review of prehistoric archaeological research in Serbia from the end of the 19th century until today, as well as an overview of the life of prehistoric man with an emphasis on three cultures - Lepenski Vir, Starčevo and Vinča. Today, it is perhaps equally important that the book is based on scientific evidence and does not deal with the various invented theories and seductive sensationalist claims that abound in the pseudo-archaeology of this age.

photo: prof. Dr. Dusan Mihailović

BACK IN HISTORY

And while Neolithic settlements in our country have received significant media attention in recent decades, the same cannot be said for earlier periods and stories about the first newcomers to the Balkans, which this book also covered. Namely, the ancient hominins, human ancestors from Africa crossed into Europe more than one and a half million years ago, as evidenced by the oldest traces found in Georgia and Spain. That was it Homo erectus, who was shorter in stature and had a smaller skull than later members of the genus Homo. It is believed that human ancestors permanently inhabited Europe only about 800 to 670 thousand years ago, when the climate became more favorable.

According to paleologists, the Balkans represented the main corridor between Southwest Asia and Central and Western Europe and a kind of refuge during the cold periods, the glacial periods, when human communities moved towards warmer pockets. Therefore, it is not surprising that many remains of various ancient Paleolithic cultures were found in our area.

As stated in the book The roots of European civilization, the earliest traces of human presence in Serbia, more than a million years old, were found in the village of Petrovac, not far from Leskovac, on the slopes of Mount Radan. This village sprung up on the rim of the volcano's caldera - a sunken pit that large volcanoes sometimes leave behind. On the edge of the caldera, a lot of chalcedony and other minerals suitable for making tools were formed, and the first European people collected, processed and carried these minerals with them, so their traces were scattered in many locations.

The oldest human remains found on the soil of our country are those from the cave of Mala Balanica (the village of Sićevo near Niš), where at the beginning of this century the jawbone of a human ancestor was found, dated to between 500.000 and 400.000 years BC. This was not yet Homo sapiens, but his earliest direct ancestor who was a contemporary of the Neanderthals for some time. At that time, people used stone tools - cut pebbles and pointed wedges, and probably did not yet hunt large animals or take special care of burials. They do not live exclusively in caves, as is commonly thought, but spend time outdoors, near rivers, lakes and swamps. They discover deposits of flint, next to which they set up camps and collect the raw material, and then transport it to other locations. They make cut artefacts from flint with which they process leather, fur and meat.

About 400.000 years ago, they began to make objects from wood - especially spears, however, the remains of wood and other organic materials were not found at the sites in Serbia. Nevertheless, stones were found that were used, presumably, to process the wood. While in the deepest layer of the cave system of Mala Balanica, the mentioned ancient jaw was found along with a cut stone, in the slightly higher layers, stone artifacts from about 240.000 years ago that belonged to Neanderthals were found, together with the bones of ibex, chamois, deer, rhinoceros, horses and other animals. . Remains of this species were also found in nearby Velika Balanica, where a hearth dating back to around 340.000 years, one of the oldest in Europe, was discovered, as well as thousands of Neanderthal artifacts.

This is how the stories begin about decades of prehistory research in Serbia, which began in the era of Jovan Cvijić and Đoka Jovanović and were only sporadically continued until the middle of the 20th century, when they became intense again. And while they were additionally strengthened at the beginning of the 21st century, it can be said that with this comprehensive review, the archeology of prehistory so far has become rounded.