Ancient site · Settlement
Lepenski Vir
Lepenski Vir sits on the Danube in the Iron Gates gorge of Serbia. Fishers and hunters lived here for thousands of years.
Between about 6300 and 6000 BCE, as the first farmers arrived in the region, they built unusual trapezoid-shaped houses with red lime-plaster floors and carved large boulder sculptures of fish-like human faces. Because the village was planned and lived in all year, some have called it Europe's 'first city', though it was a village of foragers. The remains were moved uphill when a dam flooded the gorge and are shown under a roof.
- Dates
- c. 9500/7200–5500 BCE (trapezoid houses c. 6300–6000 BCE)
- Still standing
- Yes
- Location
- 44.56° N, 22.02° E
How we know
No writing existed; its story comes from excavations begun in the 1960s and from radiocarbon dates, which still leave the start date uncertain.
Nearby sites
- Starčevo culture dated c. 6200–4500 BCE
- Vinča–Belo Brdo c. 5700–4500 BCE (later reoccupied)
- Sarmizegetusa Regia 1st century BCE – 106 CE
- Varna Necropolis c. 4570–4340 BCE
- Sesklo c. 7000–4400 BCE (earliest levels possibly older)
- Troy (Hisarlik) c. 3600 BCE – c. 500 CE
Related
- Iron Gates Mesolithic (Lepenski Vir culture) archaeological culture