Expert Lecture: People from Vinča – Soldiers, Farmers, or Miners? / A Neolithic Night’s Dream

A Lecture ‘People from Vinča – Soldiers, Farmers, or Miners?’ during the exhibition ‘A Neolithic Night’s Dream’, will be held at the Museum of Vojvodina on 22 September, from 6 to 7 p.m.

People from Vinča – Soldiers, Farmers, or Miners?

We are learning about life from the Neolithic period, that is, the Vinča culture, from the remains found during archaeological excavations. Assembling a mosaic of diverse data, from fragments of ceramics to the remains of plants and animals that they cultivated, and the fire pits in their homes, by using sophisticated physical and chemical analyses, we are trying to understand their ways of thinking and organisation.

However, very rare finds can seem like letters written a long time ago, when it seems to you that once upon a time someone hid them away, just for you to find them. One such find is a group of 43 clay figurines from Vinča, together with 11 miniature models of tools, discovered in the village of Stubline near Obrenovac. Most often, they fondly call it the ‘Vinča army from Stubline’.

Do these figurines really represent soldiers, or on the other hand, farmers and miners? In this lecture, the listeners will be led through the story of what is thought was the way people of that time thought; people, who created a highly organised settlement with over 250 houses, and arranged that group of figurines in one of them.

Photo: Marko Milanović, Ana Šulkić Milanović