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The First European City Perished Under Water After 8,000 Years
The culture of Lepenski Vir lasted 2 millennia
Until the 1960s we thought prehistoric Europeans were cavemen. But then we discovered an ancient culture on the banks of the Danube in southeastern Europe. And so the civilization of Lepenski Vir rewrote history as we knew it.
In August 1960, farmer Manojlo Milošević found strange pieces of ceramics on his agricultural land by the riverside, near the Romania-Serbia border.
“Hey, people, come to see what I’ve found.”
Next to his property, the government was about to construct a hydroelectric power plant called the Iron Gate I.
Those findings didn’t look like someone had had a picnic the day before. The pieces looked much older and raised the curiosity of the local academics. However, archeologists didn’t have much time to research the area before an artificial lake flooded the land for the sake of electricity and progress.
In 1961 Archeology Professor Obrad Kujović and his team found countless pieces of pottery there. The Professor believed they discovered the Neolithic Starčevo culture (in Serbia, 6200–4500 BCE), so he immediately reported to the Serbian Institute of Archaeology about these prehistoric fragments.
Another Professor — Dragoslav Srejović was intrigued by the findings but curiosity about culture doesn’t get you much money. Only in 1965 did he get the funds to start the exploration.
It turned out there was a lot more than they had hoped for.
The rich prehistoric life
Five years after farmer Manojlo found those artifacts, professors Dragoslav Srejović and Zagorka Letica led their excavation team to the site.
When they found another piece of ceramics, they realized the ancient population had already been familiar with agriculture…
