Vuedol culture

A prolific culture that flourished aroud 30th century and 22nd century in the Eneolithic period(also known as The Chalcolithic period or The Copper Age) is the Vuedol culture. It was an IndoEuropean culture. The Vuedol civilization was spred around the historical region in eastern Croatia, Slavonia, and the luxuriant Pannonian region, Syrmia. Present day Vuedol was occupied by the Baden Culture, an eneolithic culture from Central Europe. Vuedol is located six km (approximately 4 miles) downstream to Vukovar, Croatia(the biggest river port in Croatia). Bogdan Brukner affirmed that proto-Illyrians descended from Indo-European settlers which once were habitants of the Vuedol region. The Pannonian Baden culture and the Kostolac culture formed in estern Romania and northern Serbia merged at one point forming the Vuedol culture. There are four phases in which the archaeological stratigraphy of the Vuedol culture can be divided. Those are the Preclassic period A, the early classic period B1, the classic period B2 and the Period of expansion with regional types, C(East Croatian, West Bosnian, South Bosnian, North Serbian, West Croatian - Slovenian, Transdanubian, East Austrian - Czech). The habitants from Vuedol were agrarians, but they would also hunt and catch fish to provide for their people and they cultivated domesticated animals. The habitants were led by the one who had the hidden knowledge of avoiding the arsenic gas, the shaman smith. The Vuedol people would express their view of the people in a spiritual, social and military manner which led to aristocracy. There are researches of the Vuedol culture that have proven the trade connections between the Vuedol culture and Mycenean culture which might have formed the culture of mainland Greece. The site of Vuedol, maybe the most important Eneolithic period site, is situated six km (approximately 4 miles) downstream to Vukovar, Croatia, on the right side of the Danube River. This site is the center of the Vuedol culture and because of its importance the whole Eneolithic period was named the Vuedol culture. The Archaeological Museum in Zagreb, Vakivars museum, holds the artifacts from this site. Due to its considerable large premises, archeologists stated that this regions must have been a social and a regional economic center. Two parallel ditches, the only evidence of the sites copper smelting, separate the highest part of the site from the rest of the settlement. This settlement was an argument between a few scholars which stated that it might have been occupied for precious goods production by a local elite. The site was sadly destroyed during the 1991s Battle of Vukovar being used by the Serbian Army as a firing base. It cannot be said for sure that the Vuedol culture population were linguistic Indo-Europeans or a hybrid of European population.

The Vuedol culture didnt live in brick houses, but in pits covered by organic material (branches, canebrake). They used their houses even as birth and burial places, this being explained by human skeletons found in their food storage pits. As many ancient cultures, the Vuedol culture used rituals on their people, some suggesting human sacrifice. The Vuedol ceramics were famous worldwide. They were the key to understanding ornaments with symbolic meanings. Between the 28th century and 25th century BC was made one of the most famous pieces of Vuedol art, the Vuedol Dove. The ceramic piece had many interpretations over time, but the latest was made by Aleksandar Durman from Zagreb, who said that it has the shape of a male partridge, a symbol of fertility. Vuedol pottery is famous for the bowls, the beautifully made pedestalled cups, jugs, jars and the spindly ampfora, an elliptical vessel. A black background in which white decorations were made is the characterizations of the cultures pottery. Triangles, stars, squares and many other geometrical ornaments shaped the white paste which, after firing, would become the amazing and new found pottery. Another prolific product of the Vuedol culture is represented by the Vuedol Orion, which is the oldest European calendar and the worlds oldest astral calendar. The calendar recognized four seasons with twelve fields ( which might represent the weeks) in the lower belt. A remarkable quality of the Vuedol culture is that they thought outside the box. While the other cultures tried to make a lunar calendar, they passed them by making a more noteworthy calendar, the astral calendar.