Lepenski Vir geography and culture

Only few sites/regions in Europe exhibit uninterrupted sequences of occupation across the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. Moreover, it is rare that one can document rich details of various aspects of life that can shed light on the character of these fundamental changes in the mode of production with concomitant changes in other aspects of life. The Danube Gorges region in the north-central Balkans with a number of settlements found along the Danube and covering the whole duration of the Early Holocene (c. 9600–5500 BCE) offers both the continuous temporal framework for this key period of European prehistory and the richness of evidence for architecture, mortuary practices, ritual, art, and various aspects of daily life. Lepenski Vir is the key site of this sequence, and it epitomizes most of the important elements that characterize the Mesolithic-Neolithic Danube Gorges as a whole, along with the recognition of the site’s special character ..