ABSTRACT
The most famous Neolithic site in the whole East Danubian region is Vinca, on the river’s right bank below Belgrade. It lies on a ridge of firm open loess, in which the first settlers dug pits beneath their dwellings, to be buried in course of time under an accumulation of successive occupation-floors and debris, till the deposit reached a height of over ten metres. The material history of this long-lived settlement cannot be divided up into distinct stages at present, and we shall not here seek to isolate a ‘ Vinca I ’ or a ‘ Vinca I I ’, but the excava tions there are soon to be definitely published in English, and meanwhile it is already clear that the evidence, taken in its broad lines, shows the uninterrupted progression of a single culture, ever open to influence from without but essentially self-contained from the start. The start is illuminated by the contents of the pits in the virgin loess at the bottom, and here the pottery comprises rough brownish ware with a hummocky ‘ barbotine’ coating of unevenly applied clay, and finer smooth
