The Old Europe: Danube Valley Civilization (5000-3500 BC)

The European Cradle. Old Europe: Danube Valley Civilization 5000 - 3500 BC. The first high culture in the world originated in the Balkans, Europe

Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first cities of Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the Lower Danube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of their time in art, technology and long-distance trade. Old Europe was among the most culturally rich regions in the world. Its inhabitants lived in prosperous agricultural towns. The ubiquitous goddess figurines found in their houses and shrines have triggered intense debates about women's roles.
The people of this region founded new settlements in the Danube Valley. Scientists call this society Danube Civilization. This people were the first in history who used copper tools, they lived in two-storied houses and sat on chairs, while the rest of the world was stuck in the middle of the Stone Age. And they invented writing. oldest copper mines of the world, bake bread using ovens that are 8000 years old.This culture lived 2000 years in peace as an equivalent society. But then, they discovered gold. This marks the end of the Danube Civilization. Warriors from the Russian steppe extinguished this society 6000 years ago. The era of money and power began.The heart of Old Europe was in the lower Danube valley, in contemporary Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Moldova. Old European copper smiths were the most advanced metal artisans in the world. Their intense interest in acquiring copper, Aegean shells, and other rare valuables gave rise to far-reaching trading networks. In their graves, the bodies of Old European chieftains were adorned with pounds of gold and copper ornaments. Their funerals were without parallel in the Near East or Egypt.

An unparalleled introduction to Old Europe's cultural, technological, and artistic legacy,For 1,500 years, starting earlier than 5000 B.C., they farmed and built sizable towns, a few with as many as 10,000 dwellings. They mastered large-scale copper smelting, the new technology of the age. Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses and necklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of gold artifacts to be found anywhere in the world.

The striking designs of their pottery speak of the refinement of the culture's visual language. Until recent discoveries, the most intriguing artifacts were the ubiquitous terracotta "goddess" figurines, originally interpreted as evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.
At its peak, around 4500 B.C., said David W. Anthony, the exhibition's guest curator, "Old Europe was among the most sophisticated and technologically advanced places in the world" and was developing "many of the political, technological and ideological signs of civilization." Admiring the colorful ceramics, Dr. Bagnall, a specialist in Egyptian archaeology, remarked that at the time "Egyptians were certainly not making pottery like this.
The story now emerging is of pioneer farmers after about 6200 B.C. moving north into Old Europe from Greece and Macedonia, bringing wheat and barley seeds and domesticated cattle and sheep. They established colonies along the Black Sea and in the river plains and hills, and these evolved into related but somewhat distinct cultures, archaeologists have learned. The settlements maintained close contact through networks of trade in copper and gold and also shared patterns of ceramics.

The Spondylus shell from the Aegean Sea was a special item of trade. Perhaps the shells, used in pendants and bracelets, were symbols of their Aegean ancestors. Other scholars view such long-distance acquisitions as being motivated in part by ideology in which goods are not commodities in the modern sense but rather "valuables," symbols of status and recognition.

[dominiqueblagojevic]

The oldest human remains in Europe are in Romania in the cave of bones. Balkan heritage is so rich ❤

[slobodandimitrijevic]

0:59 It seems that interlocutor in this broadcasting does not know geography to well, because he did not mentioned SERBIA !

[sasamladenovic]

Just like if I said that the capital of the USA is the village of Trt-trt (no Washington or NY, no LA but Trt-trt). The center of that old prehistoric civilization was Vinča, near Belgrade, Serbia. Even in the maps you show here in the video, it says Vinca, Starcevo, Lepenski vir (Serbia). Almost nothing about the sites in Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, .Last summer I visited Plocnik. That archeological place was also a part of that civilization, and the place where copper ore was smelted for the first time in the world (6 or 7000 years ago, say archeologists). It is very bad when people from the media are guided by politics and not by science or a clear conscience, but by politics (and stay stupid).

[kraljibi]

I think he knows everything about Vinca and Lepenski Vir and where they are, but it seems to me that he is forbidden to mention Serbia.

[Петар]

Old civilizations are being conducted primarily in Serbia. Lepenski Vir, Starčevačka kultura and Vinca. It was discovered long before 1972.
If you speak, then you have to tell the truth, not the half-truth. I know that you are nervous about all that has not been found in the UK, and you are particularly nervous about what has been found on today's Serbia.

[thesecretlibrary]

I am of Aromanian heritage... this video puts a tear in my eye. The sorrow is strong.

[augustiniumihaila]

1:17 : the interlocutor says stupidities. No one entered that area from Greece, from that area migrated to Greece. Low Danube Basin and North Pontic Lake Shores are the first and earliest zones inhabited in Europe from far before Wurm Microglaciation. As Pontic Lake was more than -200 m below global sea leve, and was wide enough, created a specific microclimatic area that implied from subtropical on the shores to temperate to Danube Irongates. Meridional Carpathians and Balkans created both a barrier and a tunel, so cold air from north and central Europe could not pass and hot air from Pont fas funneled acros what's today called Wallachian's Plains and North Haemus slopes. So, we speak of specific condition for inhabiting the area by humankind while rest of Europe was under ice and Middle-east was Gobi-like dessert. The real Fertile Crescent is Low Danube + Siret Valley + Prut Valley + Nistrer Valley + Danube Delta, not Messopotamia.

[dorasmith]

THANKS for this. This is the clearest piece on Danube civilization I have ever seen.

[Agras]

The Danube Valley culture is a child of the earlier Sesklo culture in Thessaly, Greece which existed from 7510 BCE until 4400 BCE. All these cultures in the Balkans were connected.

[marijacvetkovic]

Serbia is the origin of all European culture. I don't understand why that is so difficult for the western scholars to accept. By covering the truth, they just expose their sense of inferiority.

[briananderson]

Super cool video! Thank you for sharing, I really enjoyed it

[Tulipan]

5:19 Is that to yang & yang sings on the box?!

[katesisco]

These amazing recoveries of a global civilization that suffered catastrophic upheaval are essential demonstrations of human spirit.

[kizosmarsa]

bronze age before bronze age, now that is interesting!

[Actinuon]

Jesus, slow the pictures down. As soon as you focus on it, it goes away.

[boyoboy]

Swastika is not a swastika in the meaning of Hitler or any other stupid explanations, it represents a galaxy with spiral arms that simple enough, second thing is these ppl were intelligent enough to maintain trade, pottery, metallurgy, astronomy, obviously these things need to be passed from someone to these ppl, you cant just take a metal ore and start smelting having a hope there will be something out of it, question is who passed that knowledge to them?

[gigilafonte]

This is not the "Danube" civilization. It's Vinca culture. Mainly in Serbia, Romania, a a bit in today's Bosnia, Croatia and Bulgaria. The Germans insist on calling it "the Danube civilization". The only connection with Germans and Old Europe is that the Vinca culture was destroyed by the huligans who killed most I2a population. We know who came from the steppes. We most genocidal group of humans who caused most wars and killed millions of people in the 20th century too.

[milosstamenkovic]

Vinča je imala najstarije pismo a Kukuteni su samo nastavili tradiciju odakle potiču

[vaughanie]

This sounds so convincing and profesionaI I wonder why it's only on youtube though.. ....

[NS-mzgq]

Unfortunately for the farmers the raiders or hunters and gatherers from the north destroyed or scattered this civilisation.