Vinča culture
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The Vinča culture flourished in south-eastern Europe, in modern Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, between about 5700 and 4500 BCE, and it produced some of the most striking pottery and figurines of old Europe. Its settlements, such as Vinča near Belgrade and Pločnik, were large for the time, with houses of mud brick and lanes; at Pločnik the inhabitants made the earliest known copper axe and beads, working ore at 950 degrees, a temperature that would not be matched in Europe for two thousand years. The culture is known for its black-burnished pottery with incised decoration, for anthropomorphic vessels and for the clay figurines whose slit eyes and folded arms have generated many theories. Most famous are the small inscribed tablets that some scholars read as the earliest writing in Europe, a claim that remains disputed because the signs may be decorative or ritual rather than linguistic. Long-distance trade carried obsidian, shells and copper across the region, and the culture's end around 4500 BCE coincides with burning at many sites, though the cause is unclear. The culture also built the largest settlements in Europe at the time, some covering thirty hectares, with streets, wells and cemeteries.