Starcevo

Earliest Neolithic culture of the western Balkans, named for a settlement site on the north bank of the Danube opposite Belgrade, Serbia. It is part of a broad complex of cultures that includes Karanovo I, Kremikovci, Körös, Maritza, and Cris - c 6000-5000 BC. Settlements in the southern Balkans are generally tells; in Serbia they are usually flat sites. It has given its name to a widespread pottery style and it seems to represent the earliest farming occupation of the area, although hunting and food-gathering remained important. The pottery is often coarse and rusticated, but finer fluted and channeled wares and simple painted ones are found in later levels. A bone spatula, perhaps for scooping flour, is a distinctive type for the culture. It developed into the Vinca culture.

The type site for the Yugoslav aspect of the Early Neolithic First Temperate Neolithic culture. Starcevo was first excavated in 1928-9 and 1933-5. On the basis of these early excavations, V. Milojcic published a four-fold typological division of the Starcevo culture. This scheme has proved inaccurate in the light of recent excavations at Starcevo, which indicated that the type site was dated entirely to the late phase of the Starcevo culture (<4900-4600 be).