The continent of our forebears releases yet another amazing secret.
Before the glory that was Greece and Rome, even before the first citiesof Mesopotamia or temples along the Nile, there lived in the LowerDanube Valley and the Balkan foothills people who were ahead of theirtime in art, technology and long-distance trade.
For 1,500 years, starting earlier than 5000 B.C., they farmed andbuilt sizable towns, a few with as many as 2,000 dwellings. Theymastered large-scale copper smelting, the new technology of the age.Their graves held an impressive array of exquisite headdresses andnecklaces and, in one cemetery, the earliest major assemblage of goldartifacts to be found anywhere in the world.
The striking designsof their pottery speak of the refinement of the culture’s visuallanguage. Until recent discoveries, the most intriguing artifacts werethe ubiquitous terracotta “goddess” figurines, originally interpretedas evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.
New research, archaeologists and historians say, has broadenedunderstanding of this long overlooked culture, which seemed to haveapproached the threshold of “civilization” status. Writing had yet tobe invented, and so no one knows what the people called themselves. Tosome scholars, the people and the region are simply Old Europe.
