Starčevo culture

The Starčevo culture is an archaeological culture of Southeastern Europe, dating to the Neolithic period between c. 6200 and 4500 BCE. It originates in the spread of the Neolithic package of peoples and technological innovations including farming and ceramics from Anatolia to the area of Sesklo. The Starčevo culture marks its spread to the inland Balkan peninsula as the Cardial ware culture did along the Adriatic coastline. It forms part of the wider Starčevo–Körös–Criş culture which gave rise to the central European Linear Pottery culture c. 700 years after the initial spread of Neolithic farmers towards the northern Balkans.

The Starčevo site, the type site, is located on the north bank of the Danube near the village of Starčevo in Serbia (Vojvodina province), opposite Belgrade.

Origins
The Starčevo culture represents a northern expansion of Early Neolithic Farmers who settled from Anatolia to present-day central Greece and expanded northwards. It forms part of the wider Starčevo–Körös–Criș culture. The river routes which traverse present-day North Macedonia have been suggested as the potential path of the movement of peoples and farming knowledge. The Sesklo site has been generally viewed as the direct point of northwards expansion, but in 2020 radiocarbon dating across several sites showed that the site in Mavropigi (ca. 180 northwest of Sesklo) is a much more probable point of origin of the population movement along the river routes towards the central Balkans. As of 2020, the two oldest dated sites are Crkvina near Miokovci, Serbia and Runik, Kosovo which are statistically indistinguishable to each other and have been dated to ca. 6238 BCE (6362-6098 BCE at 95% CI) and ca. 6185 BCE (6325–6088 BCE at 95% Cl) respectively.

These two earliest sites were followed by a second cluster of sites that developed ca. 6200-6000 BCE in southern and central Serbia. The next expansion is located in eastern Serbia (Lepenski Vir) ca. 6100 BCE and since ca. 6000 BCE another cluster of settlements appears in northern Serbia. This general route of expansion suggests a wave of expansion model along river routes like the Morava Valley, but it is not a strictly defined model as not all northern sites are of a later date in comparison to sites to the south of them and vice versa.

Archaeogenetics
In a 2017 genetic study published in Nature, the remains of five males ascribed to the early Starčevo culture from Hungary were analyzed. With regards to Y-DNA extracted, three belonged to subclades of G2a2, and two belonged to H2. mtDNA extracted were subclades of T1a2, K1a4a1, N1a1a1, W5 and X2d1. A 2018 study published in Nature analyzed three samples from Croatia and one from Serbia, they belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup C-CTS3151, H2-L281 and I2 while mtDNA haplogroup J1c2, K1a4a1, U5b2b and U8b1b1. In 2022 were analysed two samples, female from Grad-Starčevo with mtDNA haplogroup T2e2 and male from Vinča-Belo Brdo with Y-DNA haplogroup G2a2a1a3 and mtDNA haplogroup HV-16311. According to ADMIXTURE analysis, Starčevo samples had approximately 87-100% Early European Farmers, 0-9% Western Hunter-Gatherer and 0-10% Western Steppe Herders-related ancestry.

Characteristics and related cultures
The pottery is usually coarse but finer fluted and painted vessels later emerged. A type of bone spatula, perhaps for scooping flour, is a distinctive artifact. The Körös is a similar culture in Hungary named after the River Körös with a closely related culture which also used footed vessels but fewer painted ones. Both have given their names to the wider culture of the region in that period.

Parallel and closely related cultures also include the Karanovo culture in Bulgaria, Criş in Romania and the pre-Sesklo in Greece.

Sites
The Starčevo culture covered a sizable area that included much of present-day western and southern Serbia, Montenegro (except for the coastal region), Kosovo, parts of eastern Albania, eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, western Bulgaria, eastern Croatia, Hungary, North Macedonia and Romania.

The westernmost locality of this culture can be found in Croatia, in the vicinity of Ždralovi, a part of the town of Bjelovar. The region of Slavonia in present-day Croatia is the westernmost area of settlement of the Starčevo culture. Between 6200-5500 BCE, this area saw intensive habitation and land use organized around Zadubravlje, Galovo, Sarvaš, Pepelane, Stari Perkovci and other sites. This was the final stage of the culture. Findings from Ždralovi belong to a regional subtype of the final variant in the long process of development of that Neolithic culture.

In 1990, Starčevo was added to the Archaeological Sites of Exceptional Importance list, protected by Republic of Serbia.

In Kosovo, the Starčevo material culture has been found in pre-Vinca layers in the sites of Vlashnjë and Runik.