Starčevo culture

The Starčevo culture, also called Starčevo-Körös-Criş culture was a widespread early Neolithic archaeological culture from Eastern Europe and the Balkans. It dates to between the seventh and fifth millennia BC (7-9 kya).

Starčevo is a site located on the north bank of the Danube in Vojvodina; opposite Belgrade in Serbia. It represents the earliest settled farming society in the area, although hunting and gathering still provided a significant portion of the inhabitants' diet.

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 artefact. 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.

The westernmost locality of this culture can be found in Croatia, in the vicinity of Ždralovi, a part of the town of Bjelovar. 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. It is designated as Ždralovi facies of the Starčevo culture or the Starčevo - Final stages.