PloÄnik (archaeological site)
Pločnik is an archaeological place in the village Pločnik in the south of Serbia. It is a settlement of the Neolithic Vinča culture from about 5400-4500 BC
The Vinča culture is part of the South East European Early Neolithic. Among these, in addition to the Starčevo Körös Criş cultures of Karanovo I complex, the western Bulgarian, Macedonian and ostalbanische Early Neolithic and the Greek proto- Sesklo and Sesklo culture to classify. The common element is the painted pottery, however, accounted for a small percentage of the ceramic spectrum and reaches its peak only in the Lengyel culture.
The site was first discovered in 1927 when railway work, since 1996, leads the Serbian National Museum excavations there.
The inhabitants of the settlement at Pločnik processed in the mid 6th millennium BC to copper jewelry, tools and weapons. The ground around Pločnik is rich in copper ore, which often overlaid directly on the surface. Copper Violet (Viola kupferi ) growing on copper-containing soil and indicate where copper ore is located. In the Stone Age, early stones have already been collected, like the shimmering green malachite with a copper content of about 57 %. The oldest artifacts found are about 7300 years old and thus eight centuries older than any copper items that have been found so far in Europe. In Pločnik archaeologists found Axes and mace heads of copper.