Vinča symbols

These findings are important because the bulk of the Vinča symbols were created between 4,500 and 4,000 BC, with the symbols on the Tărtăria clay tablets possibly dating back to around 5,300 BC (controversially dated by association).[13] This means that the Vinča finds predate the proto-Sumerian pictographic script from Uruk (modern Iraq), which is usually considered to be the oldest known writing system, by more than a thousand years. Analyses of the symbols showed that they have little similarity with Near Eastern writing, resulting in the opinion that these symbols and the Sumerian script probably arose independently.

Some researchers, such as Milutin Garašanin and Dragoslav Srejović, have suggested that the symbols were potters' marks or owners' marks, meaning "this belongs to X".[15][2] Some symbols, principally those restricted to the base of pots, are wholly unique and such signs may denote the contents, the provenance or destination, or the manufacturer or owner of the pot. However, some of the symbols have been repeatedly found throughout the territory of the Vinča culture, dated hundreds of years apart, and in locations kilometers away from each other.

Inscribed object from the Karanovo culture.[16]

Some of the "comb" or "brush" symbols, which collectively constitute as much as a sixth of all the symbols so far discovered, may represent a form of prehistoric counting. The Vinča culture appears to have traded its wares quite widely with other cultures, as demonstrated by the widespread distribution of inscribed pots, so it is possible that the "numerical" symbols conveyed information about the value of the pots or their contents. Other cultures, such as the Minoans and Sumerians, used their scripts primarily as accounting tools; the Vinča symbols may have served a similar purpose.

The symbols may have been used for ritual or commemorative purposes.[17] If this was so the fact that the same symbols were used for centuries with little change suggests that the ritual meaning and culture represented by the symbols likewise remained constant for a very long duration, undergoing little further development during that time. However, the use of the symbols seems to have been abandoned (along with the objects on which they appear) at the start of the Bronze Age, suggesting that the new technology brought with it significant changes in social organization or population, and beliefs.

The anthropologist Marija Gimbutas interpreted the inscribed objects as votive offerings.[18] One argument in favour of the ritual explanation is that the objects on which the symbols appear do not seem to have had much long-term significance to their owners – they are commonly found in pits and other refuse areas. Certain objects, principally figurines, are most usually found buried under houses. This is consistent with the supposition that they were prepared for household religious ceremonies in which the signs incised on the objects represent expressions: a desire, request, vow, etc. After the ceremony was completed, the object would either have no further significance (hence would be disposed of) or would be buried ritually.

The markings may represent an early writing system, namely the Vinča or Vinča–Turdaș script. Archaeologically determining if a corpus of symbols expresses a form of writing is immensely difficult, but it is not likely that the stateless societies of Neolithic Europe would have had cause to independently invent writing. Writing was typically developed to facilitate the accounting and records management required for the administration of complex socio-political and economic systems in early state societies, and there is no evidence that such institutions ever existed in the Vinča culture.[19]

Some researchers, such as Marija Gimbutas and archaeo-semiologist Marco Merlini, have argued that the Vinča symbols belonged to a wider tradition of literacy in Old Europe, which they referred to the "Old European script" and the "Danube script" respectively.[12] Gimbutas reconstructed a hypothetical pre-Indo-European "Civilization of Old Europe", which she defines as having occupied the area between the Dniester valley and the Sicily-Crete line.[20] She incorporated the Vinča markings into her model of Old Europe, suggesting that they might either be the writing system for an Old European language, or, more probably, a kind of symbolic "pre-writing" system. However, this has been generally met with skepticism.[2] Vinča symbols themselves have not been found on an area wider than southeastern Hungary, western Romania, and western Bulgaria, as described by Winn.[21]