Archaeologists in Bulgaria say they have
uncovered the oldest prehistoric town found to date in Europe.
The walled fortified settlement, near the
modern town of Provadia, is thought to have been an important centre for salt
production.
Its discovery in north-east Bulgaria may
explain the huge gold hoard found nearby 40 years ago.
Archaeologists believe that the town was home
to some 350 people and dates back to between 4700 and 4200 BC.
That is about 1,500 years before the start of
ancient Greek civilisation.
The residents boiled water from a local spring
and used it to create salt bricks, which were traded and used to preserve meat.
Salt was a hugely valuable commodity at the
time, which experts say could help to explain the huge defensive stone walls which
ringed the town.
'Extremely
interesting'
Excavations at the site, beginning in 2005,
have also uncovered the remains of two-storey houses, a series of pits used for
rituals, as well as parts of a gate and bastion structures.
A small necropolis, or burial ground, was
discovered at the site earlier this year and is still being studied by
archaeologists.
"We are not talking about a town like the
Greek city-states, ancient Rome or medieval settlements, but about what
archaeologists agree constituted a town in the fifth millennium BC," Vasil
Nikolov, a researcher with Bulgaria's National Institute of Archaeology, told
the AFP news agency.
Archaeologist Krum Bachvarov from the
institute said the latest find was "extremely interesting".
"The huge walls around the settlement,
which were built very tall and with stone blocks... are also something unseen
in excavations of prehistoric sites in south-east Europe so far," he told
AFP.
Similar salt mines near Tuzla in Bosnia and
Turda in Romania help prove the existence of a series of civilisations which
also mined copper and gold in the Carpathian and Balkan mountains during the
same period.
BBC Europe correspondent Nick Thorpe says this
latest discovery almost certainly explains the treasure found exactly 40 years
ago at a cemetery on the outskirts of Varna, 35km (21 miles) away, the oldest
hoard of gold objects found anywhere in the world.
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