home # store # services # articles # game # app #contact >

Known for its association with the Linear Pottery culture (LBK). Vráble is an important archaeological site. Which flourished around 5500 to 4500 BC
The site features unique structures, including longhouses and a ditch system, and has revealed significant findings such as a mass grave.

Vráble consists of three adjacent LBK settlements forming a huge agglomeration. Sometimes called a “mega-settlement”
Three settlements was enclosed by ditches and palisades, forming separate but neighboring compounds. The entire complex covers around 40 hectares, which is enormous for the LBK.

Geophysical surveys and magnetometry have revealed approximately 300 longhouse ground plans across the site. An extraordinary number for an LBK settlement
Each house averaged 20–30 m in length, with standard three-aisled timber post architecture. The houses are arranged in clusters or rows, sometimes with overlapping or rebuilding episodes, suggesting generations of reoccupation.

Despite the settlement’s scale, no single central “palace” or communal building has been found
There are communal features though. Ditch-and-palisade enclosures with multiple entryways, possibly for rituals or social gatherings. Evidence of spatial zoning too. Perhaps separating neighborhoods or social groups.

It was in a fertile loess zone that was ideal for early agriculture
Loess soils are excellent for wheat, barley, peas, and flax cultivation. They had animals too. They herding cattle, pigs, sheep/goats, hunting and fish.

Supplying timber for longhouses and tools. There was bundant oak and mixed hardwood forests close. And, the nearby Nitra and Žitava river systems, offered water, fish, and clay sources for pottery

High-quality flint; and, raw stone was also nearby
They also had trade routes to obsidian sources in eastern Slovakia and Hungary. Great conditions for a major LBK hub that was rich in wood, clay, and raw materials.

Pottery was of high-quality LBK ceramics
Often fine, well-burnished, and decorated with incised band patterns typical of the Želiezovce group.
Large storage vessels and cooking pots also found

Did you know? No canoes or dugouts have been recovered but preservation conditions on the loess plateau are poor for wood. LBK dugouts are known from other nearby sites in central Europe (Strachów, Kraków region); and, La Marmotta, Italy.

Though it didn’t have a single central hall, its palisades, ditches, and open zones may have been used for rituals or social gatherings.

One of the largest LBK sites known for its timber post-built longhouses, organized in clusters, within ditched enclosures. And, resources, the fertile loess soil, abundant timber, river clay, and nearby obsidian/flint sources. Vráble is one of the largest and coolest studied late neolithic LBK (Linearbandkeramik) settlements in central Europe. Check it out and support neolithic architecture today.

Bibliography: Müller-Scheeßel, Nils; Müller, Johannes; Cheben, Ivan; Mainusch, Wiebke; Rassmann, Knut; Rabbel, Wolfgang; Corradini, Erica; Furholt, Martin (January 10, 2020). “A new approach to the temporal significance of house orientations in European Early Neolithic settlements” (https://ww w.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6953813). PLOS ONE. 15 (1) e0226082. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0226082 (https://doi.org/10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0226082). ISSN 1932-6203 (htt ps://search.worldcat.org/issn/1932-6203). PMC 6953813 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti cles/PMC6953813). PMID 31923265 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31923265)

Martin Furholt et al. 2020: Communality and Discord in an Early Neolithic Settlement Agglomeration: The LBK Site of Vráble, Southwest Slovakia in Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 30(3), pp. 469–489. doi:10.1017/S0959774320000049 (https://www.cambridge.org/cor e/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/communality-and-discord-in-an-early-neolith ic-settlement-agglomeration-the-lbk-site-of-vrable-southwest-slovakia/951DF6C74DE2E67C90 622DA78994E4F0#figures)

Ivan Cheben, M. Furholt, K. Rassmann, A. Bistakova, M. Wunderlich, N. Müller-Scheeßel 2024: Archaeology in the Žitava valley II. The neolithic landscape of south-western Slovakia, Scales of Transformation in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies 20. Leiden: Sidestone Press. (Online (https://www.sidestone.com/books/archaeology-in-the-zitava-valley-ii))