This post is also available in: Croatian
VELA LUKA – OTOK KORČULA[nivo effect=”fade” directionNav=”button” width=”720px” height=”360px”]
[image]http://hotspots.net.hr/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/IMG_6335.jpg[/image]
[image] http://hotspots.net.hr/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/spila_-2011..jpg[/image]
[image]http://hotspots.net.hr/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Vela-Spila.jpg[/image]
[image]http://hotspots.net.hr/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/vela-luka.jpg[/image]
[/nivo]
Vela Spila (it means Big Cave in Croatian) is situated on the hill of Pinski rat, above Kale cove in Vela Luka. It is one of the most important archaeological sites on the Mediterranean. From the plateau in front of the cave the view stretches over the entire Vela Luka bay, Blato depression and nearby islands all the way to the open sea. A source of drinkable water was once located below the cave, on the lower slope leading to the bay.
The first indirect reference to Vela Spila can be found in The Statute of the Town and Island of Korčula from 1214. The first description was made by Nikola Ostojić in 1853, who depicts its natural beauty. First real researches were conducted from 1951. The amount and the importance of findings encouraged JAZU (Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts) to begin systematic research of Vela Spila. From 1974 research is done almost every year. At the beginning, projects were conducted by Grga Novak, continued after his death by Božidar Čečuk. Member of the team from the very beginning was Franko Oreb, and Dinko Radić joined the excavation in 1986.
Around 250m2 have been examined so far, which is around 20 per cent of the cave’s surface. Nevertheless, the results show that this is one of the most significant and most important cave localities on the Mediterranean, inhabited from the end of the Paleolithic till the middle of the Bronze Age. Findings bear witness to the life of several prehistoric societies to whom the cave was not only a home, but also a place where they buried their dead. Thousands of ceramic artifacts, pottery and other objects are a proof of the cultural, social, religious and economic history of Vela Spila, but also the areas of The Adriatic and the Mediterranean.
Artifacts found in Vela Spila are kept in the Museum Collections in the Vela Luka Cultural Center, which is open to the public since 1991, but only a small number out of thousands of objects is exhibited.
Other than being a place to live, Vela Spila was also a place to bury. Prehistoric people sometimes buried their deceased in the immediate vicinity of the living area, wanting to ensure the closeness with ancestors, but also possibly because of the belief that death was just a temporary state, after which a rebirth would follow. In 1986, a shallow grave with the remains of the two individuals (an adult woman and a young man) were found in Vela Spila. The findings drew a lot of attention of the people of Vela Luka, who gave hypocoristic names to the deceased: ‘the grandma’ and ‘the grandpa’.
Stanko, the oldest Mediterranean skeleton was also found in Vela Spila. Stanko lived in Mesolithic 9,000 years ago and he was a hunter, a fisherman and a collector of fruit. The tomb where the skeleton was found is the oldest tomb discovered on area of the former Yugoslavia.
The Queen Elizabeth, who is a big promoter of history herself, has got her eye on the cave. For years she has been financially helping the research at The University of Cambridge, which is involved in the program on the area of Vela Luka. Archaeologists have recently discovered important ceramic artifacts 17,500 old in the cave’s interior. It is an evidence of the community of prehistoric artists and craftspeople who ‘invented’ ceramics during the last Ice Age – thousands of years before pottery became commonplace. The finds consist of 36 fragments, most of them apparently the broken-off remnants of modelled animals. Archaeologists believe that they were the products of an artistic culture which sprang up in the region about 17,500 years ago. Most paleontologist had so far believed that the Ice Age nomads were not familiar with the technology of making ceramic and practical-use items, but this discovery has shown that the prehistoric pottery making was more spread out than they had thought. The finds at Vela Spila seem to represent the first evidence of Paleolithic ceramic art at the end of the last Ice Age.
‘It is very rare to see thousands of years old sediments on one location. It looks like a cake’ – says Dinko Radić and notes that there are indisputable arguments for the existence of life continuity in the cave during all of 17,500 years. There is a possibility that new layers will show even higher age of life of the Vela Luka Homo sapiens. Experts from The University of Cambridge have recently published their discoveries in The New York Times and The Sunday Mirror, which only confirmed Vela Spila as a synonym for the island of Korčula and Vela Luka in scientific circles.
This post is also available in: Croatian
