LONDON: Europe's oldest civilisation has been discovered by
archaeologists across the continent, The Independent newspaper said
Saturday.
More than 150 large temples, constructed between 4800 BC and 4600
BC, have been unearthed in fields and cities in Germany, Austria
and Slovakia, predating the pyramids in Egypt by some 2,000 years,
the newspaper revealed.
The network of temples, made of earth and wood, were constructed by
a religious people whose economy appears to have been based on
livestock farming, The Independent reported.
Excavations have taken place over the past three years but the
discovery is so new that the civilisation has not yet been
named.
The most complex centre discovered so far, beneath the city of
Dresden in Saxony, eastern Germany, comprises a temple surrounded
by four ditches, three earthen banks and two palisades.
"Our excavations have revealed the degree of monumental vision and
sophistication used by these early farming communities to create
Europe's first truly large scale earthwork complexes," said Harald
Staeuble, from the Saxony state government's heritage
department.
The temples, up to 150 metres (164 yards) in diameter, were made by
a people who lived in long houses and villages, the newspaper
said.
Stone, bone, and wooden tools have been unearthed, along with
ceramic figures of people and animals.
A village at Aythra, near Leipzig in eastern Germany, was home to
some 300 people living in up to 20 large buildings around the
temple. - AFP/ir