Lepenski Vir Houses

Lepenski Vir is a prehistoric settlement on the right bank of the Danube in the Iron Gates gorge of eastern Serbia. Its chronology spans roughly 9500/7200 to 5500 BCE, and its distinctive trapezoidal houses belong to a late phase dated about 6300-6000 BCE. Dragoslav Srejović began excavations on 6 August 1965; work continued until 1971. The site is widely cited for its stone sculptures and for being one of the earliest planned settlements in Europe.

The houses

Remains of 136 residential and sacred buildings were found, in seven successive settlements on a promontory sloping about 11 degrees toward the river.

• Plan: each base is a segment of a circle of 60 degrees, giving a trapezoid with the narrow end facing the košava, the strong local wind.
• Size: from about 1.5 m² (16 sq ft) for the smallest, House 49, to around 30-42 m² (320-450 sq ft) for the largest.
• Floors: local limestone clay mixed with animal dung and ash, which hardens like concrete. A reddish clay plaster called lep is the source of the site's name.
• Hearths: an elongated rectangular hearth of stone blocks on the long axis, averaging about 78 by 24 cm (31 by 9 in).

The roof question

Stone reinforcements along the edges of the floors show that the houses carried a superstructure. The roofing material was either perishable or similar to the surrounding loess, so it did not survive. As a result, at least seven reconstructions have been proposed:

• pyramidal or tent-like frames, the form used in most reconstructions;
• a long arched wattle frame (Dević);
• transverse arches (Andrejić);
• diagonally crossing arches (Pavlović);
• a version with a sloped purlin and no central pillar, shown to be technically feasible by 2011 (Mitrović);
• a three-pole hut (Jovanović);
• vertical walls (Borić).

Some digital reconstructions show animal hides on the roof; others suggest timber or wattle coated in red clay.

Relocation

The Iron Gate I dam would have flooded the site, so in 1971 most of the houses were moved about 100 m (330 ft) downstream and 29.7 m (97 ft) higher. The original location now lies under the reservoir.

Significance for roofing history

Lepenski Vir illustrates the gap between well-preserved floors and lost roofs: the plan of every house is precisely known, but competing roof reconstructions remain plausible.