Alloggi

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City and settlement · Vratsa Province

Ohoden–Valoga

An Early Neolithic settlement and ritual complex with burials and a clay structure containing deer skulls.

Ohoden
Early Neolithic burial from Ohoden, displayed at the History Museum in Vratsa.Open and enlarge photograph
Early Neolithic burial from Ohoden, displayed at the History Museum in Vratsa.
Photo: Vassia Atanassova - Spiritia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Resized proportionally to a maximum of 960 px and converted to WebP; no crop or scene edits.

The story of this place

Ohoden–Valoga preserves houses, burials and ritual evidence from the Early Neolithic. The earliest material is assigned to the end of the seventh and beginning of the sixth millennium BC. A particularly informative discovery is a clay structure excavated in 2011 containing three deer skulls with antlers. It also held a clay deer figurine with a broken head. Burials provide another perspective on the community of early farmers, with some remains presented at Vratsa Museum. Links between the structure, fertility and the sun are proposed interpretations of the ritual; the arrangement of the objects is the directly observed archaeological evidence.

Documented evidence

What the evidence shows

  • The structure containing three deer skulls was found in 2011.
  • The museum presents Early Neolithic burials from the site.

Hypotheses and open questions

The ritual’s precise meaning is not documented in written sources; the solar reading is a hypothesis.

Myths and local traditions

The sources consulted do not document a reliable local tradition. We do not invent legends to fill the gap.

Sources and verification

These accounts are editorial summaries. The sources below let you check dates, discoveries and interpretations.

  1. РИМ–Враца: Глинен олтар с еленови рога ↗www.vratsamuseum.com
  2. РИМ–Враца: Гроб №4 ↗www.vratsamuseum.com
  3. Община Враца: културни обекти ↗old.vratza.bg
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