Around 7000 years ago, the Linear Pottery culture flourished in the heart of Neolithic Europe. Their most awe-inspiring innovation was the colossal timber longhouses they built; the biggest of them were the largest structures humanity had ever erected. These longhouses could be 50 meters or 160 feet long, housing entire extended families, their livestock, and stores of grain under a single, massive roof. Precisely built using enormous structural timbers - and walls of split logs and wattle and d

The Chalcolithic Vinča culture of Southeast Europe may have developed the first writing anywhere in the world – beating the Sumerians by a thousand years. Symbols have been found on pottery vessels and clay tablets uncovered from various Vinča settlements. But what these symbols are exactly is disputed. They must be intended to convey some meaning but there’s little agreement on what that might be. Some symbols look like potters marks, signifying they were made by a certain person or workshop. I