When it comes to the oldest Neolithic remains in Slovenia we have to look to the coast. The sea route of the spreading Neolithic culture reached the northern tip of the Adriatic sea during the 6th millennium BC.

Bones of sheep and goats (found in shephards' caves in Kras, eg. Trhlovca cave) indicate the establishment of pastures and animal husbandry.

Later, multiple settlements also appeared in central Slovenia, spreading from the Pannonian plain in the 5th millennium BC.

The poetry of this group often had a red tint, while the earlier ones around the Mediterranean often bore imprints of fingers or seashells. The latter is typical of the Vlaška cultural group (a variant of the eastern Adriatic Danilo culture and of the Hvar culture), while the earlier is part of the Lengyel culture).

One such settlement (eg. Dolenji Leskovec) contained several houses with perhaps gabled roofs of thatch or shingles, being protected by a double oval palisade. It provided a great overlook of the river and its traffic.

These villages, often located at river bends and promontories, were populated by farmers and shepherds, though hunting still had an important role.

Unlike villages, few cemeteries have been found in this area (Ajdovska jama, Krog, Slivnica).

While these villages only held out for decades or a good century, stone-walled hillforts (eg. Gradec near Mirna) could withstand for over a thousand years, albeit with occasional periods of abandonment.

Neolithic and Copper age hillforts are rare outside of those recorded in the Balkans, contemporarily with those in Slovenia Moravia and south-western Austria.

The increased concentration of hillforts and the archeological findings suggest that this region was a junction between the western European civilization of Neolithic marked by stone and jade axes, and the Balkan-Pannonian Copper Age civilization, between 4800 and 3800 BC.

Edited in Vegas Pro 19.
Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1mnK9tpEvz9UgeVWuUh8fPF…

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