Padina
Padina is a mesolithic site in the Iron Gates area.
A view of the Padina B habitations in Sector III of the Padina site..Photo: The Iron Gates Mesolithic, I. RadovanovićText below is from 'Mesolithic Adaptations on the Lower Danube' by Beth Prinz, 1987:
Faunal remains from Padina are in some respects like those from Vlasac and Lepenski Vir. Several house floors at Padina have been described as having floors "covered by a heaped mass of fishbone" .3 to .4 meters thick (Jovanovic, 1969, 'Chronological Frames of the Iron Gate group of the early Neolithic Period in 'Archaeologica Iugoslavica X :p.29). The presence of bones of domesticated cow, sheep/goats, and pig (in addition to the unsurprising dog) in Padina A, the level which all archeologists agree is Mesolithic, may be explained by mixing of artifacts on this multi-component site, particularly because of the steep natural slope on which the site is located. The presence of domesticated pig in Padina A might also be interpreted as evidence of local domestication.
In Padina B, the level which some have argued is early Neolithic, others Mesolithic, it should be noted that the only well represented domesticate is the dog, while 80% of all bone is fish (Clason, 1980, 'Padina and Starcevo: Game, Fish and Cattle' Palaeohistoria, XXII, p.171). There is no obvious reason why recovery of fish remains at Padina should have been more efficient than at Vlasac and Lepenski Vir. There were no very small fish or mammals recovered at all. A faunal assemblage which is 80% fish, and where the most important mammal is red deer, does not indicate an economy based on food production, even if the small number of bones of domesticated cows, sheep/goats, and pigs really belong to Padina B, rather than representing "contamination" from higher levels of the site. The presence of these bones, and the small number of sherds also reported for Padina B, may indicate contact with neighboring food producers, but hardly justifies calling this occupation Neolithic. Whether the sherds and bone of domesticates 'belong' in Padina B is of importance in the chronological ordering of the Iron Gates sites, but does not change the interpretation of the primary economic orientation of Padina B. Since decreased importance of fish is typical of the earliest Neolithic sites compared to latest Mesolithic sites in the Gorge, the importance of fish remains at Padina B argues strongly for the interpretation of this site as a truly Mesolithic one.
Plan of the general situation of the site of Padina, with three sectors, showing the stone construction, ("N" Padiina A) , burials (black rectangles, padina A, Padina B) along the site axis, and the habitations (Padina B).Photo: The Iron Gates Mesolithic, I. Radovanović
Map of the Iron Gates region, with the position of Padina marked.
Photo: Don Hitchcock 2014
Padina Sector B House. Note the "A" signs or supports. No one seems to know what their significance is.Photo: The Iron Gates Mesolithic, I. Radovanović
Prehistoric Fauna from Padina
From:Clason, A.T. 1980, 'Padina and Starcevo: Game, Fish and Cattle' Palaeohistoria, XXII, p. 148
Domestic
| Taxon | Common Name | Late Mesolithic | Early Neolithic |
| Bos tauros | cattle | 7 | 21 |
| Ovis/capra | sheep/goat | 6 | 6 |
| Sus domesticus | pig | 12 | 5 |
| Canis familiaris | dog | 42 | 179 |
Wild
| Erinaceus europaeus | hedgehog | - | 1 |
| Lepus capensis | brown hare | 4 | 1 |
| Castor fiber | beaver | 37 | 10 |
| Vulpes vulpes | fox | 6 | - |
| Canis/lupus | dog/wolf | - | 3 |
| Canis lupus | wolf | 6 | 3 |
| Martes martes | pine marten | 3 | 2 |
| Martes sp. | marten | 3 | 4 |
| Felix sylvestris | wild cat | 4 | 4 |
| Lynx lynx | lynx | 2 | 2 |
| Meles meles | badger | 1 | - |
| Ursus arctos | brown bear | 30 | 15 |
| Equus sp. | horse | 1 | - |
| Sus scrofa | pig | 55 | 50 |
| Sus sp. | pig | 23 | 10 |
| Capreolus capreolus | roe deer | 37 | 10 |
| Cervus elephus | red deer | 763+114 | 263+50 |
| Bos/cervus | - | 41 | 12 |
| Bos primigenius | aurochs | 28 | 8 |
| Bos sp. | - | 17 | 8 |
| Rupicapra rupicapra | chamois | 3 | 20 |
| Aves | birds | 16 | 4 |
| Emys orbicularis | European pond terrapin | 1 | 1 |
Fish
| Hucho hucho | Danube salmon | 15 | 41 |
| Acipenser sp./Huso huso | sturgeon | 8 | 55 |
| Siluris glanis | cat fish | 201(24) | 1298 |
| Cyprinus carpio | carp | - | 32 |
| Cyprinidae | - | 80 | 229 |
| unidentified | - | 63 | 620 |
| Total |
| ------- | ------ |
|
| 1653 | 2959 |
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My background
Some people have expressed interest in knowing a little bit about me. For those people, here is a potted biography:
I live in New South Wales, Australia, and I am a retired high school mathematics/science teacher.
The Donsmaps site is totally independent of any other influence. I work on it for my own pleasure, and finance it myself. I started before there was an internet, when I thought I could do a better job of the small map on the end papers of Jean Auel's wonderful book, Valley of the Horses, by adding detail and contour lines, and making a larger version. I have always loved maps since I was a young boy.
I had just bought a black and white '
fat Mac' with a whopping 512 kB of memory (!), and no hard disk. With a program called '
Super Paint' and a lot of double work (hand tracing first the maps of Europe from atlases, then scanning the images on the tracing paper, then merging the scanned images together, then tracing these digital scans on the computer screen), I made my own black and white map.
Then the internet came along, the terms of my internet access gave me space for a small website, and Don's Maps started. I got much better computers and software over the years, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for example, and my maps became colourised and had more detail. I did a lot of maps of the
travels of Ayla from Jean Auel's books, and I gradually included other pages with more and more photos available from the web, and scanned from books or from scientific papers, since I was not happy with the quality generally available. I became very interested in the Venus figurines, and set out to make a
complete record of the ice age ones. Along the way I got interested in archaeology for its own sake.
In 2008 my wife and I went to Europe, and when we arrived in Frankfurt at sunrise after the 24 hour plane trip from Sydney, while my wife left on her own tour with her sister, they visited relatives in Germany and Austria, I went off by myself on the train to Paris. Later that afternoon I took a train to Brive-la-Gaillarde, found a hotel and caught up on lost sleep. The next morning I hired a car, and over the next four weeks visited and photographed many of the original archaeological sites in the south of France, as well as many archaeological museums. It was a wonderful experience.My wife and I met up again later in the Black Forest, and
cycled down the Danube from its source to Budapest, camping most of the way, a wonderful trip, collecting many photos, including a visit to
Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic, as well as visiting the Vienna natural history museum. Jean Auel fans will realise the significance of that trip!
Luckily I speak French, the trips to France would have been difficult or impossible otherwise. No one outside large cities speaks English (or they refuse to). I was travelling independently, not as part of a tour group. I never knew where I was going to be the next night, and I camped nearly everywhere, except for large cities. I am a very experienced bushwalker (hiker) and have the required equipment -
a one-man ultra lightweight tent, sleeping bag, stove, raincoat, and so on, all of which I make myself for use here when I go bushwalking, especially down the beautiful gorges east of Armidale, though for Europe I use a commercial two person lightweight tent, since weight is not so much of a problem when cycling or using a car, and in any case my wife was with me when cycling, once along the Donau from its source to Budapest in 2008, and again from Amsterdam to Copenhagen and then up the Rhine from Köln to the Black Forest in 2014, both of which were memorable and wonderful trips.
In 2012 we went to Canada for a wedding and to visit old friends, and I took the opportunity to visit the wonderful Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, where I took many photographs of the items on exhibit, particularly of the superb display of artefacts of the
First Nations of the Pacific Northwest.
In 2014 my wife and I did another European cycling tour, from
Amsterdam to Copenhagen, then from Cologne up the Rhine to the Black Forest, camping most of the way in each case, and taking many useful photos in museums along the way, including the museums at Leiden, Netherlands, and
Roskilde in Denmark, and the National Museum in Copenhagen. Again, I later hired a car and did more photography and visited many more sites in France.
In 2015 I made a lone visit to all the major museums in western Europe by public transport, mostly by train, and that went very well. I had learned a lot of German while travelling with my wife, who is a fluent speaker of the language, and of all the European countries, Germany is my favourite. I feel comfortable there. I love the people, the food, and the beer. Germans are gemütlich, I have many friends there now.
I repeated the visit to western Europe in 2018, to fill in some gaps of museums I had not visited the first time, because they were either closed for renovation the first time (such as the Musée de l'Homme in Paris) or because I ran out of time, or because I wanted to fill in some gaps from major museums such as the British Museum, the Berlin Museum, München, the Louvre, the Petrie and Natural History Museums in London, the Vienna Natural History Museum, the important museum in Brno, and museums in northern Germany. It takes at least two visits, preferably three, to thoroughly explore the items on display in a major museum.
I spend a lot of time on the site, typically at least a few hours a day, often more. I do a lot of translation of original papers not available in English, a time consuming but I believe a valuable task. People and fate have been very generous to me, and it is good to give back a very small part of what I have been given. With the help of online translation apps and use of online dictionaries there are few languages I cannot translate, though I find Czech a challenge!
Life has been kind to me, I want for nothing, and am in good health. Not many in the world are as lucky as I am, and I am grateful for my good fortune.
My best wishes to all who read and enjoy the pages of my site.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
And may rain on a tin roof lull you to sleep at night.
Webmaster: Don HitchcockEmail:don@donsmaps.com
Website last updated Monday 10 March 2025