Uzice to get outdoor archeological park - First visitors expected in 2020

(The depiction of the future prehistoric settlement) Beside the well-known Old Town, hydropower plant made according to Tesla`s principles, Uzice will enrich its tourist offer with the construction of the neolithic settlement replica in Stapari village, the second of its kind in Serbia. Also, new archeological park will be built in the Djetinja River Gorge, 11km away from Uzice, modeled after the archeological sights Velika and Mala Gradina.

This outdoor museum will be accessible through the tunnel for the once-famous Cira train, now available for bicycles, walkers and mini tourist trains. Here visitors will see traditional straw-bale houses and dugouts which will host exhibitions. A modern facility will be built within the park with workshops, working desks and toilet rooms using traditional building materials.

If everything is realized according to plan, the settlement will be ready for visitors as early as Spring 2020. Until then, project design team will supervise the preparation of exhibits and entertainment programmes such as work with clay, bones, stone, leather, preparing neolithic foods,salt damping process and archeology courses for the youngest visitors.

The project is designed in compliance with the available archeological sources kept in the Uzice National Museum.

– The sources encompass documents on archeological excavation done in mid-20th century on Mala and Velika Gradina archeological sites in Stapari village. Information available show that there were four hillforts from the neolithic and one building from the younger, Bronze age on the site. After the houses are built, they will be completely furnished and the indoor and outdoor exhibits will be prepared, Miroslav Ivanovic, Marketing Manager at the Zlatibor Regional Development Agency told eKapija.
He added that part of the exhibit would be a stattic display (lifeseeing concept) and the other part will be interactive with the aim to engage visitors of all ages (lifeparticipating model), fashioned after the good practice of the existing outdoor archeological parks in EU countries.

– Aside from the construction of the settlement we will do landscaping works on the site in order to present a credible depiction of life conditions in the Neolithic, Ivanovic said.
(The depiction of the future prehistoric settlement) As eKapija learns,one part of the archeological park will be exclusively commercial while the other will have non-commercial function.

– When it comes to children, pupils and students we will work closely with kindergartens elementary and high schools, school managements, educational and cultural institutions, professional associations, artisans and other individuals to popularize culture, knowledge exchange and active participation of visitors in the social life of the local community. Tickets, entertainment programmes, souvenirs , presentations and event organization will only be one source of the future park's funds, Ivanovic said.

Together with park construction in Uzice, partners from Tuzla will work on restoring the Neolithic stilt-house settlement there and renewing the Geological Museum exhibit within the Panoska Jezera lake complex.

– Having in mind that Uzice has previously successfully cooperated with Tuzla on a variety of projects, it wasn`t hard to continue the collaboration with our reliable cross-border partner with experience in innovative interpretation of historical and cultural heritage, Ivanovic said.

In order to promote the opening of the archeological park, the project design team plans to organize open days event that will include educational events for children, promotional campaigns in tourist generating markets in the region and preparation and distribution of printed and audio visual material in the cross-border area.

Project leaders

The responsible project designer for the preparation of project-technical documentation is Dr Emilija Nikolic who designed the Project of construction of neolithic settlement replica in Stapari village with the help of project design team and archeological sources available. The preliminary design of the settlement was the part of project documentation that was the basis for the approval of City of Uzice`s Neo Life project in December 2018.

GPR Cumur from Sevojno will execute construction and development works and furnish the Neolithic settlement within the period of 11 months under the expert supervision of the responsible designer and NeoLIFE project design team.

Cross-border cooperation

“New life of Neolithic heritage in recognized natural areas of great importance – NeoLIFE” is a joint project of City of Uzice, City of Tuzla , Uzice Art School and Milici Municipality. European Union is financing the project through Cross-border Cooperation Programme Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2014-2020 within the financial Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA II) . The total value of the project is EUR 600,000.

The Department for Contracting and Financing of EU Funded Programmes (CFCU) established within the Ministry of Finance is the government body responsible for contracting the project.

Sandra Petrovic