Cultural-historic heritage of the lake Skadar basin

Abstract

The Lake Skadar basin harbours a rich cultural and historical heritage of different epochs and forms. Traces of the first human communities appeared way back in the Palaeolithic period, while archaeological founds from a cave on the Lake Skadar coast imply on the first traces of spiritual life from the Neolithic period. The monumental heritage of the Middle Ages is the most preserved, architectonically the most important and stylistically the most authentic. Under the influence of different political and social circumstances, the area of the Lake Skadar becomes the place of interference of stylistic and architectonical headings. Profane building characterizes construction of different fortification objects and a smaller urban settlements. Wider area of the Lake Skadar presents one of the most significant regions in civilizational developments of Montenegro, and it will be the area in which appeared the first forms of spirituality, literacy and cultural development. In seven subchapters of this text, we will explain historical context in which those processes were developed and look back to cultural contents, profane and sacral buildings of civilizations, that formed wealth and diversity of cultural layers of the Lake Skadar.