Crkvine (Serbian Cyrillic: Црквине, romanized: Church ground) is a Neolithic locality and an archaeological site in the village of Stubline in the municipality of Obrenovac, which is part of the City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.

[2] Taking in account its geographical position, a regular street-like layout of houses, close economic and, presumably, social connections with the surrounding contemporary settlements and beyond, the Crkvine settlement appears to be a "burgeoning proto-urban society", in the region bounded by three rivers, the Sava, Kolubara and Tamnava.

[3][4] Crkvine is located in the village of Stubline, which is part of the Obrenovac municipality, which in turn administratively belongs to Belgrade.

[8] Despite the low elevation of the settlement locality, 92 to 112 m (302 to 367 ft),[7] numerous distant mountains are visible: Avala, Kosmaj, Rudnik, Suvobor, Maljen, Povlen and Cer, while on the clear days the Stolovi can be seen, too.

[1] The first written records which deal with the subject date from 1912, when the oldest villagers of Stubline still claimed the "old church" legend, but also had certain ideas of some human occupation from "ancient" times.

[7] As of 2018, explored objects include 5 houses, a primary trench system and the landfill on the southern slope of the locality.

This is the largest average house size in the Late Vinča period, except for the Divostin locality.

The smallest houses are laid in opposite direction and it is believed that they were not used for dwelling being probably public storages, though the exact use is still unknown.

[10] Taking into account the large area of the settlement, the largest surveyed from the Vinča period so far in Serbia, a fact that the houses were built at the same time in the compact rows and how the life was organized, Crkvine is more of a proto-urban town, rather than a village.

They included the five-legged tables, small vessels for keeping the grains, pithoi and large mortars and pestles.

Each had two rooms, ovens for food preparation and heating, storage sections and, beside previously listed objects, had an altar, grinding stones, cooking dishes and bucraniums,[2] the ox-shaped architectural ornaments made from unbaked earth.

This, and some other discoveries in Crkvine, tentatively point to the existence of upper floors in the houses, which the thicker plank walls could support.

[7] A naturally occurred crack split the remains of the house some time ago, which allowed for the archaeologists to check the construction of the floor in detail.

The yellow clay was then covered with the daub fragments which were reclaimed from some older, previously burned house.

It saved them time and resources as they didn't have to retrieve woods to make rolls and in the long-term heating of the house was easier.

[13] After the exploration of the house was finished, the remains were covered with geotextile fabric while all the elements above the floor level were furthermore protected with the sandbags.

Then, the entire house was covered with the layer of sand, 10 cm (3.9 in) thick, on top of which the protective plastic net was spread.

However, recent use of modern mapping and surveying technics showed that many settlements from this period had such trenches: Vinča itself, Uivar, Belovode, Đurića Vinogradi-Grabovac, etc.

Their body resembles the typical shape of Vinča figurines and the front seems to represent some kind of stylish dress.

While the figure is rather reduced and without detail, the tools are so meticulously done that they can clearly be identified as they are almost exact copies of the real objects.

[10] Due to their appearance, the figurines were jokingly compared to the La Linea animated character or nicknamed the "clay army".

The stone tools were found in two stratigraphic units, fitting the final phase of the Vinča culture.

The reasons may include the diminished areal of the Vinča culture in its final phase, but also the growing use of metal tools.

The material most probably came from the same source which was used by the population which inhabited the locality Kamenite Njive in Barajevo, also on Belgrade territory, and Šalitrena Cave in the village of Brežđe, near Valjevo.

As they are all found on one place, it was concluded that it was a sort of a landfill, where the waste materials and by-products of tool and pottery making were deposited.

They closely cooperated with other nearby Neolithic settlements: Grabovac, Zvečka, Jasenje (Baljevac) and another Stubline locality, Novo Selo.

The volcanic glass obsidian, originating from Hungary and Slovakia has been found, so as the seashells and snails from Greece, bowls from the valley of the Tisza river, etc.

[1] As Crkvine and the surrounding Neolithic settlements were compactly built, with relatively small distances between them and a population which corresponds to the modern number of inhabitants in the existing villages, the dwellers must had a well developed and sophisticated systems of division of resources (pastures, fields, water sources, hunting grounds, fishing zones).

However, the exact position of Crkvine as kind of a metropolis, compared to the other settlements as outer suburbs (a cell of the territorial organization), cannot be confirmed with certainty.

[1][6] After the collapse of Neolithic Crkvine, such large, architecturally planned and densely populated settlements did not develop in this area until the period of the Roman Empire.