Despite a foraging economy, stages at this site dated at c. 6300–6000 BCE have been described as "the first city in Europe",[4][5][6] due to its permanency, organisation, as well as the sophistication of its architecture and construction techniques.

Improvements in archaeological techniques have led to increasingly accurate findings and more information of the location and people who inhabited the Iron Gates during the Mesolithic period.

The chronology of the Iron Gates Mesolithic is a bit contentious due to discrepancies in use of terminology and dates produced by carbon-dating and isotope analysis.

[13] A 2017 doctoral thesis published by University of Mainz and 2018 study published in Nature included an analysis of a large number of individuals from the Iron Gates Mesolithic (from Lepenski Vir, Ajmana, Hajdučka Vodenica, Padina, Velešnica, Vlasac in Serbia and Cuina Turcului, Icoana, Ostrovul Corbului, Schela Cladovei in Romania) dating from 9500 BC to 5500 BC.

[18] The regular findings of fish bones in the Iron Gates, combined with the increased nitrogen isotopes when compared to other communities in Europe, reveal the people's dependence on the marine life for food.

The people of the Iron Gates have sometimes been found to have objects with them in their graves, including animal and human skulls, antlers, tools and body ornaments.

The most notable object found in burials are marine shells and carp pharyngeal teeth beads, which were worn on clothes.

[11] The Lepenski Vir site shows many of these examples, with these artworks made from course grained sandstone pebbles and rocks, revealing carvings of heads, shells and several recurring motifs such as meanders, fishbone and plaits.

Beads and pendants made from bone and antler have been found with buried skeletons, as well as pharyngeal teeth from fish and red-deer canines, which were sewn onto cloth and leather and thus worn.

[19][20][21] Technology in the Mesolithic era of the Iron Gates region consisted mostly of various tools and weapons made from bone, red-deer antlers and boar tusks.

[12] Tools dated to the Late Mesolithic included hoes, awls, arrowheads, and scrapers all of which were made from the materials mentioned above.

[22] Evidence from burials and artefacts have revealed that the people inhabiting the Iron Gates Mesolithic did have contact with other groups.

Evidence of trade or some sort of exchange is seen through the presence of marine shells which are found in the Adriatic or Aegean seas, which most likely wasn't gathered by the Iron Gates people themselves.