The archaeological researches that lasted four decades discovered the oldest permanent human settlement in Europe (approx. 9,000 years ago). The region was inhabited ever since the Epipalaeolithic Age and it is considered the most precious level from the documentary-historic point of view.

The Schela Cladovei-Lepenski Vir culture describes a well defined civilization, Danubian, dating from 7,000-5,000 BC developing on many stages.

During the researches, there were discovered houses, ritual dwellings and tombs. According to this stage of sedentary life there were discovered agricultural tools (weed hooks and planting tools of stag horns).

The representatives of this culture had rectangular homes, fireplaces for heating and cooking, ritual dwellings and practiced funerals of inhumation near the house. Their activities were plants primitive cultivation and hunting. The main tools were made of silex, quarts and especially of bone. Their artistic manifestations consisted especially of geometric incisions on different bone objects used as amulets or pendants. Interesting is the fact that this settlement seems to be at least till now the oldest permanent human settlement destroyed in an armed conflict.

During the researches there were discovered more than 60 tombs of inhumation. Due to the raw meat consumption, the deceased skeletons seem to be of giants (they usually measured more than 1.90 m height). Such a tomb is preserved in the Iron Gates Region Museum.

In the same museum are placed the anthropological reconstitutions made by the Romanian savant Cantemir Rişcuţia of some skulls belonging to the inhabitants of this epi-palaeolithic community.

The archaeological findings reveal that the settlement was uninterrupted from the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the first period from the Iron Age.

The Dacian population from here had business links with the Greek world. From Roman times, the Danube destroyed some graves. In 1984 a treasure of coins and feudal ornaments was discovered at Schela Cladovei.