Cernavoda culture
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Cernavoda culture, ca. 4000—3200 BC, a late copper age archaeological culture of the lower Bug River and Danube located along the coast of the Black Sea and somewhat inland. It is named after the Romanian town of Cernavodă.
It is a successor to and occupies much the same area of the earlier neolithic Gumelniţa culture, for which a destruction horizon seems to be evident.
It is characterized by defensive hilltop settlements. The pottery shares characteristics with that found further east on the (Indo-European) Steppe. Burials similarly bear a resemblance to those further east.
Within the context of the Kurgan hypothesis, it is seen as "kurganized" hybrid culture combining older non-Indo-European elements with intrusive, explicitly Indo-European elements.
It is considered part of the "Balkan-Danubian complex" that stretches up the entire length of the river, and into northern Germany via the Elbe and the Baden culture. Its northeastern portion is said to be ancestral the Usatovo culture.
In later times, the region is linguistically Dacian and Thracian.
Sources
- J. P. Mallory, "Cernavoda Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
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