Culture

As used by archaeologists, the term has two separate meanings. In the more general sense it refers to everything that man does that derives from ‘nurture rather than nature’ (V.G. Childe), that is, behaviour that is learned rather than genetically controlled. An alternative definition of culture ...

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Circumpolar Cultures

Alternatively labelled Arctic Stone Age, these cultures are found in the most northerly regions of Eurasia. The population remained hunter-gatherers long after farming had been established further south, exploiting food sources such as elk, reindeer and seal. In some areas, a lively rock art is f...

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Butmir

As with many type sites excavated in the early 20th century and before, Butmir, situated near Sarajevo in Bosnia, Yugoslavia, is not characteristic of the whole of the Butmir culture. The site represents a classic, or late, phase of the culture, defined by richly decorated ceramics (especially sp...

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Baden Culture

A 3rd millennium be Copper Age culture group of vast extent, covering northern Yugoslavia, all of Hungary, most of Czechoslovakia, southern Poland and part of the east Alpine zone. On the basis of E. Neustupny’s radiocarbon chronology, the Baden culture is divided into three phases : Early (2750-...

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Baden Culture

Aterian

Widely distributed Upper Pleistocene stone industry of northern Africa. It appears to have developed, perhaps initially in the Maghreb of Algeria and Morocco, from the local Mousterian tradition. The date at which the Aterian first appeared is not well attested, but may have been c80,000 bc. The ...

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Apennine Bronze Age

The main Bronze Age culture of the Italian peninsula, lasting from c2000 to c800 BC. It is marked by its distinctive pottery, dark and highly burnished, and decorated with incised and punctuated bands. The handles are elaborate and include tongue, homed and crestéd types. It is often claimed that...

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Apennine Bronze Age

Anglo-Saxon

Broad term used to describe the majority of the Germanic peoples who settled in England during the 5th and 6th centuries. The name derives from two specific groups — the Angles of Jutland and the Saxons from northern Germany — who were probably among the migrants. Earlier archaeological work conc...

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Anglo-Saxon

Andronovo

Culture of southern Siberia of the 2nd millennium BC, which succeeded the Afanasievo culture in the same area. The population practised farming — cultivating wheat and millet and breeding cattle, sheep and horses — and lived in settlements of up to ten large semi-subterranean houses of logcabin c...

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Andronovo

Amorites

An Akkadian word meaning ‘the west’, referring to a group of nomadic tribes in the area west of Mesopotamia. Inscriptions attribute to them the downfall of the Ur III Dynasty in the late 3rd millennium bc, but other texts maintain that they lived peacefully among Babylonians. Economics might orig...

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Afanasievo

Culture of southern Siberia, probably beginning in the late 3rd millennium bc. The Afanasievo people were the first foodproducers in the area, breeding cattle, sheep and horses, but also practising hunting. There is no direct evidence of agriculture, but it may have been practised. Most known sit...

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Afanasievo

Marpole Culture

An archaeological complex in Canada, dating c 500 BC-1500 AD; the type site is at the mouth of the Fraser River in British Columbia. Its distinctive traits include flaked-stone points, microblades, ground-slate points and fish knives, and disc beads of shell and shale. Antler was used for barbed ...

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Marpole Culture

Linear Pottery Culture

The earliest Neolithic culture of central Europe, western Ukraine to eastern France, between c 4500-3900 BC. It is so named after curvilinear incised patterns which make its pottery so recognizable. This was the first farming culture in central Europe, based on grain cultivation and domesticated ...

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Linear Pottery Culture

Tagar Culture

Culture in south Siberia in the region of Minusinsk c 700-200/100 BC. The Bronze Age Karasuk culture was replaced by the Tagar culture, which endured until the 2nd century BC, producing an art of animal motifs related to that of the Scythians of southern European Russia. They also had broad dagge...

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Tagar Culture

Rivnac Culture

Eneolithic culture of Bohemia (now Czech Republic) with small ditched and palisaded sites (Homolka) of the late 3rd millennium BC. The culture is related to the Baden culture to the southeast.

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Rivnac Culture

Culture Area

Major anthropological subdivisions of the North American continent, characterized by relatively uniform environments and relatively similar cultures. It is a geographical region in which general cultural homogeneity is to be found, defined by ethnographically observed cultural similarities within...

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Culture Area

Fenbitou

A site and Neolithic culture on the southwestern coast of Taiwan, dating to 2400-1800 BC.

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Fenbitou

Afanasievo Culture

A Neolithic culture of the Yenisei valley of southern Siberia. The people, who were stock breeders and hunters, probably moved into the area in the late 3rd millennium BC. Excavations uncovered burials under kurgans (low mounds), surrounded by circular stone walls. There was stamped dentate potte...

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Afanasievo Culture

Culture Core

Technological, organizational, and ideological features most directly related to meeting the most important material needs of a society.

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Culture Core

Sredni Stog Culture

Early Eneolithic culture of the Dnepr basin of the Ukraine, c late 4th and early 3rd millennia BC with settlements and cemeteries. It preceded the Yamnaya culture (Late Eneolithic) and was important in the domestication of the horse.

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Sredni Stog Culture

Samarran Culture Complex

Cultural phase of east-central Irqu along the Tigris River which dates to the second half of the 6th and early 5th millennium BC, with sites such as Tell es Sawwan and Choga Mami. There are three phases of the complex: Early Samarran with coarse ware decorated by incision, Middle Samarran with pa...

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Samarran Culture Complex

Unetice

Early Bronze Age culture centered on Bohemia, Bavaria, Germany, Poland, and Moravia, named after a type site cemetery north of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Characteristic metal objects include ingot torcs, lock rings, various pins, flanged axes, riveted daggers, and the halberd. Regional groups includ...

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Unetice

Veterov Culture

Early Bronze Age culture of Moravia with a material culture of the Hungarian Early Bronze Age and the Unetice culture of Bohemia.

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Veterov Culture

Kassites

A people of the central Zagros mountains who occupied Babylon after the Hittite raid c 1595 BC and who had a distinctive culture and language. Their occupation ended with the city's conquest by Assyria and Elam c 1157 BC. The Kassites may or may not have been Indo-Europeans, but their rulers were...

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Kassites

Culture

In a general sense, the whole way of life of man as a species. In a more specific usage, it is the learned behavior, social customs, ideas, and technology characteristic of a certain people or civilization at a particular time or over a period of time (such as Eskimo culture). In this sense, a cu...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Culture

Catacomb Grave Culture

The second in the Kurgan culture series, after Yamnaya and before Srubnaya, in southern Russia and Ukraine between the Dniepr and Volga rivers. It is dated between c 2000-1500 bc (Bronze Age). The graves are not true catacombs but rather burials in which the skeleton and grave goods are put in a ...

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Catacomb Grave Culture

Deverel-Rimbury Culture

A Bronze Age culture of southern Britain of the 15th-12th centuries BC. It was named after two sites in Dorset, and was characterized by Celtic fields, nucleated small farmsteads and palisaded cattle enclosures, and by inurned cremations, either in flat urnfields or under low barrows. The distinc...

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Deverel-Rimbury Culture

Tartessos

Early trading kingdom at the mouth of the Guadalquivir Valley in southwestern Spain, site of a semi-mythical city referred to by ancient writers as a source of gold, silver, tin, and lead. Tartessos, in fact, was the late Bronze Age society that included the mines of the Río Tinto in its territor...

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Tartessos

Basarabi Culture

An Iron Age culture of cemeteries and settlement sites over much of Romania with its type site on the Danube. It is a local version of the Hallstatt culture, dating to 975-850 BC.

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