Dnieper-Donets

Nok Culture

A valley in central Nigeria (Benue Plateau) associated with first iron-smelting people of West Africa and an Early Iron Age culture characterized by distinctive broken terra-cotta human and animal figures, some of them life-sized. Shallow pits with low surrounding walls served as furnaces for the...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Nok Culture

Kartan Culture

A group of stone assemblages with heavy core tools found on Kangaroo Island and the nearby peninsulas of South Australia, a variant of the Australian Core Tool and Scraper Tradition. Kangaroo Island, now separated from Australia by a 15-km strait, was joined to the mainland during the Pleistocene...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Kartan Culture

Mondsee Culture

A Copper Age / Eneolithic culture of Upper Austria's Alpine foothills, noted for its villages of pile-dwellings and for its decorated pottery with white-inlaid circles and stellar designs. The Mondsee people were the first to smelt the local copper ores and manufacture copper artifacts on a large...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Mondsee Culture

Lycia

Ancient kingdom of southwestern Anatolia (Turkey), located on the Mediterranean coast between Caria and Pamphylia and extending to the Taurus Mountains, with its capital in Xanthos. In the Amarna letters of the 14th-13th centuries BC, the Lycians are described as living between the Hittites on th...

archaeologsEnglishCultures, Regions

Lycia

Kunda Culture

The eastern Baltic variant of the Baltic Boreal and Atlantic climatic periods, c 7000-5000 BC, a Mesolithic culture named after the site of Kunda-Lammasmagi in Estonia. Most Kunda settlements are located at the edge of the forest, near rivers, lakes, and marshes. There was hunting of elk, seal, a...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Kunda Culture

Swiderian

Late Upper Palaeolithic industry of Poland known from sites such as Calowanie and Swidry Wielkie. They are associated with dune deposits dating to the end of the Pleistocene c 11,000-9000 BP. They are characterized by elongated tanged points, burins, and scrapers.

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Swiderian

Hamangia

A Late Neolithic culture of the Black Sea near the mouth of the Danube (Romania and Bulgaria) which was contemporaneous with the early periods of the Boian and Maritsa cultures. The culture was rather short-lived, c 4000-3700 BC and was succeeded by the Gumelnita culture. It is regarded by some a...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Hamangia

Aterian

A stone tool culture of the Middle and Late Palaeolithic, widespread in the late Pleistocene in northern Africa. Centered on the Atlas Mountains, but with extensions into Libya and deep into the Sahara, the Aterian people were among the first to use the bow and arrow. It appears to have developed...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Aterian

Petresti Culture

A Late Neolithic and Eneolithic culture of Transylvania, northwestern Romania, and dated to the early 4th millennium BC. Petresti settlement pattern is tell-based, with most occupations preceded by Early Vinca levels. The defining characteristic is a wide range of painted wares, bichrome and tric...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Petresti Culture

Obanian Culture

A group of kitchen midden settlements of the western Scottish coast, a Late Mesolithic culture (c 3065-3900 BC) named from Oban in Argyll. The sites are rock shelters and shell middens on post-glacial raised beaches. Diagnostic tools include barbed spears, some limpet-picks scoops), and antler ha...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Obanian Culture

Hsin-Tien Culture

A culture of northwest China in c 1500 BC based on farming and using handmade pottery and copper tools. The pottery was often painted with rudimentary scrolls.

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Hsin-Tien Culture

Rhône Culture

After the melting of the glaciers, Neolithic cultures established themselves in parts of the Rhône and Rhine valleys. The Rhône culture is the Swiss and east French counterpart of the Early Bronze Age cultures of central Europe. The metalwork and pottery are similar to those of the Straubing grou...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Rhône Culture

Kisapostag

An Early to Middle Bronze Age culture of western Hungary and Slovenia typologically contemporaneous with the late Unetice and Hatvan cultures. This Danube Valley culture dates to the early 2nd millennium BC, with a number of cemeteries in which inurned cremation is the characteristic rite. Kisapo...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Kisapostag

Machang

Late Neolithic culture of northwestern China belonging to the western or Gansu branch of the Yangshao Neolithic. It was contemporaneous with Longshan cultures of the east dating to 2800-1800 BC and seems to be a late stage or outgrowth of the Banshan culture and precedes Qijia. Machang pottery is...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Machang

Vadastra

Middle and Late Neolithic culture of southwest Rumania and northern Bulgaria in the late 5th millennium BC. The tell's stratigraphy includes an Aurignacian level, separated by a long hiatus from two Vadastra culture levels and a Salcuta culture level (early 4th millennium BC). There are large gra...

archaeologsEnglishCultures, Place Names

Vadastra

Picosa Culture

Late Archaic culture that began c 3000 BC in the American Southwest and is considered by some to be ancestral to the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon traditions. It was located in southern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, and southwestern New Mexico, as well as the Four Corners region.

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Picosa Culture

Füzesabony

The third stage of the early Hungarian Bronze Age, named after the Tószeg Tell in Heves. The Füzesabony culture of the 21st-19th centuries BC is the Hungarian version of the Transylvanian/Rumanian Otomani culture. Most known settlements are unfortified tells with wattle-and-daub timber-framed hou...

archaeologsEnglishCultures, Place Names

Füzesabony

Maritsa Culture

Late Neolithic culture of the eastern Balkans, contemporary with Vinca C, between 4000-3700 BC. It is characterized by the materials from Karanovo's Layer V, with dark pottery whose surface tended to be covered by either incised or excised lines which were filled with white paint after firing.

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Maritsa Culture

Banshan Pottery

Site of a Neolithic cemetery in the Tao River valley of china, the type site of the Banshan (or Pan-shan) culture which belongs to the western or Gansu branch of the Yangshao Neolithic. Banshan is best known for its painted pottery first found in a grave in 1923. Pan-shan ware is generally consid...

archaeologsEnglishCultures, Ancient Pottery

Banshan Pottery

Amorites

A branch of the Semites who were nomads in the Syrian desert and who overthrew the Sumerian civilization of Ur c 2000 BC and dominated Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine till c 1600 BC. In the oldest cuneiform sources (c 2400-2000 BC), the Amorites were equated with the West, though their true pla...

archaeologsEnglishNations, Cultures

Amorites

Circumpolar Cultures

A group of related cultures in the most northerly (Arctic) regions of Europe, including Siberia, and North America. These peoples lived north of the region where settled farming life was possible. Although contemporary with Neolithic and Bronze Age communities farther south, the circumpolar tribe...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Circumpolar Cultures

Pan-Grave Culture

Material culture of a group of semi-nomadic Nubian cattle herders who entered Egypt in the late Middle Kingdom (2055-1650 BC) and during the Second Intermediate Period (c 1633-1550 BC). They are well attested in Eastern Desert, the characteristic being shallow circular pit-graves with black-toppe...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Pan-Grave Culture

Levalloiso-Mousterian

A term used for the Mousterian cultures found at Mount Carmel, Jebel Qafzeh, Shanidar Cave, and other east Mediterranean sites. It was once thought that Levallois flakes signified a Levalloisian culture, while side scrapers indicated a Mousterian culture, and when the two were found together the ...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Levalloiso-Mousterian

Seine-Oise-Marne Culture

A Late Neolithic culture of the Paris basin of northeast France c 3400-2800 BC, named after three rivers. It is best known for its megalithic tombs of gallery-grave type (hypogées), semi-subterranean funerary houses, and allées couvertes. The megalithic tombs often include port-hole slabs. In the...

archaeologsEnglishCultures

Seine-Oise-Marne Culture

Grebeniki Culture

A Late Mesolithic culture situated between the Carpathians and the Dniester valley in the Ukraine c 6000 BC. It was succeeded by the Bug-Dniester complex c 5500 BC.

archaeologsEnglishCultures