Cernavodă culture
The Cernavodă culture, ca. 4000—3200 BC, was a late Copper Age archaeological culture. It was along the lower Eastern Bug River and Danube and along the coast of the Black Sea and somewhat inland, generally in present-day Romania and Bulgaria. It is named after the Romanian town of Cernavodă.
It is a successor to and occupies much the same area as the earlier neolithic Karanovo culture, for which a destruction horizon seems to be evident. It is 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 thought to be ancestral to the Usatovo culture.
It is characterized by defensive hilltop settlements. The pottery shares traits with that found further east on the southern Russian steppes; burials similarly bear a resemblance to those further east.
See also
- Bronze Age in Romania
- Coțofeni culture
- Basarabi culture
- Otomani culture
- Pecica culture
- Wietenberg culture
- Hamangia culture
- Prehistory of Transylvania
- Prehistoric Romania
Notes
References
- J. P. Mallory, "Cernavoda Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.