 | Corded Ware culture: Encyclopedia II - Corded Ware culture - Subgroups
Corded Ware culture - Subgroups
The core group spread its pottery nearly everywhere.
Corded Ware culture - Corded Ware culture
The prototypal Corded Ware culture, German Schnurkeramikkultur is found in Central Europe, mainly Germany and Poland, and refers to the characteric pottery of the era: wet clay was decoratively incised with cordage, i.e., string. It is known mostly from its burials, and both sexes received the characteristic cord-decorated pottery. Whether made of flax or hemp, they had rope.
Corded Ware culture - Swedish-Norwegian Battle Axe culture
The Swedish-Norwegian Battle Axe culture, or the Boat Axe culture, appeared ca. 2800 BC and is known from about 3000 graves from Skåne to Uppland and Trøndelag. The time of its appearance and spread over Scandinavia has been called the Age of the crushed skulls, because from this time there are many finds of buried people with crushed skulls and not only men, but also many women and children (Lindquist 1993:43). Its introduction was violent and fast, and a very likely candidate for an Indo-European (and specifically earliest-Germanic) invasion.
About 3000 battle axes have been found, in sites distributed over all of Scandinavia, but they are sparse in Norrland and northern Norway. Less than 100 settlements are known, and their remains are negligible as they are located on continually used farmland, and have consequently been plowed away. Einar Østmo reports sites inside the Arctic Circle in the Lofoten Islands, and as far north as the present city of Tromsø.
It was based on the same agricultural practices as the previous Funnelbeaker culture, but the appearance of metal changed the social sysem. This is marked by the fact that the Funnelbeaker culture had collective megalithic graves with a great deal of sacrifices to the graves, but the Battle Axe culture has individual graves with individual sacrifices.
A new aspect was given to the culture in 1993, when a death house in Turinge, in Södermanland was excavated. Along the once heavily timbered walls were found the remains of about twenty clay vessels, six work axes and a battle axe, which all came from the last period of the culture. There were also the cremated remains of at least six people. This is the earliest find of cremation in Scandinavia and it shows close contacts with Central Europe.
In the context of the entry of Germanic into the region, Einar Østmo emphasizes that the Atlantic and North Sea coastal regions of Scandinavia, and the circum-Baltic areas were united by a vigorous maritime economy, permitting a far wider geographical spread and a closer cultural unity than interior continental cultures could attain. He points to the widely disseminated number of rock carvings assigned to this era, which display "thousands" of ships. To sea-faring cultures like this one, the sea is a highway and not a divider.
Corded Ware culture - Finnish Battle Axe culture
The Finnish Battle Axe culture was primarily a hunter-gatherer culture, and one of the few in this horizon to provide rich finds from settlements.
Corded Ware culture - Middle Dnieper and Fatyanovo-Balanovo cultures
Main articles: Middle Dnieper culture and Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture.
The eastern outposts of the Corded Ware culture are the Middle Dnieper culture and on the upper Volga, the Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture. The Middle Dnieper culture has very scant remains, but occupies the easiest route into Central and Northern Europe from the steppe.
Other related archives1800 BC, 1993, 2300 BC, 2800 BC, 2900 BC, 3200 BC, Arctic Circle, Baden, Baltic States, Beaker culture, Beaker people, Belarus, Bell-Beaker folk, Centum, Czech Republic, Denmark, Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture, Finland, Funnelbeaker culture, Germanic substrate hypothesis, Germany, Globular Amphora, Globular Amphora culture, Indo-European, Indo-European languages, Inhumation, J. P. Mallory, Kurgan hypothesis, Lofoten Islands, Marija Gimbutas, Middle Dnieper culture, Mjolnir, Narva culture, Nationalencyklopedin, Neolithic, Neolithic Europe, Nordic Bronze Age, Norrland, Norway, Old Europe, Poland, Proto-Balto-Slavic, Proto-Celtic, Proto-Germanic, Proto-Indo-European language, Proto-Italic, Rhine River, Russia, Skåne, Slovakia, Sweden, Södermanland, Tromsø, Trøndelag, Ukko, Ukraine, Unetice culture, Uppland, Urheimat, Volga River, Yamna culture, archaeological cultures, battle axe, battle-axe, bronze age, copper age, cremation, hunter-gatherer, megalithic, rope, stone age, tarpan, tumuli
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