Corded Ware culture

The Corded Ware culture, alternatively characterized as the Battle Axe culture or Single Grave culture is an enormous European archaeological horizon that begins in the late Neolithic (stone age), flourished through the copper age and finally culminates in the early bronze age, developing in various areas from ca. 3200 BC/2900 BC to ca. 2300 BC/1800 BC. With the Yamna culture, it represents the introduction of metal into Northern Europe, and possibly an early expansion of the Indo-European family of languages.

Extent

It encompassed most of continental northern Europe from the Rhine River on the west, to the Volga River in the east, including most of modern-day Germany, Denmark, Poland, the Baltic States, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, northern Ukraine, western Russia, as well as coastal Norway and the southern portions of Sweden and Finland.

The somewhat later Beaker culture was contemporaneous. It is succeeded by a number of bronze age cultures, among them the Unetice culture (Central Europe), ca 2300 BC, and by the Nordic Bronze Age, a culture of Scandinavia and northernmost Germany-Poland, ca 1800 BC.

Nomenclature

It receives its name Corded Ware from its characteristic pottery, Single Grave from its burial custom, and Battle Axe from its characteristic grave offering to males, a stone battle axe (which was by this time an inefficient weapon but a traditional status symbol).

Origins and development

Considering its immense, continental expanse, it clearly represents a fusion of earlier archaeological cultures of varying degrees of relatedness, probably led by intrusive elements from the east and south. It does not represent a single monolithic entity, but rather a diffusion of technological and cultural innovations. The fact that the Globular Amphora culture simultaneously overlies much of the same area as of the Corded Ware culture proves this. Different peoples, living in close proximity to each other at the same time really did leave different archaeological remains.

In the circum-Baltic and more westwards coastal Scandinavian areas, there is clear evidence of a maritime economy, where the sea has to be seen as a uniting element, much as the Aegean Sea united the Greeks.

In the west, it involves all of the area and is an obvious but not necessarily the only successor of the earlier Funnelbeaker culture. In the area of the present Baltic states and Kaliningrad Oblast (former East Prussia), it is seen as an intrusive successor to the southwestern portion of the Narva culture. Elsewhere, however, particularly in its eastern extent, it is a new presence, not really associated with any earlier culture.

Economy

There are very few settlements, but it has been shown that agriculture was practiced, a continuation from the Funnelbeaker culture era, and that some domestic animals were kept. The majority, however, seemed to have followed a fully-or semi-nomadic pastoral way of life. Wheeled vehicles (presumptively drawn by cattle) are evidenced. The horse, perhaps-to-probably domesticated, is represented by the tarpan.

There is evidence that cattle were being used for traction and that cows' milk was used systematically from 3400 BC onwards in the northern Alpine foreland. Sheep were kept more frequently in the western part of Switzerland due to the stronger Mediterranean influence. Changes in slaughter age and animal size are possibly evidence for sheep being kept for their wool at Corded Ware sites in this region.

Graves

Inhumation was characteristically done one metre/one yard deep, without any marks, in a flexed position; males lay on their right side, females on the left, with the faces of both oriented to the south. Originally, there was probably a wooden construction, since the graves are often positioned in a line. Many are also marked with small tumuli. Grave goods for men typically included a stone battle-axe. The approximately contemporary Beaker culture had similar burial traditions, and together they covered most of Western and Central Europe. While broadly related to the Corded Ware culture, the origins of the Bell-Beaker folk are considerably more obscure, and represent one of the mysteries of European pre-history.

Language

The Corded Ware culture was long pointed to as the cultural horizon best fitting the description for the Urheimat (original homeland) of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language. This people would have originated on the North German plain, then moved outwards. This viewpoint was still reflected in even some relatively recent literature, but has now been essentially supplanted by the work of Marija Gimbutas and her energetic propounding of the Kurgan hypothesis.

The role of the Corded Ware culture in the history of the Indo-European languages is actively debated but not denied. The Corded Ware people are mostly seen as ancestral to Proto-Balto-Slavic in its eastern regions, and to the Centum dialects (i.e. Proto-Germanic, Proto-Celtic and Proto-Italic) in the western parts.

The Corded Ware culture may in terms of Gimbutas' theory also be seen as a "kurganized" culture that emerged out of Neolithic Europe. The origin of this "kurganization" or Indo-Europeanization would be the approximately contemporaneous and overlapping Globular Amphora (ca. 3400-2800 BC) and Baden (ca. 3600-2800 BC) cultures, a process described by Gimbutas as the second wave of the Kurgan culture "invasion". See also Germanic substrate hypothesis. In its earlier phase, it was likely a largely non-Indo-European entity, a part of what Gimbutas termed Old Europe. In its subsequent phases, it clearly became progressively more Indo-European in character, and at the end, quite strongly so.

Subgroups

The core group spread its pottery nearly everywhere.

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.

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 system. 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.

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.

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. If the association of Batle Axe cultures with Indo-European languages is to prove correct, then Fatyanovo would be a culture with an Indo-Uropean superstrata over an Uralic substrata, and may account for some of the linguistic borrowings identified in the Indo-Uralic thesis.

Sources

J. P. Mallory, "Corded Ware Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
Einar Østmo, "The Indo-European Question: a Norwegian perspective", pp. 23-41, in The Indo-Europeanization of Northern Europe, Martin E. Huld & Karlene Jones-Bley editors, Journal of Indo-European Studies Monograph No. 17, Institute for the Study of Man, Washington, DC, 1996.
Lindquist, H. Historien om Sverige, 1993.
Nationalencyklopedin
Schibler, J. 2006. The economy and environment of the 4th and 3rd millennia BC in the northern Alpine foreland based on studies of animal bones. Environmental Archaeology 11(1): 49-64

External links

The transition from the Copper Age to the Early Bronze Age at the north-western edge of the Carpathian basin Volker Heyd & Francois Bertemes 2002
Corded Ware Culture Sites in North-Eastern Estonia Aivar Kriiska

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Corded Ware culture

Extent

Nomenclature

Origins and development

Economy

Graves

Language

Subgroups

Corded Ware culture

Swedish-Norwegian Battle Axe culture

Finnish Battle Axe culture

Middle Dnieper and Fatyanovo-Balanovo cultures

See also

Sources

External links