Narva culture
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Narva culture, ca. 5th to 4th millennium BC, an archaeological culture found in present-day Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Kaliningrad Oblast (former East Prussia), and adjacent portions of Poland and Russia. It is said to be a successor of the mesolithic Kunda culture. Named after the Narva River, it encompasses the whole of the European Neolithic down to the start of the bronze age. The technology was that of flint-based hunter-gatherers, with pottery related to the Pit-Comb Ware culture.
By the time of the Corded Ware culture, two distinct variants are recognized, one to the northeast, and another in the southwest, with the latter displaying characteristics of the earlier Funnelbeaker culture and then Corded Ware and Globular Amphora cultural elements, all of which may be seen as intrusive, and possibly, short-lived.
The northeastern variant seems to have remained largely independent: the impression is that this northeastern version was autochthonous.
The southwestern elements, then, can perhaps be identified with the earliest stratum of Baltic Indo-European culture, and ancestral to the Latvians, Lithuanians, and the now-extinct Old Prussians.
[edit] Sources
- 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; these three articles:
- Algirdas Girinikas, "The Narva Culture and the Origin of the Baltic Culture", pp. 42-47.
- Rimute Rimantiene & Gintautas Cesnys, "The Pan-European Corded Ware Horizon (A-Horizon) and the Pamariu (Baltic Coastal) Culture", pp. 48-53.
- Ilze Loze, "Some Remarks about the Indo-Europeanization of the Northern Baltic Europe (in the Case of the Eastern Baltic Region)". pp. 59-77.
