Hinkelstein culture

Map of Germany showing important sites that were occupied in the Hinkelstein culture (clickable map).
Hinkelstein culture
Geographical range Europe
Period Neolithic Europe
Dates circa 5,000 B.C.E. — circa 4,900 B.C.E.
Major sites Rhine-Main, Rhenish Hesse
Preceded by Linear Pottery culture

The Hinkelstein culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture situated in Rhine-Main and Rhenish Hesse, Germany. It is a Megalithic culture, part of the wider Linear Pottery horizon, dating to approximately the 50th to 49th century BC.

The culture's name is due to a suggestion of Karl Koehl of Worms (1900). Hinkelstein is the term for menhir in the local Hessian dialect, after a menhir discovered in 1866 in Monsheim. Hinkel is a Hessian term for "chicken"; the Standard German name for menhirs, Hünenstein "giants' stone", having sometimes been jokingly mutated into Hühnerstein "chicken-stone".

References

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