Narva culture

The Narva culture was a semi- Neolithic culture in the 5th to 4th millennium BC ( Waldneolithikum ), which is found from Estonia in the north, via Latvia and Lithuania to the former East Prussia in the south. The Narva culture developed from the Mesolithic Kunda culture.

Name

The culture is named after localities on the banks of the Narva River, which forms the border between Estonia and Russia, according to Marija Gimbutas and was named after the city of Narva.

Characteristics

The economy of the Narva culture based on hunting and gathering. Finds of bone and antler artifacts prove the hunting of birds, fish, seals and land mammals. In particular, compared with the same time, south in the Nemunas culture played the flint no important role. There you will also find chopping, socketed and Handreibmühlen so that Pflanzbau seems possible. The culture knew the sound processing. A connection in the design of ceramic spitzbodigen seen with the comb ceramic culture.

Variants

At the time of the Corded Ware, pronounced as Haffküsten culture in East Prussia, two variants are distinguished:

• The northeastern variant seems to have remained autonomous. Maybe she was a member of the Uralic language family.
• The southwest has elements of time earlier Funnel Beaker culture and the later Corded Ware and the Kugelamphoren culture. Grace and Bley want to put the southwestern variant in relation to the Proto -Baltic, the forerunner of the Latvian, Lithuanian and Old Prussian, but this remains speculative. The largest so far been screened bene cemetery is the burial ground of Zvejnieki.