The Lengyel culture, is an archaeological culture

Archaeological culture

An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of artifacts from a specific time and place, which are thought to constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between the artifacts is based on archaeologists' understanding and interpretation and...

 of the European Neolithic, centered on the Middle Danube in Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

. It flourished during ca. 4000–3000 BC.
The eponymous type site is at Lengyel

Lengyel

----Lengyel is the highest inhabited village in Tolna County, Hungary. It is located between Bonyhád and Dombóvár.-Notable Aspects :*Apponyi manor house surrounded by 22 hectares of park with botanical rarities.*Kindergarten museum...

 in Tolna county, Hungary.

It was a successor to the Linear pottery culture

Linear Pottery culture

The Linear Pottery culture is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic, flourishing ca. 5500–4500 BC.It is abbreviated as LBK , is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, and falls within the Danubian I culture of V...

, and in its northern extent, overlapped the somewhat later but otherwise approximately contemporaneous Funnelbeaker culture

Funnelbeaker culture

The Funnelbeaker culture, short TRB from Trichterbecherkultur is the principal north central European megalithic culture of late Neolithic Europe.- Predecessor and successor cultures :...

.
Subgroups of the Lengyel horizon include the Austrian/Moravian Painted Ware I and II, Aichbühl, Jordanów/Jordanov/Jordansmühl, Schussenried, Gatersleben, etc.

It is a wide interaction sphere or cultural horizon rather than an archaeological culture in the narrow sense.
Its distribution overlaps with the Tisza culture

Tisza culture

The Tisza culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture of the Alföld plain in modern-day Hungary, dated to the 5th and 4th millennia BCE....

 and with Stroke-Ornamented Pottery (STK) as far north as Osłonki, central Poland.
Lengyel pottery was found in western Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, the Czech

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

 and Slovak

Slovakia

The Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...

 Republics, Austria

Lower Austria

Lower Austria is the northeasternmost state of the nine states in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria since 1986 is Sankt Pölten, the most recently designated capital town in Austria. The capital of Lower Austria had formerly been Vienna, even though Vienna is not officially part of Lower Austria...

, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, and in the Sopot culture of the northern parts of Former Yugoslavia

Former Yugoslavia

The former Yugoslavia is a term used to describe the present day states which succeeded the collapse of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia....

.
Influence in pottery styles is found even further afield, in parts of Germany and Switzerland.

Agriculture and stock raising (mainly cattle, but also pigs, and to a lesser extent, ovicaprids) was practiced, though a large number of wild faunal remains have also been recovered. Settlements consisted of small houses as well as trapezoid longhouses

Long house

A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building built by peoples in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe and North America....

. These settlements were sometimes open, sometimes surrounded by a defensive ditch.

Inhumation was in separate cemeteries, in the flexed position with apparently no preference for which side the deceased was laid out in.

Lengyel sites of the later period show signs of the use of copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 in form of beads and hammered ribbons, marking the dawn of the Chalcholithic

Chalcolithic Europe

Chalcolithic Europe, the Chalcolithic period of Prehistoric Europe lasts roughly 3500 to 1700 BC.It is the period of Megalithic culture, the appearance of the first significant economic stratification, and probably the earliest presence of Indo-European speakers.The economy of the Chalcolithic,...

 period in Europe.

It was associated with the cover-term Old Europe by Marija Gimbutas

Marija Gimbutas

Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...

, though may have been undergone "kurganization" by the Proto-Indo-Europeans

Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , a reconstructed prehistoric language of Eurasia.Knowledge of them comes chiefly from the linguistic reconstruction, along with material evidence from archaeology and archaeogenetics...

 and become integrated into the successor Globular Amphora culture

Globular Amphora culture

The Globular Amphora Culture , German Kugelamphoren-Kultur , ca. 3400-2800 BC, is an archaeological culture preceding the central area occupied by the Corded Ware culture. Somewhat to the south and west, it was bordered by the Baden culture. To the northeast was the Narva culture. It occupied much...

.

External links

• The Lengyel Culture Sphere by Maximilian O. Baldia