Zarubintsy culture
Encyclopedia
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
along the upper and middle Dnieper and Pripyat River
Pripyat River
The Pripyat River or Prypiat River is a river in Eastern Europe, approximately long. It flows east through Ukraine, Belarus, and Ukraine again, draining into the Dnieper....
s, stretching west towards the Southern Bug
Southern Bug
The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh), is a river located in Ukraine. The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes...
river. Zarubintsy sites were particularly dense between the Rivers Desna
Desna River
Desna is a river in Russia and Ukraine, left tributary of the Dnieper. The word means "right hand" in the Old East Slavic language. Its length is , and its drainage basin covers ....
and Ros as well as along the Pripyat river. It was identified around 1899 by the Czech republic
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....
-Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
archaeologist V. V. Chvojka and is now attested by about 500 sites. The culture was named after finds cremated remains in the village of Zarubintsy, on the Dnieper.
The Zarubintsy culture was of mixed origins, influenced by the La Tène culture
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....
, Germano
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
-Celtic settlers (The Bastarnae
Bastarnae
The Bastarnae or Basternae were an ancient Germanic tribe,, who between 200 BC and 300 AD inhabited the region between the eastern Carpathian mountains and the Dnieper river...
and the Scirii
Scirii
The Scirii were an East Germanic tribe of Eastern Europe, attested in historical works between the 2nd century BC and 5th century AD.The etymology of their name is unclear...
) and the nomads of the steppe
Steppe
In physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
s (the Scythians and the Sarmatians
Sarmatians
The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....
). The Scythian and Sarmatian influence is evident, especially in pottery
Pottery
Pottery is the material from which the potteryware is made, of which major types include earthenware, stoneware and porcelain. The place where such wares are made is also called a pottery . Pottery also refers to the art or craft of the potter or the manufacture of pottery...
, weapon
Weapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...
ry, domestic objects and personal. From the 3rd century and onwards, the culture was overrun by the Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
and became part of the Chernyakhov culture
Chernyakhov culture
The Sântana de Mureș–Chernyakhiv culture is the name given to an archaeological culture which flourished between the 2nd and 5th centuries in a wide area of Eastern Europe, specifically in what today constitutes Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, and parts of Belarus...
.
Settlements
The bearers of the culture engaged in agriculture, documented by numerous finds of sickles. Pobol suggested that the culture experienced a transition from swidden ('slash-and-burn') to plough-type cultivation. In addition, they raised animals. Remains included sheep, goat, cattle, horses and swine. There is evidence they also traded wild animal skins with Black Sea towns.Some sites were defended by ditches and banks, structures thought to have been built to defend against nomadic tribes from the steppe. Dwellings were either of surface or semi-subterranean types, with posts supporting the walls, a hearth in the middle, and large conic pits located nearby.
Burials
Inhabitants practiced cremation. Cremated remains were either placed in large, hand-made ceramic urns, or were placed in a large pit and surrounded by food and ornaments such as spiral bracelets and Middle to Late La-Tene type fibulae.Decline
The disintegration of the Zarubintsy culture has been linked with the emigration of its population is several directions. Density of settlements in the central region decrease, as late Zarubintsy groups appear radially, especially southward into the forest-steppe regions of the middle Dnieper, Desna and southern Donets rivers. Influences upon local cultures in the east Carpathian/ Podolia region, as well as, to a lesser extent, north into the forest zone are also evident. The movement of Zarubintsy groups has been linked with to an increasingly arid climate, whereby the population left the hillforts on high promontories and moved to southward into river valleys. This mostly southern movement brought them closer to westward moving SarmatianSarmatians
The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....
groups (from the Don region) and Thracian
Thracians
The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...
-Celtic elements. By the 3rd century AD, central late Zarubintsy sites 're-arranged' into the so-called Kiev culture
Kiev culture
The Kiev culture is an archaeological culture dating from about the 3rd to 5th centuries, named after Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. The dwellings are overwhelmingly of the semi-subterranean type, common among earlier Germanic tribes like the Scirii and Bastarnae, and later in Slavic cultures...
, whilst the westernmost areas were integrated into the Wielbark culture.
See also
- Chernyakhov cultureChernyakhov cultureThe Sântana de Mureș–Chernyakhiv culture is the name given to an archaeological culture which flourished between the 2nd and 5th centuries in a wide area of Eastern Europe, specifically in what today constitutes Ukraine, Romania, Moldova, and parts of Belarus...
Sources and external links
- J. P. Mallory, "Zarubintsy Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European CultureEncyclopedia of Indo-European CultureThe Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture is an encyclopedia of Indo-European studies and the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The encyclopedia was edited by J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams and published in 1997 by Fitzroy Dearborn...
, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997. - The Early Germans
- The Slavs in Antiquity
- The Early Slavs. Eastern Europe from the Initial Settlement to the Kievan Rus. Pavel M Dolukhanov. Longman. 1996. Pages 148-151.
- Andrew Villen Bell, Andrew Bell-Fialkoff. The role of migration in the history of the Eurasian steppe: sedentary civilization vs. "barbarian" and nomad . Palgrave Macmillan, 2000. ISBN 0-312-21207-0