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| Lengyel culture | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lengyel culture |
| Region | Central Europe |
| Period | Neolithic to Chalcolithic |
| Dates | c. 5000–4000 BC |
| Preceded by | Linear Pottery culture, Starčevo culture, Vinča culture |
| Followed by | Funnelbeaker culture, Baden culture, Globular Amphora culture |
Lengyel culture was a major Neolithic and Chalcolithic archaeological horizon in Central Europe, noted for its distinctive pottery, longhouses, and funerary traditions. It formed part of broader Neolithic networks that connected the Danube River, Carpathian Basin, and the North European Plain, interacting with contemporaneous phenomena such as the Linear Pottery culture, Vinča culture, and the Baden culture. Archaeological research has integrated data from settlements, cemeteries, and hoards recovered in regions associated with the culture, informing debates linked to demography, social complexity, and long-distance exchange.
The culture emerged amid interactions among populations in the Carpathian Basin, Transdanubia, and southern Poland after the spread of early farming from the Balkans and along the Danubian expansion. Key archaeological sequences involve material assemblages discovered at type-sites and regional centers that link to sites such as Aszód, Polgár, Bratislava-suburbs, and Brno. Research has involved scholars associated with institutions like the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Hungarian National Museum, and has drawn on methods developed by teams working on the Linear Pottery culture and the Funnelbeaker culture.
Chronological frameworks compare radiocarbon dates from longhouses, hearths, and cremation deposits to seriation of decorated ceramics. Phases commonly referenced correspond to early, middle, and late sequences that overlap with the decline of the Linear Pottery culture and the rise of the Baden culture and Globular Amphora culture. Debates about chronology engage datasets from sites excavated by archaeologists such as Václav Petřík, Károly Kerényi, and teams led by researchers at the Institute of Archaeology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Jagiellonian University.
Core areas span parts of present-day Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and western Ukraine. Settlement patterns include small nucleated villages, occasional larger sites, and isolated farmsteads documented near rivers like the Vistula, Oder, and the Tisza. Excavated settlements at locations such as Tiszaszőlős-Remete-dűlő, Szekszárd, and Brzesc Kujawski reveal house plans comparable to those in assemblages from Starčevo, Kőrös culture, and Sopot culture contexts, and show connectivity with exchange routes linking to the Aegean and the Carpathians.
Distinctive material culture includes painted and incised pottery, corded ware features, anthropomorphic figurines, stone polished axes, flint blades, and copper artifacts that attest to early metallurgy. Ceramic typologies show links to decorated wares from Vinča sites and later affinities with the Baden culture and Funnelbeaker culture. Metal objects, including copper awls and axes, connect to mining and exchange networks associated with regions such as the Alps, the Eastern Alps, and the Serbian mining areas near Rocks of Majdanpek. Lithic production shows transmission of knapping techniques found in assemblages from Linear Pottery culture workshops and flint sources like Kashubia and the Czech Republic.
Subsistence was mixed farming with domesticated cereals, pulses, cattle, sheep, goat, and swine, supplemented by hunting and freshwater fishing in rivers like the Danube and Vistula. Botanical and faunal analyses from sites excavated by teams affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the Institute of Archaeology of the Polish Academy of Sciences indicate crop processing, foddering strategies, and seasonal mobility similar to those inferred for Linear Pottery culture and Funnelbeaker culture farming systems. Exchange of prestige goods, raw materials, and finished items linked communities to long-distance routes reaching the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, and the Aegean Sea.
Mortuary evidence includes inhumations and isolated shaft graves, with both single and multiple interments, accompanied by pottery, personal ornaments, and rare metal objects. Cemetery sites provide data for discussions led by scholars connected to the British Museum, the National Museum in Prague, and the Polish Academy of Sciences about kinship, status differentiation, and ritual. Comparisons are made with burial rites at Varna culture sites, the later Corded Ware culture, and contemporaneous practices in the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin, informing models of community organization and social change.
Decorative schemes on ceramics, carved anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines, and painted motifs reflect symbolic vocabularies that scholars compare to iconographies found in Vinča, Sopot culture, and Starčevo culture assemblages. Ornamentation includes spirals, meanders, and comb-stamped patterns paralleled at sites excavated by teams from institutions such as the University of Vienna and the University of Warsaw. Interpretations link motifs to cosmological models, household cults, and identity markers debated in literature addressing parallels in the Neolithic Europe corpus, including comparisons with the artistic repertoires of the Baden culture and the Globular Amphora culture.
Category:Neolithic cultures of Europe Category:Archaeological cultures in Austria Category:Archaeological cultures in Poland Category:Archaeological cultures in Hungary