Seine-Oise-Marne Culture

The culture of the Seine-Oise-Marne ( SUM culture ) is the name of the archaeological culture of the Late Neolithic and at the same time the first chalcolithic culture in France. Named along the rivers, limiting the territory of finds associated with it.

It existed in the north of France from about 3100 to 2000 BC. e. (uncalibrated dating C14; according to a later calibrated dating, 3500-2500 BC.). The most characteristic feature of this culture is its megalithic galleries (tombs of the corridor type), in which the slab separates the entrance from the main burial chamber. In the chalky valley of the Marne River, tombs carved into the rocks had a similar structure. There are examples of megalithic art : images of axes carved on the walls, stylized deities, etc.

Among the artifacts characteristic of this culture: arrowheads of the transverse type, deer horns, as well as coarse, flat-bottomed cylindrical or bucket-shaped ceramics with belts applied by application. This ceramics differed from the more elegant ceramics of the cultures bordering it in the south ( Po-Richard , Veraza and others), which it gradually pushed aside.

The SUM culture had trade relations with neighboring cultures, which made it possible to use flint tools imported from Brittany and the Loire, and later copper.

This culture, apparently, had close ties with other cultures and could have developed under the influence of a number of neighboring cultures, as can be seen from the construction of gallery-type tombs , common throughout Europe, and types of ceramics that have analogues in Western France from 2600 BC . e., as well as in Brittany, Switzerland and Denmark.

Finds similar to this culture were found in the Swiss city of Horgen (due to their geographical remoteness, they are considered as a separate Horgen culture ).