Samara culture - the Eneolithic archaeological culture of the beginning of the V millennium BC. e. that existed in the Samara Luka region of the Volga River . It was discovered in 1973 during archaeological excavations near the village of Syezhee of the Bogatovsky district of the Samara region. Later, several more settlements were discovered [1] . It was formed on the basis of the Middle Volga culture of the Middle Neolithic that previously existed in the same region, in the east it was bordered by Agidel culture . The cultures that occupied this area later are sometimes also called Samara, and the Samara culture itself is called the culture of the early Eneolithic of this region.
| Samara culture Eneolithic | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Geographic region | Volga region | |||
| Dating | V millennium BC e. | |||
| Carriers | Great Indo-Europeans | |||
| Continuity | ||||
| ||||
Content
Indo-European Homeland
In the framework of the mound hypothesis, the Samara culture and the Khvalyn and Yamnaya cultures resulting from it are considered Indo-European.
Geography
The area of Samara culture was located in the forest-steppe north of the related Caspian (Lower Volga, North Caspian) culture on the lower Volga. According to a number of Finno-Ugric scholars, the first linguistic contacts occurred between the Finno-Ugric and Indo-Iranians. During the existence of the Samara culture, the Ural community was located in the south of Western Siberia.
Other related cultures, together with Samara, are united in the region, named Mariupol at the place of the first finds. Mariupol-type cultures are characterized by a certain similarity in funeral rites, ceramics, and implements, including the remains of horses in graves. The general area of these crops covers, in addition to the middle and lower Volga region, the Ural , Don and Dnieper river basins. In the burial grounds in the south-west of this region, jewelry made of gold and copper found in the Balkan Peninsula is found [2] . Distribution of copper products was carried out by exchange with Trypillian and other Western cultures, as well as trophies captured during raids [3] [4] [5] [6] .
Burials
The remains of one to three people were found in the graves. A stone cairn or a small grave hill, an early prototype of the mound, was built over some burials. Subsequently, the mound was a real hill from which the buried leader could ascend to the heavenly gods, but what was the purpose of the early grave hills is not known.
The funeral rite and archaeological finds in the graves of Samara culture are generally similar to the material culture of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture , with one exception. On the artifacts found in the burials, images of horses were found. The graves also contain the remains of horses. Consequently, people managed to domesticate these animals.
Artifacts
The weapon consisted of knives and daggers of flint and bone, which in the graves lie in the hands or in the heads of the deceased (even children). In addition, flint tips for arrows and bone tips for peak were used.
In addition to them in the graves were found bone ornaments carved in the shape of horses or a double head of a bull with holes for mounting on pendants or horse harness.
Ceramics are mainly represented by ovoid vessels with a distinct margin. They were not intended to be mounted on a flat surface and were probably suspended on slingshots or placed in a basket, and the border was needed in order to keep the vessel in the slingshot of the grip. The vessel could be carried on the shoulder or loaded onto animals.
On the periphery, the vessels were decorated with a geometric ornament of lines, stripes, zigzags or wavy lines, scratched or pressed into the clay walls with a comb. The meaning of the ornament is clear when viewed from above: this is a solar motif, where the neck of the vessel plays the role of the sun.
Religion
Judging by the solar ornaments of ceramics, cultural bearers worshiped the sun. The heads and hooves of domestic animals ( cattle , sheep , horses ) were sacrificed, placing them in special shallow vessels over the graves and sprinkling with ocher .
Notes
- ↑ The history of the Samara Volga region from ancient times to the present day. Stone Age. - Ed. Itself. scientific RAS Center; 2000
- ↑ there
- ↑ Dergachev, Valentin A. Two studies in defense of the migration concept // Ancient Interactions: East and West in Eurasia / Boyle, Katie; Renfrew, Colin; Levine, Marsha. - Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs, 2002. - P. 93-112. - ISBN 1902937198 .
- ↑ Todorova, Henrietta. The Neolithic, Eneolithic, and Transitional in Bulgarian Prehistory // Prehistoric Bulgaria / Bailey, Douglass W .; Panayotov, Ivan. - Madison, WI: Prehistoric Press, 1995 .-- Vol. 22. - P. 79–98. - ISBN 1881094111 .
- ↑ Pernicka, Ernst; et al. Prehistoric copper in Bulgaria (neopr.) // Eurasia Antiqua. - 1997 .-- T. 3 . - S. 41-179 . - ISSN 0949-0434 .
- ↑ Gimbutas, Marija. The Civilization of the Goddess. - San Francisco: Harper, 1991 .-- ISBN 0062503685 .
See also
Agidel culture
Links
- The history of the Samara Volga region from ancient times to the present day. Stone Age . - Publishing House of the Samara Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences , 2000
- Usacheva I.V. “Ironing” in the cultures of Eurasia
- JP Mallory, “Samara Culture,” Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture , Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
- Marija Gimbutas, “The Civilization of the Goddess”, HarperSanFrancisco, 1991, ISBN 0-06-250368-5 or ISBN 0-06-250337-5
- The Horse in Mortuary Symbolism ...
- Mitochondrial DNA and the origins of the domestic horse
- Widespread Origins of Domestic Horse Lineages