Added December 18, 1999. Updated October 20, 2002, 10:39 hours.
This page will be updated occasionally
to add and revise information.
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Version 2.0
By
Maximilian O. Baldia
(Copy Right © 2001-October 20, 2002. All rights reserved)
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Under
Construction!
Figure 1. Location of the Jordanów
typesite.
Figure 2. Central European
chronological table
Figure 3. Pottery from the type-site of Jordanów, Silesia, Poland.
Figure
4. Copper ornaments from the type-site of Jordanów, Silesia, Poland.
Figure 5. Amber, chipped and ground stone artifacts from the type-site of
Jordanów, Silesia, Poland.
Figure 6. Jordanov (Jordanów) pottery from
the Czech Republic.
Figure 7. Postholes below a mound,
identified as a Jordanov (Jordanów) House, Moravia, Czech Republic.
The purpose of this text is to provide a general overview of the culture and is intended as a resource for students and teachers of European Archaeology.
Along the upper Oder settlements of the Lenyel interaction sphere passed their cultural heritage on to the local groups, including the Jordanów group (Polish: Jordanów, Czech: Jordanov, German: Jordansmühl). The type-site, in Polish Silesia, was excavated from 1898 - 1911. The pottery can be identified in southwestern Poland, Bohemia, Moravia and adjacent Central Germany. In Central Germany very few sites have been identified. Behrens (1973) felt that the group did not exist as an entity of its own. He argues that the occasional occurrence of the pottery probably came from nearby Bohemia.
Both the pottery and the chronology seem ill defined (chronological tables: Germany, Moravia). The only plausible C14 date I can find (cf. Müller 1999:89), suggests a date between 4000 – 3800 cal BC. Therefore, one can only date the pottery indirectly. For the reasons expressed below, I tentatively conclude that Jordanów existed sometime between ca. 4300/4200 – 3700/3600 cal BC.
Some of the pottery shows designs that may have been influenced by the Bodrogkeresztúr culture of Hungary.[1] However, Hungary is relatively distant and Bodrogkeresztúr may well start after Jordanów. In Moravia the Jordanów group cannot be separated from the Moravian Painted Ware IIb.[2] It exhibits Late Lengyel affinities and many pottery types are similar to those of the Lower Austrian (Nieder Österreich) Bisamberg-Oberpullendorf group of the Epi-Lengyel period.[3] Thus, Jordanów’s beginnings should probably fall into the same time range calculated for the Epi-Lengyel by Stadler, i.e. 4250 - 3950.[4] Further more, Bisamberg-Oberpullendorf exhibits “graphite” slip (a black, burnished covering) on some of its pottery. This is also found in the early Funnel Beaker culture’s Moravian Baalberge phase (TRB I). Similarly, some (later?) Jordanów pots exhibit affinities to Baalberge. Even the Pottery from the type-site of Jordanów, Silesia, Poland, has pottery covering the range from early Bisamberg-Oberpullendorf-like pottery to TRB pottery, such as funnel beakers with upside-down V-shaped, appliqué-like handle and collared flasks. It is likely that future detailed examination will prove Jordanów to be one of several “cultures,” that takes part in the interregional development of the Funnel Beaker culture. Thus it would ultimately have taken on TRB Baalberge characteristics itself.
The most recent discovery of Jordanów pottery in Moravia stem from sites in Kostelec na Hane, Popuvky (Popůvky), Smirzice (Smiržice), and Prostejov-Krasice (Prostějov-Krasice). At the last site, a typologically later incised sherd was found in an isolated Jordanów context. It’s “graphite” slip resembles Late and the Final Bronze Age.[5] More importantly, the TRB’s Baalberge phase also features black, burnished graphite-like slip.
Houses appear to be rectangular and smaller than the earlier, Bandkeramik houses of the Lengyel interaction sphere, as postholes below a mound, identified as a Jordanov (Jordanów) House in Moravia, Czech Republic, seem to imply.
Burials in Central Germany are flexed individual with east-west orientation in graves (pits). Occasionally a stone frame is present. In Moravia, Czech Republic, there are also inhumation burials, but at least one cremation is known.
Metallurgy reaches a high point in Jordaów, since the culture occupied the mountainous regions, containing copper sources. Copper ornaments from the typesite of Jordanów, Silesia, Poland exhibit a richness and variety that hints at this availability and the developed skill of the copper smiths.
Amber, chipped and ground stone artifacts from the type-site of Jordanów, Silesia, Poland are known. The amber may indicate direct or indirect exchange or trade with the amber bearing zone of the southern Baltic Sea (Denmark, North and East Germany, northern Poland).
There seems to have been active exchange or trade. For example, a Jordanów cup was found at Bergheim, Lkrs. Neuburg-Schrobenhausen, Bavaria. It was associated the Münchshöfen culture and found in the ditch of a (round?) causewayed enclosure.
Baldia, M. O.
1995 A Spatial Analysis of Megalithic
Tombs. Vol.
1-2. Ph. D. Dissertation. Southern Methodist University.
Baldia, M. O, C. (Chandler) Baldia and D. Frink
1998 The Czech American Research Project:
1998 Activity Report. The Comparative Archaeology WEB©. (Originally published on by Christel
Chandler on the Weber State University web site. Major updates and revisions)
Baldia, M. O. and M. Smíd
1998/01 Rmíz: The
oldest fort with stone faced rampart and its significance in the
Neolithic/Copper Age Moravian landscape. Presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Society for
American Archaeology in the symposium: Prehistoric communication: The first wheels,
roads, metals, and monumental architecture. Friday, March 27, 1998 in Seattle, Washington, USA. The Comparative
Archaeology WEB©.
Behrens, Hermann
1973 Die Jungsteinzeit im Mittelelbe-Saale-Gebiet. Veröffentlichungen des Landesmuseums für Vorgeschichte in Halle, 27, VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin.
Behrens, Hermann and Brigitte Rüster
1981 Kalibrierte C14-Daten für das Neolithikum des Mittel-Elbe-Saale-Gebietes. Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt, 11/3:189-193.
Matějíčova, Andrea and Miroslav Šmíd
2000 Eneolit – Äneolithikum. In M. ČižmřK. Geislerová, J. Unger. Výzkumy – Ausgrabungen 1993-1998. Všechna páva vyhrazena, Ústav archeologické památkové péč Brno. Brno 2000:23-29/93-96.
Ruttkay, Elisabeth
1983 Das Neolithikum in Niederösterreich. Forschungsberichte zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte, 12, Östereichische Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Wien.
Ruttkay, Elizabeth
and Christian Mayer
1995 Spätneolitikum. In Lenneis, E., C. Neugebauer-Maresch, E. Ruttkay, Jungsteinzeit im Osten Österreichs. Forschungsberichte zur Ur- u. Frühgeschichte 17. Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus u. Verlagsgesellschaft, St. Pölten – Wien. 1995:108-209.
Šmíd, Miroslav
1993 Nástin periodizace kultury s nálevkovitými
poháry na Moravé. Pravěk, Nova řada 2, 1992:131-157, Brno.
1994 Ein Burgwall mit steinerner Stirnmauer aus der älteren Stufe der Trichterbecherkultur auf dem Burgwall Rmíz bei Laškov im Kataster der Gemeinde Náměšť na Hané, Kreis Olomouc, Land Mähren. Jahresschrift für mitteldeutsche Vorgeschichte, 76:201-230.
1995 Výsledky
zjišťovacího
výzkumu na eneolitickém hradisku Rmíz u Laškova. Pravěk, Nova řada 3, 1993:19-77.
1998 Sídliště kultury s nálevkovitými poháry u Laškova, okr. Prostějov. Pravěk, Nova řada 6, 1996:97-138.
Matějíčova,
Andrea and Miroslav Šmíd
2000 Eneolit – Äneolithikum. In M. ČižmřK. Geislerová, J. Unger. Výzkumy – Ausgrabungen 1993-1998. Všechna páva vyhrazena, Ústav archeologické památkové péč Brno. Brno 2000:23-29/93-96.
Stadler, Peter
1995 Ein Beitrag zur Absolutchronologie des Neolithikums in Österreich auf Grund der 14C-Daten. In Lenneis, E., C. Neugebauer-Maresch, E. Ruttkay, Jungsteinzeit im Osten Österreichs. Forschungsberichte zur Ur- u. Frühgeschichte 17. Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus u. Verlagsgesellschaft, St. Pölten – Wien. 1995:210-224.
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Please send comments or questions to Max Baldia.
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