Added November 18, 2001. Updated December 13, 2001, 17:52 hours.
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The Globular Amphora Culture
By
Maximilian O. Baldia
(Copy Right © 2001-December 13, 2001. All rights reserved)
Under
Construction!
List of Tables
Table 1. Central and North German chronological table
List of Figures
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Introduction
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.
Location
The Globular Amphora culture is called the Kugleamphorenkultur (KAK) in German. It is found in the eastern and central area of the Funnel Beaker culture distribution. Thus, it reaches from just west of the Elbe River in Germany east, via Poland to the Ukraine and is also found in the Czech Republic.
Chronology
Dating the KAK has been a thorny problem. There are a few extremely old C14 dates from Kujavia – a problem that also plagues the Funnel Beaker culture (TRB) in the same general area. Probably due to the use of some of these old dates, Ottaway’s 1999 floruit estimation of sixteen C14 dates yields a range of 3570 – 2470 cal BC.[1] Based on 57 C14 dates a range of 3100 – 2500 cal BC of seems more likely (cf. Szmyt 1999). Most likely, the KAK replaces the TRB pottery in Poland and East Germany between 3200 – 3000 cal BC.
In some southern regions the KAK must have coexisted with Baden and later with the wide-spread Corded Ware culture (German: Schnurkeramik), only to be replaced by it.
Pottery
Economy
Houses
Burials
In East Germany’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the KAK clearly buries
it’s dead in the TRB built dolmen and passage-graves. In fact, it occasionally
rebuilds portions of the chamber’s interior. In Poland a small number of
passage-grave-like megalithic chambers may even have been built by the KAK.
References and Credits
Baldia, M. O.
1995 A Spatial Analysis of Megalithic
Tombs. Vol. 1-2. Ph. D. Dissertation. Southern Methodist University.
Szmyt, Marzena
1998 Die Kugelamphorenkultur und die Gemeinschaften der Steppenwald- und Steppenzone Osteuropas. Der Forschungsstand und die Forschungsperspektiven im Grundriß. In Hänsel and Machnik (Eds.) 1998:221-231.
Please send comments or questions to Max Baldia.