Added December 11, 2001. Updated December 11, 2001, 22:01 hours.
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Mondsee Culture
By
Maximilian O. Baldia
(Copy Right © 2001-December 11, 2001. All rights reserved)
Under
Construction!
List of Tables
Table 1. List of calibrated Mondsee C14 dates
List of Figures
Figure 1. Location of Mondsee.
Figure 3. Central European chronological table
Figure 4. Graph of all calibrated Mondsee C14 dates
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
Mondsee (Moon Lake) is a lake near Salzburg, Upper Austria. Here, in the Attersee, and other lakes the remains of Lake Dwellings (German: Pfahlbauten) have been located. However, there are also upland villages.
Dating
The precise dating is difficult. The list of calibrated Mondsee C14 dates shows a maximum range of 3800 - 2800 cal BC. However, the dates have a very large standard deviation as the Graph of all calibrated Mondsee C14 dates indicates.
Pottery
Mondsee pottery is identifiable by the use of the deeply incised "stab and drag" (German: Furchenstich) technique, often executed in circular designs filled with white paste. It has been grouped together as Retz and Bajcv pottery found in Lower Austria, Rumania, and Slovakia (e.g. Dimitrijevic 1981), but it also shows affinities with the Funnel Beaker culture (TRB) of Central Europe and southern Scandinavia. It is often connected with Altheim, while some pottery exhibits similarities to the later Cham pottery (Ruttkay 1990).
Stone Tools
The ground stone axes of the Mondsee culture are similar to those of the Funnel Beaker culture.
Copper
There is considerable evidence of copper production, but
the ancient copper mine of the Götschenberg
may have been exploited by people more closely associated with Altheim pottery. It has been suggested that copper was
exported to the Funnel Beaker culture.
References and Credits
Baldia, M. O.
1995 A Spatial Analysis of Megalithic
Tombs. Vol. 1-2. Ph. D. Dissertation. Southern Methodist University.
Dimitrijevic’, S.
1981 Zur Frage der Retz-Gajary-Kultur in Nordjugoslawien und ihre Stelleng im pannonischen Raum. Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission 61. 1980:15-91.
Raetzel-Fabian,
Dirk
1986 Phasenkartierung des mitteleuropäischen Neolithikums: Chronologie und Chorologie. B.A.R. International Series 316, 1986.
Ruttkay, Elisabeth
1983 Das Neolithikum in Niederösterreich. Forschungsberichte zur Ur- und Frühgeschichte, 12, Östereichische Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Wien.
1988 Zur
Problematik der Furchenstrichkeramik des östlichen Alpenvorlandes: Beitrag zum
Scheibenhenkelhorizont. SIA XXXVI:225-240.
1990 Beiträge zur Typologie und Chronologie der Siedlungen in dem Salzkammergut. In Die Ersten Bauern 2: Einführung, Balkan, angrenzende Regionen der Schweiz. Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich, 1990b:134-156.
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.
Please send comments or questions to Max Baldia.