Western Baltic culture

File:Archeological cultures in Northern and Central Europe at the late pre-Roman Iron Age.png

Cultures in Northern and Central Europe during the late Iron Age.
pale green (centre) – Przeworsk culture
dark green – Nordic group
dark red – Jastorf culture
yellow – Harpstedt-Nienburger group
orange – Celtic groups
brown – Oksywie culture
pink – East Baltic forest zone cultures
magenta – West Baltic cairn culture
turquoise – Milogrady culture
black – Estonian group

The Western Baltic culture (Template:Langx; Template:Langx also known as (West Baltic circle), Template:Langx) was the westernmost branch of the Balts, representing a distinct archaeological culture of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. It is a zone of several small archaeological cultures that were ethnically Baltic and had similar cultural features (e.g. similar monuments or some features of the funeral rite). They included tribes such as the Old Prussians, Galindians, Yotvingians (or Sudovians) and Skalvians, in addition to the little-known Pomeranian Balts or Western Balts proper, in the area now known as Pomerania.Template:Sfn

History

Most of the Western Balts arose from the Template:Interlanguage link dating back to the early Iron Age. The Western Baltic culture includes:

• Template:Interlanguage link (from the end of c. Template:Trim to the end of the 4th c. A.D., possibly even the end of the 5th c.)
• Template:Interlanguage link (from the mid-2nd c. A.D. to the end of the 6th c.)
• Template:Interlanguage link (from the end of the 1st c. A.D. to the beginning of the 6th c.)
• Template:Interlanguage link (from the end of the 5th c. A.D. to the mid-7th c. or the beginning of the 8th c.)
• Elbląg group (from the end of the 5th c. A.D. to the mid-7th c.)
• Low German group
• West Lithuanian group
• Central Lithuanian group

Geography, chronology and ancient mentions

According to Marija Gimbutas, the Baltic culture of the Early and Middle Bronze Age covered a territory which, at its maximal extent, included "all of Pomerania almost to the mouth of the Oder, and the whole Vistula basin to Silesia in the south-west" before the spread of the Lusatian culture to the region and was inhabited by the ancestors of the later (Baltic) Old Prussians.Template:Sfn

The Western Baltic cultures were located to the north-east of the Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures, between the Pasłęka and Daugava rivers. They lived there from the end of c. Template:Trim until the mid-7th century. According to Tacitus, these areas were inhabited by the Aesti, while Ptolemy speaks of the Galindians and the Sudines.

Art and structures

The Balts decorated their pots by creating "deep incisions and ridges around the neck." Baltic graves consisted of huts made out of timber, or stone cists with floors of pavement "encircled by timber posts".Template:Sfn

See also

• Early history of Pomerania
• Dniepr Balts