Tumulus culture

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The Tumulus culture (German: ''Hügelgräberkultur'') dominated Central Europe during the Middle Bronze Age ( 1600 to 1300 BC).

It was the descendant of the Unetice culture. Its heartland was the area previously occupied by the Unetice culture, and its territory included parts of Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, the Carpathian Basin, Poland and France. It was succeeded by the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture.

The Tumulus culture is distinguished by the practice of burying the dead beneath burial mounds (tumuli or kurgans).

In 1902, Paul Reinecke distinguished a number of cultural horizons based on research of Bronze Age hoards and tumuli in periods covered by these cultural horizons are shown in the table below (right). The Tumulus culture was prevalent during the Bronze Age periods B, C1, and C2. Tumuli have been used elsewhere in Europe from the Stone Age to the Iron Age; the term "Tumulus culture" specifically refers to the South German variant of the Bronze Age. In the table, Ha designates Hallstatt. Archaeological horizons Hallstatt A–B are part of the Bronze Age Urnfield culture, while horizons Hallstatt C–D are the type site for the Iron Age Hallstatt culture.

The Tumulus culture was eminently a warrior society, which expanded with new chiefdoms eastward into the Carpathian Basin (up to the river Tisza), and northward into Polish and Central European Únětice territories. The culture's dispersed settlements consisted of villages or homesteads centred on fortified structures such as hillforts. Significant fortified settlements include the Heuneburg, Bullenheimer Berg, Ehrenbürg, and Bernstorf. Fortification walls were built from wood, stone and clay. The massive 3.6m-wide wall surrounding the plateau of the Ehrenbürg resembled later murus gallicus fortifications known from the Iron Age.

Tumulus culture societies traded with those in Scandinavia, Atlantic Europe, the Mediterranean region and the Aegean. Traded items included amber and metal artefacts.

Some scholars see Tumulus groups from southern Germany as corresponding to a community that shared an extinct Indo-European linguistic entity, such as the hypothetical Italo-Celtic group that was ancestral to Italic and Celtic. This particular hypothesis, however, conflicts with suggestions by other Indo-Europeanists. For instance, David W. Anthony suggests that Proto-Italic (and perhaps also Proto-Celtic) speakers could have entered Northern Italy at an earlier stage, from the east (e.g., the Balkan/Adriatic region).

Gallery

File:Zuse Museum Huenfeld Maedchen von Molzbach Lebensbild 2017.jpg, Reconstruction of the woman from Molzbach
File:Zuse Museum Huenfeld Maedchen von Molzbach Sarg 2017.jpg, The Molzbach burial, c. 1300 BC.
File:Wetteraumuseum Grab BZ Woelfersheim.jpg, Grave goods from Wölfersheim, Germany
File:Gentleman, Bronze Age, 15th century BC, replica - Naturhistorisches Museum Nürnberg - Nuremberg, Germany -DSC04215.jpg, alt=, Bronze Age dress, 15th century BC, Germany
File:Tumulus sword 1.jpg, alt=, Bronze sword, 1400 BC
File:Middlebronze2.jpg, alt=, Bronze sword, 1600-1500 BC
File:Middlebronze3.jpg, alt=, Burial goods, 1400 BC
File:Middlebronze4.jpg, alt=, Bronze dagger, c. 1700-1500 BC
File:Middlebronze6.jpg, alt=, Bronze anklets, 1600-1400 BC
File:Clevelandart 1988.5.jpg, Bronze spiral armband, c. 1500 BC
File:Central Europe, Bronze Age, c. 2500-800 BC - Spiral Armilla - 1988.4 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif, Bronze spiral armband, c. 1500 BC
File:ALB - Goldarmband Nassenheide.jpg, Gold bracelet from Nassenheide, Germany
File:Gobelets - Man - Saint-Germain-en-Laye - 27 mars 2017.jpg, Gold artefacts, France, c. 1400 BC
File:Cône d'Avanton, musée des Antiquités Nationales, 2010-03-26.jpg, Gold hat, bracelet and bowl, France, c.1400 BC
File:Speyer-2009-historisches-museum-026.jpg, Gold hat, bronze axes, Germany, c. 1300 BC.
File:Golden decorated disc, 1800-1300 BC, Museum of Western Bohemia, 187791.jpg, Gold disc, Czech Rep., 1650-1250 BC.
File:Necklace, amber, glass, Middle Bronze Age, Museum of Western Bohemia, 187798.jpg, Amber and glass necklace, Czech Republic
File:Bernsteincollier.jpg, Amber necklace, Germany, 1500 BC.
File:La céramique à l'âge du bronze (musée historique, Haguenau) (36058831702).jpg, Tumulus ceramics, Hagenau, France
File:Landesmuseum Württemberg -Würtingen-Grabbeigaben560.jpg, Bronze ornaments, Germany, c. 1500 BC
File:Landesmuseum Württemberg-Engstingen-Frauengrab554.jpg, alt=, Bronze and amber ornaments, c. 1500 BC
File:Goldhort Gessel Ausstellung im Landesmuseum Hannover.jpg, Gold hoard from Gessel, Germany, c.1400 BC
File:Eschenz gold cup 1.jpg, Gold cup from Eschenz, Switzerland, c. 1600 BC
File:Huegelgrab3-unteralting-grafrath16.JPG, Tumulus, Germany, 1600-1300 BC

See also

* Bernstorf fortified settlement
* Bronze hand of Prêles
*Beaker culture
*Frankleben hoard
*Urnfield culture
*Nordic Bronze Age
*Bronze Age Britain
*Argaric culture
* Ottomany culture
*Wietenberg culture
*Srubnaya culture
*Mycenaean Greece
*Atlantic Bronze Age

External Links

Bronze age fortresses in Europe

Defended sites and fortifications in Southern Germany during the Bronze Age

References

*Nora Kershaw Chadwick, J. X. W. P. Corcoran, ''The Celts'' (1970), p. 2

*Barbara Ann Kipfer, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology (2000)

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Tumulus culture,
17th-century BC establishments
13th-century BC disestablishments
Culture
Archaeological cultures of Central Europe
Archaeological cultures of Western Europe
Bronze Age cultures of Europe
Archaeological cultures in Austria
Archaeological cultures in Belgium
Archaeological cultures in the Czech Republic
Archaeological cultures in France
Archaeological cultures in Germany
Archaeological cultures in Hungary
Archaeological cultures in the Netherlands
Archaeological cultures in Poland
Archaeological cultures in Slovakia
Indo-European archaeological cultures
Italo-Celtic