The Gumelniţa–Karanovo VI culture was a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

culture of the 5th millennium BC, named after the Gumelniţa site on the left (

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

n) bank of the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...

Geography

At its full extent the culture extended along the Black Sea coast to central Bulgaria and into Thrace. The aggregate "Kodjadermen-Gumelnita-Karanovo VI" evolved out of the earlier Boian, Marita and Karanovo V cultures. In the East it was supplanted by Cernavodă I in the early 4th millennium BC.

Periodization

One of the most flourishing civilizations from the last half of the 5th millenium BC is (next to the Ariuşd Cucuteni – Tripolie complex) Gumelniţa Culture... absolute chronology, still under discussion, according to the latest calibrated data, assigns this culture (as mentioned above) to the limits of the last half of the 5th millenium BC and maybe to early 4th millenium BC. :—Silvia Marinescu-Bîlcu, "Gumelniţa Culture"

This matches exactly the view of Blagoje Govedarica (2004). The first periodization of Gumelnita culture was suggested by VI. Dumitrescu who split the civilization of Gumelniţa into two phases: A and B. Later on, Dinu V. Rosetti divided the civilization into Al, A2 and B1, B2.

Gumelniţa A

With a centric evolution from geographic point of view, the intensity of the cultural trends decreased from the center towards peripheral area. Having a strong Boian background at the origins, mixed with Maritza elements, the Gumelnita culture lasted short of a millennium from the beginning of Chalcolithic to the start of the fourth millennium BC.

Gumelniţa A1

4700-4350 Gumelnita-Karanovo VI-Kodjadermen is also aggregated with

Varna culture The Varna culture is a Chalcolithic culture of northeastern Bulgaria, dated ca. 4500 BC, contemporary and closely related with Gumelnița in southern Romania, often considered as local variants. It is characterized by polychrome pottery and r ...

, still are debates along historians considering the distinctive character of Varna culture.

Gumelniţa A2

4500-3950 The regional characteristics of A1 phase are diminished, and a more uniform characteristics is identified in discovered artifacts.

Gumelniţa B

Synchronisms

The evolution of the Gumelniţa-Kodjadermen-Karanovo VI is ended on the north bank of the Danube after the arrival of Cernavoda cultures population. The layers at Karanovo are employed as a chronological system for Balkans prehistory.

Art

The Gumelniţa is remarkable by the richness of its anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representations. Some consider the achievements of prehistoric craftsmen to be true masterpieces. The representation from Gumelnița art differ by other cultures by the following: *statuettes morphology characterised by expressivity, gesture and attitude. *modelling technique *arms positions on the belly, stretched laterally, in the position of the "thinker" *sex representation *decoration pattern Seashell ornament is relatively common. At least some of the shellfish used come from the Aegean regions, for example the spondylas and the dentals. As evidence from archaeology, thousands of artifacts from Neolithic Europe have been discovered, mostly in the form of female figurines. As a result a goddess theory has occurred. The leading historian was

Marija Gimbutas Marija Gimbutas ( lt, Marija Gimbutienė, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of " Old Europe" and for her Kurgan hypothesis ...

, still this interpretation is a subject of great controversy in archaeology due to her many inferences about the symbols on artifacts.

The analysis of the finds uncovered by archaeological excavations revealed a few characteristics of the Gumelniţa objects of art, likely to lead to a few main trends of the spiritual life investigation. Thus, the prevalence of a female character is clear, as it represents 34% of all the anthropomorphic representations. That might represent a deity, the term having a general significance, of worship, without being able to specify under the current stage of the researches which is the nature and status of this deity. The male representations are very few, about 1%, while about 10% are the asexual representations, therefore with no sign (breasts, sexual triangle) which might point to the sex of the statuette. :—Gumelniţa Anthropomorphic and Zoomorphic Objects of Art by Radian Romus Andreescu

Gallery

File:Vas-pictat-cu-alb-d87c22.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 35.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 34.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 33.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 44.jpg, alt= File:Expozitie Aurul Romaniei MNIR0039.JPG File:Oltenita deity holding pot gurnelnita 4600-3900 mnir.jpg File:Gumelnita 48.jpg, alt= File:Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte Berlin 038.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 15.jpg, alt= File:情侣陶碗.JPG File:Ceramicaantopomorficagumelnita2.JPG File:Gumelnita 20.jpg, alt= File:Clay vessel fragment with anthropomorphic representation, by Gumelnița Culture, Sultana - Malu Roșu (MGCO).jpg, alt= File:Flat anthropomorphic bone figurines, by Gumelnița Culture, Vidra (BMM), Sultana - Malu Roșu, Sărulești - Măgureni Movilă (MGCO).jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 11.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 9.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 59.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 1.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 31.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 25.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 63.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnita 28.jpg, alt= File:Gumelnitza IMG 5891.JPG, alt=

Technological developments

Gumelniţa culture has some sign of work specialisation:

...we do not have enough data on the internal organization of the community, but next to the dwellings themselves, arranged or not in a certain order, we encounter workshop-dwellings for processing lithic material, bones, horns, ornaments, statuettes, etc.). :—Gumelniţa Culture by Silvia Marinescu-Bîlcu

Danube Script

During the Middle Copper Age, the Danube script appears in three horizons: The Karanovo VI–Gumelniţa–Kodžadermen cultural complex (mainly in Bulgaria, but also in Romania), the Cucuteni A3-A4–Trypillya B (in Ukraine), and Coțofeni I (in Serbia). The first, rates 68.6% of the frequencies; the second, rates 24.2%; and the third, rates 7.6%.

References

Bibliography

*Stefan Hiller, Vassil Nikolov (eds.), Karanovo III. Beiträge zum Neolithikum in Südosteuropa Österreichisch-Bulgarische Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Karanovo, Band III, Vienna (2000), .

External links

Gumelnița culture museumBrukenthalmuseum.roCiva.uv.roCiva.uv.roBulgariatravel.orgArheologie.ulbsibiu.ro
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Arheologie.ro
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gumelnita-Karanovo Culture Archaeological cultures of Southeastern Europe Neolithic cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures in Bulgaria Archaeological cultures in Greece Archaeological cultures in Moldova Archaeological cultures in Romania 5th millennium BC