The Sopot culture is 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 pa ...

archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...

that was first identified in eastern

Slavonia Slavonia (; hr, Slavonija) is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper, and Istria, one of the four historical regions of Croatia. Taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with five Croatian counties: Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Bar ...

in modern-day

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = " Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capi ...

, and was since also found in several sites in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

. It was a continuation of the Starčevo culture and strongly influenced by the Vinča culture. Some of the archeological sites where artifacts of it were found include Samatovci,

Vinkovci Vinkovci () is a city in Slavonia, in the Vukovar-Syrmia County in eastern Croatia. The city's registered population was 28,247 in the 2021 census, the total population of the city was 31,057, making it the largest town of the county. Surround ...

– Sopot, Otok, Privlaka, Vinkovci– Ervenica,

Osijek Osijek () is the fourth-largest city in Croatia, with a population of 96,848 in 2021. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja ...

, Bapska, Županja, Klokočevik. It spread into northern Bosnia from its original area to the west to northwestern Croatia and to the north to Hungarian Transdanubia, where it helped Lengyel culture start. The culture dates to around 5000 BC. Settlements were raised on the river banks (most noticeably on the banks of Bosut, around the area of the modern city of Vinkovci). Houses were square and made of wood using interlace technique, sometimes separated into multiple rooms. Artefacts include many weapons made of bone, flint, obsidian, and ironed volcanic rocks and some ceramic pottery of various sizes (biconical pots with two handles, conic bowls, pots, and s-shaped pots) decorated by carvings or light stabbings and painting. The eponym site is Sopot, an archeological site near Vinkovci, which was dated to 5480–3790 BC. The culture was first identified in 1949 by Vladimir Milojčić, and first named after this site in 1968 by Stojan Dimitrijević, and has been generally referred to as such since 1971.

Genetics

In a 2017 genetic study published in ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'', the remains of six individuals ascribed to the Sopot culture in Hungary were analyzed. Of the four samples of Y-DNA extracted, two belonged to G2a2b-L30 or various subclades of it, one belonged to I2-L596, and one belonged to J2. mtDNA extracted were various subclades of U8b1b, H, T2c1, K1a, and HV0a. Studies by Mathieson et al. 2018 and Patterson et al. 2022 analyzed two female samples from Croatia, mtDNA haplogroups found were N1a1a and T2b. The seven samples analyzed until then according to ADMIXTURE analysis had approximately 87-98% Early European Farmers, 2-12% Western Hunter-Gatherer, and 0-4% Western Steppe Herders-related ancestry. A 2021 study by Freilich and colleagues published in ''Nature'' tested the genomes of 19 individuals from the Sopot culture in Croatia. Out of the seven Y-DNA samples retrieved, three belonged to haplogroups G2a2, two to I2a2a-M223, one to J, and one to C1a2b-Z38888. The mtDNA haplogroups fell under various subclades of H, J2b1, K1a, K2b, N1a1a1, T2b, T2c1, T2f, U5b2, and U8b1.

References

Sources

* * * * * * * {{Neolithic Europe Neolithic cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures of Southeastern Europe Archaeological cultures in Croatia