The Usatove culture or Usatovo culture is a late variant of the

Cucuteni–Trypillia culture The Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, also known as the Tripolye culture, is a Neolithic–Chalcolithic archaeological culture ( 5500 to 2750 BCE) of Eastern Europe. It extended from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dniester and Dnieper regions, cent ...

, which flourished northwest of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

from 3500 BC to 3000 BC. The culture got its name from the name of the village of

Usatove Usatove (Ukrainian: Усатове) is a village in Ukraine, in the Odesa Raion of Odesa Oblast. It hosts the administration of Usatove rural hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. The population is 7,925 people. Until 18 July 2020, Usatove be ...

in the

Odesa Oblast Odesa Oblast ( uk, Оде́ська о́бласть, translit=Odeska oblast), also referred to as Odeshchyna ( uk, Оде́щина) is an oblast (province) of southwestern Ukraine, located along the northern coast of the Black Sea. Its administ ...

of Ukraine. The Usatove culture appears to be a mixture of

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 ...

elements of

Southeast Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (a ...

, with intrusive cultures from the

Pontic steppe Pontic, from the Greek ''pontos'' (, ), or "sea", may refer to: The Black Sea Places * The Pontic colonies, on its northern shores * Pontus (region), a region on its southern shores * The Pontic–Caspian steppe, steppelands stretching from no ...

. From native Neolithic elements, it shares flat graves, figurines, and painted ceramics, while it shares

tumulus A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds or ''kurgans'', and may be found throughout much of the world. A cairn, which is a mound of stones bu ...

burials, horses, and shell-tempered coarse wares with steppe cultures. It also displays metallic items, such as arsenical bronze and silver, which suggests contacts with the

North Caucasus The North Caucasus, ( ady, Темыр Къафкъас, Temır Qafqas; kbd, Ишхъэрэ Къаукъаз, İṩxhərə Qauqaz; ce, Къилбаседа Кавказ, Q̇ilbaseda Kavkaz; , os, Цӕгат Кавказ, Cægat Kavkaz, inh, ...

. Within the

Kurgan hypothesis The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory, Kurgan model, or steppe theory) is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and par ...

, the Usatove culture represents the domination of native Cucuteni–Trypillia agriculturalists by

Indo-European peoples The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...

from the steppe. According to Anthony, the roots of the pre-Germanic languages lay in the Usatove culture.

References

Sources

* * {{cite book , last=Anthony , first=David W. , year=2007 , title=The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World , publisher=Princeton University Press , isbn=978-0-691-14818-2 Archaeological cultures in Bulgaria Archaeological cultures in Romania Archaeological cultures in Ukraine Chalcolithic cultures of Europe

See also

References

Sources