VITA ANTIQUA,     ISSN 2522-9419 (Online), 2519-4542 (Print)
Center for Paleoethnological Research

VITA ANTIQUA 10, 2018, Prehistoric Networks in Southern and Eastern Europe, 155-164
Between the seas: Baltic-Pontic contact space in the 3rd millennium BC
Szmyt Marzena
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Institute of Eastern Studies

DOI:10.37098/2519-4542-2018-1-10-155-164
https://doi.org/10.37098/2519-4542-2018-1-10-155-164

ABSTRACT

This paper is devoted to some questions from the prehistory of areas situated between two seas: the Baltic in the north-west and the Black in the south-east. The territory in question is located between two big rivers – the Vistula and Dnieper. Despite many essential differences, in the 3rd millennium BC the areas between the Vistula and Dnieper rivers were covered by a network of multi-directional circulation of peoples, cultural patterns and innovations. This particular set of movements gradually commanded an increasingly greater area, where agrarian societies as well as quasi-pastoral and early pastoral ones functioned. The intensity of these relationships justifies using the name Baltic-Pontic contact space.

In the 3rd mill. BC the territories between the Vistula and Dnieper rivers were covered by a network of multi-directional circulation of peoples and cultural patterns, ideas and innovations. This particular set of movements gradually commanded an increasingly greater area, where agrarian societies as well as quasi-pastoral and early pastoral ones functioned. In this context, it is possible to identify thanks to their presence, direct and indirect markers that indicate the rise of cultural and social transformations, as well as changes that hitherto stable cultural boundaries underwent. No doubt, this proved to be one of the significant foundation stones at the close of the 3rd and 2nd mill. BC for the reorganisation of culture as far as the Baltic-Pontic region was concerned.

An especially great challenge, of a Pan-European rank, is posed by the question of relations between Central European and Steppe societies, especially from the point of view of the origins of the CWC circle. For this question, the key area appears to have been located between the Carpathians, the Western Bug and the Dniester or even Southern Bug rivers.

Key words: 3rd millennium BC, Vistula - Dnieper interfluve, circulation of ideas and people, cultural contacts

Language: English

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UDK: 903’1(4-11)”636”