A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central Asia and Eastern, Southeast, Western and Northern Europe during the 3rd millennium BC.
The Lusatian culture existed in the later Bronze Age and early Iron Age in most of what is now Poland and parts of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, eastern Germany and western Ukraine. It covers the Periods Montelius III to V of the Northern European chronological scheme. It has been associated or closely linked with the Nordic Bronze Age. Hallstatt influences can also be seen particularly in ornaments and weapons.
The Únětice culture, Aunjetitz culture or Unetician culture is an archaeological culture at the start of the Central European Bronze Age, dated roughly to about 2300–1600 BC. The eponymous site for this culture, the village of Únětice, is located in the central Czech Republic, northwest of Prague. There are about 1,400 documented Únětice culture sites in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, 550 sites in Poland, and, in Germany, about 500 sites and loose finds locations. The Únětice culture is also known from north-eastern Austria, and from western Ukraine.
The Wielbark culture is an Iron Age archaeological complex which flourished on the territory of today's Poland from the 1st century AD to the 5th century AD.
This article covers the history of Poland in the Middle Ages. This time covers roughly a millennium, from the 5th century to the 16th century. It is commonly dated from the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, and contrasted with a later Early Modern Period. The time during which the rise of humanism in the Italian Renaissance and the Reformation unfolded is generally associated with the transition out of the Middle Ages, with European overseas expansion as a succeeding process, but such dates are approximate and based upon nuanced arguments.
The prehistory and protohistory of Poland can be traced from the first appearance of Homo species on the territory of modern-day Poland, to the establishment of the Polish state in the 10th century AD, a span of roughly 500,000 years.
The Bronocice pot is a ceramic vase incised with one of the earliest known depictions of what may be a wheeled vehicle. It was discovered in the village of Bronocice near the Nidzica River in Poland. Attributed to the Funnelbeaker archaeological culture, radiocarbon tests dated the pot to the mid-fourth millennium BCE. Today it is housed at the Archaeological Museum of Kraków in southern Poland.
The Western Baltic culture was the westernmost branch of the Balts, representing a distinct archaeological culture of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. It is a zone of several small archaeological cultures that were ethnically Baltic and had similar cultural features. They included tribes such as the Old Prussians, Galindians, Yotvingians and Skalvians, in addition to the little-known Pomeranian Balts or Western Balts proper, in the area now known as Pomerania.
Bhirrana, also Bhirdana and Birhana, is an archaeological site, located in a small village in the Fatehabad district of the north Indian state of Haryana. Bhirrana's earliest archaeological layers predates the Indus Valley civilisation times, dating to the 8th-7th millennium BCE. The site is one of the many sites seen along the channels of the seasonal Ghaggar river, thought by some to be the Rigvedic Saraswati river.
The Trzciniec culture is an Early and Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture in Central-Eastern Europe, mainly Poland and parts of Lithuania. The material culture similarity and overall chronological contemporaneity with Komariv (Ukraine) and Sośnica (Belarus) cultures resulted in the definition of the Trzciniec-Komarów-Sośnica complex or, more recently, the Trzciniec Cultural Circle. In Poland, the archaeological sites of the Trzciniec culture are found in Central, Southern, and Eastern Poland.
The Stone Age in the territory of present-day Poland is divided into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic eras. The Paleolithic extended from about 500,000 BCE to 8000 BCE. The Paleolithic is subdivided into periods, the Lower Paleolithic, 500,000 to 350,000 BCE, the Middle Paleolithic, 350,000 to 40,000 BCE, the Upper Paleolithic, 40,000 to 10,000 BCE, and the Final Paleolithic, 10,000 to 8000 BCE. The Mesolithic lasted from 8000 to 5500 BCE, and the Neolithic from 5500 to 2300 BCE. The Neolithic is subdivided into the Neolithic proper, 5500 to 2900 BCE, and the Copper Age, 2900 to 2300 BCE.
The Bronze and Iron Age cultures in Poland are known mainly from archeological research. Early Bronze Age cultures in Poland began around 2400–2300 BCE, while the Iron Age commenced in approximately 750–700 BCE. The Iron Age archeological cultures no longer existed by the start of the Common Era. The subject of the ethnicity and linguistic affiliation of the groups living in Central Europe at that time is, given the absence of written records, speculative, and accordingly there is considerable disagreement. In Poland the Lusatian culture, spanning both the Bronze and Iron Ages, became particularly prominent. The most famous archeological finding from that period is the Biskupin fortified settlement (gord) on the lake from which it takes its name, representing the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age.
Poland in antiquity was characterized by peoples from various archeological cultures living in and migrating through various parts of what is now Poland, from about 400 BC to 450–500 AD. These people are identified as Slavs, Celts, Germanic peoples, Balts, Thracians, Avars, and Scythians. Other groups, difficult to identify, were most likely also present, as the ethnic composition of archeological cultures is often poorly recognized. While lacking any written language to speak of, many of them developed a relatively advanced material culture and social organization, as evidenced by the archeological record; for example, richly furnished, "princely" dynastic graves.
The most important phenomenon that took place within the lands of Poland in the Early Middle Ages, as well as other parts of Central Europe was the arrival and permanent settlement of the West Slavic or Lechitic peoples. The Slavic migrations to the area of contemporary Poland started in the second half of the 5th century AD, about a half century after these territories were vacated by Germanic tribes fleeing from the Huns. The first waves of the incoming Slavs settled the vicinity of the upper Vistula River and elsewhere in the lands of present southeastern Poland and southern Masovia. Coming from the east, from the upper and middle regions of the Dnieper River, the immigrants would have had come primarily from the western branch of the early Slavs known as Sclaveni, and since their arrival are classified as West Slavs and Lechites, who are the closest ancestors of Poles.
The Knovíz culture was an upper Danubian subgroup of the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture, located mainly in Bohemia, Thuringia, and Bavaria. The eponymous type site for this culture, the Czech village of Knovíz, is located near Prague. The Knovíz culture was similar to the neighbouring Milavce culture, except for the funerary rites, which featured occasional skeletal burials as well as cremations.
Celtic graphite pottery is the term used in Polish terminology to describe a wheel thrown pottery which was made from clay with graphite fragments as an admixture. This is a characteristic type of ceramics for the La Tène culture whose discovery at Polish sites should be related to Celtic settlement or influences from the Celtic world. The most characteristic type is so-called graphite situla, but other vessels such as pots and bowls were also common.
The Janislawice culture, the Janislawice technocomplex, the Vistula cycle is a late Mesolithic culture from Central Poland. It was strongly connected with Eastern European cultures from Dnieper Basin. It derived by Stefan K. Kozłowski in 1964 and it is named after the Janislawice site near Skierniewice.
Bodzia Cemetery is a large 10th – 11th century chamber burial site in Bodzia, a town in the Kuyavia region of Central Poland, approximately 15 km to the northwest of Włocławek. A group from the Polish Academy of Sciences, led by Polish archaeologist, Andrzej Buko, excavated this site between 2007 – 2009. The excavation uncovered a large elite necropolis containing more than 58 graves, cenotaphs, weapons and riches. The Bodzia Cemetery is considered to be one of the most significant and "spectacular" Early Medieval findings in Poland in the last century. Artefacts uncovered in the site were mostly of foreign origin, which is atypical of other sites in the area. Information gleaned from the Bodzia Cemetery provided archaeologists with evidence of burial practices during the Early Medieval period in Poland.
The Gash Group is a neolithic, prehistoric culture that flourished around 3000 to 1800 BC in Eritrea and Eastern Sudan. It was followed by the Jebel Mokram Group. The name Gash relates to the river in Eritrea with the same name.
The Tianshanbeilu culture, also named Linya, Yalinban or Yamansukuang, is an ancient Bronze Age age culture centered around the Tianshanbeilu cemetery in the region of Hami. The Tianshanbeilu culture played an important role in connecting the Hexi Corridor with the Tianshan Corridor. The cemetery remained in use until 1093–707 cal BCE. Tianshanbeilu is the largest Bronze Age site in eastern Xinjiang.
