The
Pitted Ware culture (ca 3200 BC– ca 2300 BC) was a
neolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
Hunter-gathererA hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either...
cultureIn addition to its usual meaning in social science, in archaeology, the term culture is also used in reference to several related concepts unique to the discipline.-Archaeological culture:...
in southern
ScandinaviaScandinavia is a geographical region in northern Europe that includes, and is named after, the Scanian Province. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark...
, mainly along the coasts of
SvealandSvealand , Swealand or Sweden proper is the historical core region of Sweden. It is located in south central Sweden, bounded to the north by Norrland and to the south by Götaland. Deep forests, Tiveden, Tylöskog, Kolmården, separated Svealand from Götaland...
,
GötalandGötaland , Gothia, Gothland, Gothenland, Gotland, Gautland, Geatland is one of three lands of Sweden consisting of ten provinces...
, Åland, north-eastern
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
and southern
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
. It was first contemporary and overlapping with the agricultural
Funnelbeaker cultureThe Funnelbeaker culture, short TRB from Trichterbecherkultur is the principal north central European megalithic culture of late Neolithic Europe.- Predecessor and successor cultures :...
, and later with the agricultural
Corded Ware cultureThe Corded Ware culture, alternatively characterized as the Battle Axe culture or Single Grave culture is an enormous European archaeological horizon that begins in the late Neolithic , flourishes through the Copper Age and finally culminates in the early Bronze Age, developing in various areas...
.
The culture has been named after the ornamentation of its
potteryPottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. Major types of pottery include earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The places where such wares are made are called potteries. Pottery is one of the oldest human technologies and art-forms, and remains a major industry today...
, which is usually round pits and horizontal lines.
The
Pitted Ware culture (ca 3200 BC– ca 2300 BC) was a
neolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
Hunter-gathererA hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild, foraging and hunting without significant recourse to the domestication of either...
cultureIn addition to its usual meaning in social science, in archaeology, the term culture is also used in reference to several related concepts unique to the discipline.-Archaeological culture:...
in southern
ScandinaviaScandinavia is a geographical region in northern Europe that includes, and is named after, the Scanian Province. It consists of the kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark...
, mainly along the coasts of
SvealandSvealand , Swealand or Sweden proper is the historical core region of Sweden. It is located in south central Sweden, bounded to the north by Norrland and to the south by Götaland. Deep forests, Tiveden, Tylöskog, Kolmården, separated Svealand from Götaland...
,
GötalandGötaland , Gothia, Gothland, Gothenland, Gotland, Gautland, Geatland is one of three lands of Sweden consisting of ten provinces...
, Åland, north-eastern
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
and southern
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
. It was first contemporary and overlapping with the agricultural
Funnelbeaker cultureThe Funnelbeaker culture, short TRB from Trichterbecherkultur is the principal north central European megalithic culture of late Neolithic Europe.- Predecessor and successor cultures :...
, and later with the agricultural
Corded Ware cultureThe Corded Ware culture, alternatively characterized as the Battle Axe culture or Single Grave culture is an enormous European archaeological horizon that begins in the late Neolithic , flourishes through the Copper Age and finally culminates in the early Bronze Age, developing in various areas...
.
Objects
The culture has been named after the ornamentation of its
potteryPottery is the ceramic ware made by potters. Major types of pottery include earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. The places where such wares are made are called potteries. Pottery is one of the oldest human technologies and art-forms, and remains a major industry today...
, which is usually round pits and horizontal lines. The vessels are uniform and have usually pointed bottoms in order to facilitate positioning in the soil or on the hearth. Their height varies from only a few cm to 40. The settlements on the Swedish east coast have produced large quantities of pottery. At Fagervik on
BråvikenBråviken is a bay of the Baltic sea that is located near Norrköping in Östergötland, Sweden....
in
ÖstergötlandÖstergötland is a one of the traditional provinces of Sweden in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland, and the Baltic Sea. In older English literature one may also encounter the Latinized version Ostrogothia.-Administration: The provinces of Sweden serve no...
archaeologists have found 170 000 shards, but few flint objects. The pottery from Fagervik have provided a chronology with five phases. Fagervik 1 represents pottery from the Funnel Beaker culture while Fagervik 2-4 represents Pitted Ware pottery, Fagervik 3 and 4 are considered typical Pitted Ware pottery. Fagervik 4 is usually very porous because the clay was tempered with limestone. Fagervik 5 contains pottery from the Corded Ware culture.
Tanged arrow heads made from blades of flintstone are abundant on Scandinavia's west coast, while pottery is sparse. The culture was consequently less homogeneous than the contemporary and overlapping agricultural cultures.
Its array of tools and weapons is largely borrowed from the Funnelbeaker and the Corded Ware cultures, while these cultures stayed very conservative with their own. The characteristic pottery is probably based on that of the Funnelbeaker culture, but what was unique for the Pitted Ware culture were the small clay
figurineA figurine is a statuette that represents a human, deity, or animal. Figurines may be realistic or iconic, depending on the skill and intention of the creator. The earliest were made of stone or clay...
s of animals.
Economy and ethnicity
It is clear from pottery studies that there is no technological break between the Funnel Beaker culture and the Pitted Ware culture and the two cultures appear to have coexisted with few conflicts. In all regions, the economy was mainly based on fishing and the hunt of land animals and seals, as well as gathering of plants, as can be seen at sites such as
AjvideThe site of Ajvide is located on the western coast of Gotland, Sweden, in the parish of Eksta. It covers an area of 200,000 square metres and was occupied from the Late Mesolithic through to the mid Bronze Age. The majority of the activity on the site took place during the Middle Neolithic period...
on
Gotland' is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, it makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area. The region also includes the small islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the north, and the tiny...
. However both sheep bone and pig bone are common finds on Pitted Ware sites , indicating that aspects of the neolithic life style were not abandoned when the Pitted Ware culture emerged from its Funnel Beaker ancestry.
The unique Alvastra Pile Dwelling in south-western
ÖstergötlandÖstergötland is a one of the traditional provinces of Sweden in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland, and the Baltic Sea. In older English literature one may also encounter the Latinized version Ostrogothia.-Administration: The provinces of Sweden serve no...
belongs to the Pitted Ware culture when the pottery is concerned, but to the Funnelbeaker culture in tools and weapons. Hunting and gathering in combination with agriculture and animal husbandry points to a mixed economy, a combination which was probably common in southern Scandinavia at the time.
Graves
Its grave customs are not well known, but Västerbjers on the island of
Gotland' is a county, province, municipality and diocese of Sweden and the largest island in the Baltic Sea. At 3,140 square kilometers in area, it makes up less than one percent of Sweden's total land area. The region also includes the small islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the north, and the tiny...
has produced a large number of grave fields, where the
limestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite . The deposition of limestone strata is often a by-product and indicator of biological activity in the geologic record...
has preserved the graves well. In these graves, archaeologists found skeletons laid on their backs with well-preserved tools in bone and horn. Numerous imported objects testify to good connections with the Scandinavian mainland, Denmark and Germany.
Language
Its connections with the probably
pre-Indo-EuropeanOld Europe is a term coined by archaeologist Marija Gimbutas to describe what she perceives as a relatively homogeneous and widespread pre-Indo-European Neolithic culture in Europe, particularly in Malta and the Balkans....
Funnelbeaker culture and the probably
Proto-Indo-EuropeanThe Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language , an unattested but now reconstructed prehistoric language....
Corded Ware culture are debated. As the language left no records, its linguistic affiliations are a mystery. It has been suggested that it spoke a language related to the
Finno-Ugric languagesFinno-Ugric is a group of languages in the Uralic language family, comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and related languages.It comprises the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families.-Status:...
and provided the unique linguistic features discussed in the
Germanic substrate hypothesisThe Germanic substrate hypothesis is an attempt to explain the distinctive nature of the Germanic languages within the context of the Indo-European language family...
.