Western Baltic culture

The Western Baltic culture was the westernmost branch of the Baltic peoples, representing a distinct archaeological culture of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. They included tribes such as the Old Prussians, Galindians, Yotvingians (or Sudovians) and Skalvians, in addition to the little-known Pomeranian Balts or Western Balts proper, in the area now known as Pomerania.[1]

Cultures in Northern and Central Europe during the late Iron Age.
pale green (centre) – Przeworsk culture
dark green – Nordic group
dark red – Jastorf culture
yellow – Harpstedt-Nienburger group
orange – Celtic groups
brown – Oksywie culture
pink – East Baltic forest zone cultures
magenta – West Baltic cairn culture
turquoise – Milogrady culture
black – Estonian group

Location and territory

According to Marija Gimbutas, the Baltic culture of the Early and Middle Bronze Age covered a territory which, at its maximal extent, included "all of Pomerania almost to the mouth of the Oder, and the whole Vistula basin to Silesia in the south-west" before the spread of the Lusatian culture to the region and was inhabited by the ancestors of the later (Baltic) Old Prussians.[2]

Art and structures

The Balts decorated their pots by creating "deep incisions and ridges around the neck." Baltic graves consisted of huts made out of timber, or stone cists with floors of pavement "encircled by timber posts".[2]

See also

References
  1. Gimbutas, page 63 (map): Largest extent of Baltic people.
  2. Gimbutas, pp. 27, 61.

Source

Marija Gimbutas (1963). The Balts. Thames and Hudson.

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