The region of Caucasus and Central European-Carpathian territory in the final Eneolithic and the Bronze Age (a contribution to the transfer of technologies and knowledge)

Abstract

The current research shows more and more clearly that the cultures in the Middle Danube-Carpathian territory were not just peripheral cultures of the developed Aegean-Western Asian cultures, but they were also the western periphery of the Eurasian steppe region. From this aspect, the cultural-historical development in this area was influenced and associated with the cultural-historical development in the Caucasian and Northern Pontic region as well. This is confirmed by several artifacts of the Caucasian character in the territory of Central Europe. First of all, we can mention single-edge copper axes, whose oldest exemplars in Europe come from the North Caucasus (the Maykop and Novosvobodnaya cultures). With the Yamnaya culture, technology of their production arrived to the Northern Balkans and Central Europe along the Danube, through the Northern Pontic region. Their oldest exemplars in this territory represent the Baniabic type axes. Together with weapons or tools, ornaments occur. They are earrings of the so-called of Transylvania type, which are associated mainly with the Únětice, Košťany and Otomani cultures in the Carpathian-Middle Danube region. Their prototypes can be found in the Northern Pontic region – Yamnaya culture. Surviving cultural contacts between Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Bronze Age are documented by the Srubnaya type dagger from Sklabiňa in Central Slovakia. Existence of contacts of the Caucasian region with the Central European territory as late as the final Bronze Age is documented by finds of Cimmerian character. As a pars pro toto example, we can mention the Kabardino-Pyatigorsk type, dagger from Malý Cetín in SW Slovakia.

Keywords:

Middle Danube, Carpathians, Northern Pontic region, North Caucasus, Eurasiа, Final Eneolithic and Bronze Age, cultural contacts, new technologies