Urnfield culture

Urnfield culture
Geographical rangeEurope
PeriodLate Bronze Age
Datesc. 1300–750 BC
Major sitesBurgstallkogel (Sulm valley), Ipf (mountain), Ehrenbürg
Preceded byTumulus culture, Vatya culture, Encrusted Pottery culture, Vatin culture, Terramare culture, Apennine culture, Noua culture, Ottomány culture
Followed byHallstatt culture, Lusatian culture, Proto-Villanovan culture, Villanovan culture, Canegrate culture, Golasecca culture, Este culture, Luco culture, Iron Age France, Iron Age Britain, Iron Age Iberia, Basarabi culture, Cimmerians, Thracians, Dacians, Iron Age Greece
Bronze Age
Europe (c. 3200 – 600 BC)
Aegean (Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean), Bronze Age Balkans

Vučedol culture, Nagyrév culture, Ottomány culture, Wietenberg culture, Vatya culture

Bell Beaker culture, Únětice culture, Nordic Bronze Age, Tumulus culture, Urnfield culture

Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age France, Armorican Tumulus culture, Bronze Age Iberia, Argaric culture, Hilversum culture, Atlantic Bronze Age

Nuragic civilization, Polada culture, Terramare culture, Proto-Villanovan culture, Apennine culture, Canegrate culture, Golasecca culture

Bronze Age Caucasus, Catacomb culture, Poltavka culture, Abashevo culture, Sintashta culture, Andronovo culture, Multi-cordoned ware culture, Srubnaya culture

The Urnfield culture (c. 1300–750 BC) was a late Bronze Age culture of Central Europe, often divided into several local cultures within a broader Urnfield tradition. The name comes from the custom of cremating the dead and placing their ashes in urns, which were then buried in fields. The first usage of the name occurred in publications over grave sites in southern Germany in the late 19th century.[1][2] Over much of Europe, the Urnfield culture followed the Tumulus culture and was succeeded by the Hallstatt culture.[3] Some linguists and archaeologists have associated this culture with a pre-Celtic language or Proto-Celtic language family.[4][5] By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the Urnfield Tradition had spread through Italy, northwestern Europe, and as far west as the Pyrenees. It is at this time that fortified hilltop settlements and sheet‐bronze metalworking also spread widely across Europe, leading some authorities to equate these changes with the expansion of the Celts. These links are no longer accepted.[6][7][8]

  1. ^ Louwen, A.J (2021). Breaking and making the ancestors. Piecing together the urnfield mortuary process in the Lower-Rhine-Basin, c. 1300–400 BC (PhD). Leiden University.
  2. ^ Probst, Ernst (1996). Deutschland in der Bronzezeit : Bauern, Bronzegiesser und Burgherren zwischen Nordsee und Alpen. München: C. Bertelsmann. p. 258. ISBN 978-3570022375.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference chadcorc was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Peter Schrijver, 2016, "Sound Change, the Italo-Celtic Linguistic Unity, and the Italian Homeland of Celtic", in John T. Koch & Barry Cunniffe, Celtic From the West 3: Atlantic Europe in the Metal Ages: questions of shared language. Oxford, England; Oxbow Books, pp. 9, 489–502.
  5. ^ Lorrio, Alberto. "The Celts in Iberia: An Overview". E-Keltoi: Journal of Interdisciplinary Celtic Studies. 6.
  6. ^ "Urnfield period".</refSaupe, Tina; Montinaro, Francesco; Scaggion, Cinzia; Carrara, Nicola; Kivisild, Toomas; D'Atanasio, Eugenia; Hui, Ruoyun; Solnik, Anu; Lebrasseur, Ophélie; Larson, Greger; Alessandri, Luca (21 June 2021). "Ancient genomes reveal structural shifts after the arrival of Steppe-related ancestry in the Italian Peninsula". Current Biology. 31 (12): 2576–2591.e12. Bibcode:2021CBio...31E2576S. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2021.04.022. hdl:11585/827581. ISSN 0960-9822. PMID 33974848. S2CID 234471370.
  7. ^ Aneli, Serena; Caldon, Matteo; Saupe, Tina; Montinaro, Francesco; Pagani, Luca (1 October 2021). "Through 40,000 years of human presence in Southern Europe: the Italian case study". Human Genetics. 140 (10): 1417–1431. doi:10.1007/s00439-021-02328-6. ISSN 1432-1203. PMC 8460580. PMID 34410492. Archived from the original on 27 October 2023. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  8. ^ Saupe et al. 2021 "The results suggest that the Steppe-related ancestry component could have first arrived through Late N/Bell Beaker groups from Central Europe."