Gumelnița culture
HorizonOld Europe
PeriodNeolithic, Chalcolithic
Datesc. 4700 BC – c. 3950 BC
Preceded byBoian culture, Karanovo culture
Followed byVarna culture, Cernavodă culture

The Gumelniţa culture was a Chalcolithic culture of the 5th millennium BC (c. 4700–4000 BC), named after the Gumelniţa site on the left (Romanian) bank of the Danube.

Geography

The enthroned "Lady of Pazardžik" of the Karanovo VI culture (c. 4500 BC)
Ceramic container lid
Painted ceramic vessel

The Gumelniţa culture was part of the broader Gumelniţa-Kodžadermen-Karanovo VI complex. This evolved out of the earlier Boian, and Karanovo V cultures. Gumelniţa-Kodžadermen-Karanovo VI is also aggregated with the Varna culture. The Gumelniţa culture was supplanted by the Cernavodă culture in the early 4th millennium BC.

Periodization

"One of the most flourishing civilizations from the last half of the 5th millenium [sic] BC is (next to the Ariuşd Cucuteni – Tripolie complex) Gumelniţa Culture... absolute chronology, still under discussion, according to the latest calibrated data, assigns this culture (as mentioned above) to the limits of the last half of the 5th millenium [sic] BC and maybe to early 4th millenium [sic] BC." — Silvia Marinescu-Bîlcu, Gumelniţa Culture.[1]

This matches exactly the view of Blagoje Govedarica (2004).[2]

The first periodization of Gumelniţa culture was suggested by VI. Dumitrescu who split the civilization of Gumelniţa into two phases: A and B. Later on, Dinu V. Rosetti divided the civilization into Al, A2 and B1, B2.[3]

Gumelniţa A

With a centric evolution from geographic point of view, the intensity of the cultural trends decreased from the center towards peripheral area. Having a strong Boian background at the origins, mixed with Maritza elements, the Gumelniţa culture lasted short of a millennium from the beginning of the Chalcolithic to the start of the fourth millennium BC.[1]

Gumelniţa A1

4700–4350.[4]

Gumelniţa A2

4500–3950.[4] The regional characteristics of A1 phase are diminished, and more uniform characteristics are identified in discovered artifacts.

Synchronisms

Gumelnita Culture [5] Adiacent Culture 1 Adiacent Culture 2 Adiacent Culture 3
Gumelniţa A1 Precucuteni 3 Cucuteni A1 – A2 Varna 1
Gumelniţa A2 Cucuteni A3 the beginning of the Cernavoda 1 culture

Art

The Gumelniţa is remarkable by the richness of its anthropomorphic and zoomorphic representations. Some consider the achievements of prehistoric craftsmen to be true masterpieces.

The representation from Gumelnița art differ by other cultures by the following:

  • statuettes morphology characterised by expressivity, gesture and attitude.
  • modelling technique
  • arms positions on the belly, stretched laterally, in the position of the "thinker"
  • sex representation
  • decoration pattern

Seashell ornament is relatively common. At least some of the shellfish used come from the Aegean regions, for example the spondylas and the dentals.

As evidence from archaeology, thousands of artifacts from Neolithic Europe have been discovered, mostly in the form of female figurines. As a result a 'mother goddess' theory was proposed. The leading proponent was the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas. This interpretation is still a subject of great controversy in archaeology due to Gimbutas' many inferences about the symbols on artifacts.[6]

The analysis of the finds uncovered by archaeological excavations revealed a few characteristics of the Gumelniţa objects of art, likely to lead to a few main trends of the spiritual life investigation.

"The prevalence of a female character is clear, as it represents 34% of all the anthropomorphic representations. That might represent a deity, the term having a general significance, of worship, without being able to specify under the current stage of the researches which is the nature and status of this deity. The male representations are very few, about 1%, while about 10% are the asexual representations, therefore with no sign (breasts, sexual triangle) which might point to the sex of the statuette." — Gumelniţa Anthropomorphic and Zoomorphic Objects of Art by Radian Romus Andreescu.[7]

Technological developments

Gumelniţa culture has some sign of work specialisation:

"We do not have enough data on the internal organization of the community, but next to the dwellings themselves, arranged or not in a certain order, we encounter workshop-dwellings for processing lithic material, bones, horns, ornaments, statuettes, etc.)." — Gumelniţa Culture by Silvia Marinescu-Bîlcu

Danube Script

During the Middle Copper Age, the Danube script appears in three horizons: The Gumelniţa–Kodžadermen-Karanovo VI cultural complex (mainly in Bulgaria, but also in Romania), the Cucuteni A3-A4–Trypillya B (in Ukraine), and Coțofeni I (in Serbia). The first, rates 68.6% of the frequencies; the second, rates 24.2%; and the third, rates 7.6%.[8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "A "Lost" Civilization: GUMELNIŢA". Cimec.ro. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  2. ↑ Blagoje Govedarica, Zepterträger – Herrscher der Steppen; Die frühen Ockergräber des älteren Äneolitikums im karpatenbalkanischen Gebiet und im Steppenraum Südost- u Osteuropas. Mainz: Zabern, 2004, in German
  3. ↑ Raluca KOGĂLNICEANU. "OPINIONS REGARDING THE PERIODISATION OF THE GUMELNITA CULTURE" (PDF). History.uaic.ro. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  4. 1 2 "Cultural Landscapes in the lower Danube area. Experimenting tell settlements" (PDF). Documenta Praehistorica. Dragos Gheorghiu Centre of Research: National University of Arts – Bucharest Romania. XXXV. 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 6 April 2016. UDK 903.4(4-014)"631/634"
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ Collins, Gloria. "Will the "Great Goddess" resurface?: Reflections in Neolithic Europe". Austin, Texas: University of Texas at Austin. Archived from the original on 12 October 1999. Retrieved 1 December 2009This site was a student brief done for a class assignment{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  7. ↑ "A "Lost" Civilization: Gumelnita". Cimec.ro. Retrieved 6 April 2016.
  8. ↑ Merlini, Marco (2009). "SOME KEY FEATURES OF THE DANUBE HOMO SCRIBENS BASED ON THE DATABANK DATDAS" (PDF). Acta Terrae Septemcastrensis. VIII: 35–64. Archived from the original (PDF) on 10 April 2018. Retrieved 18 July 2022.

Bibliography

  • Stefan Hiller, Vassil Nikolov (eds.), Karanovo III. Beiträge zum Neolithikum in Südosteuropa Österreichisch-Bulgarische Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Karanovo, Band III, Vienna (2000), ISBN 3-901232-19-2.
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