Middle Volga Abashevo Culture and Bell Beaker Culture: family portrait sketches

Abstract

The paper considers an analysis of the formation mechanisms of the Middle Volga Abashevo culture. It was formed in conditions of a sharp aridization of the period 2200 CalBC. Its occurrence was rapid and abrupt. Most of the standards of the ritual and inventory complex of the culture do not have local prototypes. They appeared in the region in an already established form. This applies to both the funeral rite and material culture, where innovations are most clearly seen in ceramics and jewelry sets, which, as is known, can act as ethnographic indicators. Structural analogies to the entire complex of the Middle Volga Abashevo innovations can be found in the culture of Bell Beaker Culture and Early Bronze cultures of the Bz A1 period, according to P. Reinecke, in Central Europe and the Carpathian-Danube region. Based on this, one can conclude that the formation of the Abashevo culture is associated with long-distance migration of certain groups of the European population from these regions to the Middle Volga region. Their contact with the local Fatyanovo–Balanovo communities led to the emergence of such a bright and original culture as the Middle Volga Abashevo.

Keywords

• archaeology
• middle volga abashevo culture
• bell beaker culture
• central europe
• carpathian-danube region
• ritual inventory complex
• chronology
• aridization
• migrations