Search

The Online Encyclopedia and Dictionary

 
     
 

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Quotes

 

Funnelbeaker culture

The Funnelbeaker culture is the archeological designation for a late Neolithic culture in what is now northern Germany, the Netherlands, southern Scandinavia and Poland. The name has been designated to the time period of ca 4100BC-3200(3000)BC and is supposedly the first developed farming culture of southern Scandinavia.

The Funnelbeaker culture is preceded by another culture, the Ertebölle culture which is named after a Danish village. This predecessor culture was partly neolithic but still primarily hunter-gatherer.

The switch to farming caused a downfall in health among the funnelbeakers that probably lead to the demise of the tradition the culture is named from, putting large ceramics with large funnels on top that are heavy decorated near the meglithic tombs of the era, that are called chamber tumuluses and dolmen.

It has been theorised that the funnelbeakers were an extremely communal society as almost every grave located from this era is literally packed with skeletons, even though most of them have been robbed or destroyed over the years. A singe grave of the type chamber tumulus could contain the burials of up to a hundred individuals. Death is also thought to have been present in the everyday life of the funnelbeakers since the megalithic structures often were risen in the middle of the village or small farming community. Back then the structures were probably covered within a heap of dirt and the entrance was blocked by a stone.

The Funnelbeaker culture marks the appearance of megalithic tombs at the coasts of the Baltic and of the North sea. The megalithic structures of Ireland, France and Portugal are somewhat older and have been connected to earlier archeological cultures of those areas. The German variants of the funnelbeaker culture include the Tiefstichgruppe in Northern Germany as well as the Walternienburg-Salzmünde and Bernburg cultures of eastern Germany. The megalithic monuments of the funnelbeaker culture found in the Netherlands are called hunebeds.

Last updated: 05-07-2005 17:28:54
The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. How to see transparent copy