Abashevo culture

Abashevo culture is a later Bronze Age (ca. 17th–16th centuries BC) archaeological culture found in the valleys of the Volga and Kama River north of the Samara bend and into the southern Ural Mountains. It receives its name from a village of Abashevo in Chuvashia. Artifacts are kurgans and remnants of settlements.

The economy was mixed agriculture. Cattle as well as other domestic animals were kept. Horses were evident and there is evidence for the chariot; the equipment (cheek pieces) is said to compare well to those of (earliest) Mycenae.

It follows the Yamna culture in its inhumation practices in tumuli. Grave offerings are scant, little more than a pot or two.

There is evidence of copper-smelting, and the culture would seem connected to copper mining activities in the southern Urals.

Linguistically, it is presumptively Indo-Iranian. There were likely contacts with Uralic-speakers, and this is a convenient place for the origin of some loan-words into Uralic.

It occupied part of the area of the earlier Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture, the eastern variant of the earlier Corded Ware culture, but whatever relationship there is between the two cultures is uncertain.

It is succeeded by the Srubna culture.

Notes

Sources

• J. P. Mallory, "Abashevo Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.