Maykop culture

The Maykop culture (also spelled Maikop), ca. 3700 BC—2500 BC, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture situated in Southern Russia running from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait nearly to the modern border of Dagestan, centered approximately on the modern Republic of Adygea (whose capital is Maykop) in the Kuban River valley. The culture takes its name from a royal burial found there. The Maikop Barrow was first discovered in 1897.

Its inhumation practices were typically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan or (tumulus). The Maikop Barrow, was extremely rich in gold and silver artifacts; unusual for the time. The Mayop culture is also believed to be one of the first to take of the wheel.

Territory

In 2010, nearly 200 Bronze Age sites were reported stretching over 60 miles between the Kuban river and Nalchik between 4,620 feet and 7,920 feet. They were all "visibly constructed according to the same architectural plan, with an oval courtyard in the center, and connected by roads."

Contemporaneous cultures

Culture

The Maykop culture is believed to be one of the first to take of the wheel.

Its inhumation practices were typically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan or (tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments. Because of its burial practices, and in terms of the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, it is listed as an intrusion from the Pontic steppe into the Caucasus. According to Mallory this is hard to evaluate and he emphasizes that: where the evidence for barrows is found, it is precisely in regions which later demonstrate the presence of non-Indo-European populations. In other occasions the culture has been cited, at the very least, as a kurganized culture with a strong ethnic and linguistic links to the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It has been linked to the Lower Mikhaylovka group and Kemi Oba culture, and more distantly, to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, if only in an economic sense. Mallory states:

Such a theory, it must be emphasized, is highly speculative and controversial although there is a recognition that this culture may be a product of at least two traditions: the local steppe tradition embraced in the Novosvobodna culture and foreign elements from south of the Caucasus which can be charted through imports in both regions.—EIEC,"Maykop Culture".

Anatorial theory

See also

Source

Footnotes