Khvalynsk culture
| Geographical range | Europe |
|---|---|
| Period | Eneolithic |
| Preceded by | Samara culture |
| Followed by | Yamna culture |
The Khvalynsk culture was a Middle Copper Age (for Eastern Europe named "Eneolithic") culture of the first half of the 5th millennium BC, discovered at Khvalynsk on the Volga in Saratov Oblast, Russia. It was preceded by the Early Eneolithic Samara culture, from which it came, and succeeded by the Late Eneolithic, Early Yamna culture, into which it developed.
The Khvalynsk culture extended from Saratov in the north to the North Caucasus in the south, from the Sea of Azov in the west to the Ural River in the east.
A good sprinkling of calibrated C-14 readings obtained from material in the graves of the type site date the culture certainly to the approximate window, 5000-4500 BC. This material is from Khvalynsk I, or Early Khvalynsk. Khvalynsk II, or Late Khvalynsk, is Late Eneolithic.
Some regard Khvalynsk I as Early Eneolithic, contemporary with the Samara culture. Gimbutas, however, believed Samara was earlier and placed Khvalynsk I in the Developed Eneolithic. Not enough Samara culture dates and sites exist to settle the question.
The Khvalynsk type site is a cemetery, 30 m by 26 m, containing about 158 skeletons, mainly in single graves, but some two to five together. They were buried on their backs with knees contracted. Twelve of the graves were covered with stone cairns. Sacrificial areas were found similar to those at Samara, containing horse, cattle and sheep remains.
An individual grave was found in 1929 at Krivoluchie with grave goods and the remains placed on ochre, face up, knees contracted. A 67 m high earthen kurgan at Nalchik, approximately thirty metres in diameter, contained 121 individual graves of remains placed face up, knees contracted, on ochre with a covering of stone.
Khvalinsk evidences the further development of the kurgan. It began in the Samara with individual graves or small groups sometimes under stone. In the Khvalinsk culture one finds group graves, which can only be communal on some basis, whether familial or local or both is not clear. With the advent of DNA testing, perhaps someday it will be.
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