The Western Baltic culture (Lithuanian: Vakarų baltų kultūra; Polish: Kultura zachodniobałtyjska also known as krąg zachodniobałtyjski (West Baltic circle), Russian: Западнобалтская культура, romanized: Zapadnobaltskaya kul'tura) was the westernmost branch of the Balts, representing a distinct archaeological culture of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. It is a zone of several small archaeological cultures that were ethnically Baltic and had similar cultural features (e.g. similar monuments or some features of the funeral rite). They included tribes such as the Old Prussians, Galindians, Yotvingians (or Sudovians) and Skalvians, in addition to the little-known Pomeranian Balts or Western Balts proper, in the area now known as Pomerania.
- ⭐ Core Definition: Western Baltic culture
- Western Baltic culture in the context of Baltic tribes
- Western Baltic culture in the context of Jastorf culture
Western Baltic culture in the context of Baltic tribes
The Balts or Baltic peoples (Lithuanian: baltai, Latvian: balti) are a group of peoples inhabiting the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea who speak Baltic languages. Among the Baltic peoples are modern-day Lithuanians (including Samogitians) and Latvians (including Latgalians) — all East Balts — as well as the Old Prussians, Curonians, Sudovians, Skalvians, Yotvingians and Galindians — the Western Balts — whose languages and cultures are now extinct, but made a large influence on the living branches, especially on literary Lithuanian language.
The Balts are descended from a group of Proto-Indo-European tribes who settled the area between the lower Vistula and southeast shore of the Baltic Sea and upper Daugava and Dnieper rivers, and which over time became differentiated into West and East Balts. In the fifth century CE, parts of the eastern Baltic coast began to be settled by the ancestors of the Western Balts, whereas the East Balts lived in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. In the first millennium CE, large migrations of the Balts occurred. By the 13th and 14th centuries, the East Balts shrank to the general area that the present-day Balts and Belarusians inhabit.
View the full Wikipedia page for Baltic tribesWestern Baltic culture in the context of Jastorf culture
The Jastorf culture was an Iron Age material culture in what is now Germany, stretching north into Jutland, and east into Poland, spanning the 6th to 1st centuries BC, forming the southern part of the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
View the full Wikipedia page for Jastorf culture