Kurgan Hypothesis - Kurgan Culture

Kurgan Culture

Gimbutas defined and introduced the term "Kurgan culture" in 1956 with the intention to introduce a "broader term" that would combine Sredny Stog II, Pit-Grave and Corded ware horizons (spanning the 4th to 3rd millennia in much of Eastern and Northern Europe). The model of a "Kurgan culture" postulates cultural similarity between the various cultures of the Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age (5th to 3rd millennia BC) Pontic-Caspian steppe to justify the identification as a single archaeological culture or cultural horizon. The eponymous construction of kurgans is only one among several factors. As always in the grouping of archaeological cultures, the dividing line between one culture and the next cannot be drawn with any accuracy and will be open to debate.

Cultures that Gimbutas considered as part of the "Kurgan Culture":

• Bug-Dniester (6th millennium)
• Samara (5th millennium)
• Kvalynsk (5th millennium)
• Sredny Stog (mid-5th to mid-4th millennia)
• Dnieper-Donets (5th to 4th millennia)
• Usatovo culture (late 4th millennium)
• Maikop-Dereivka (mid-4th to mid-3rd millennia)
• Yamna (Pit Grave): this is itself a varied cultural horizon. Spanning the entire Pontic-Caspian steppe from the mid-4th to the 3rd millennium BC

David Anthony considers the term "Kurgan Culture" so lacking in precision as to be useless. He points out that "The Kurgan culture was so broadly defined that almost any culture with burial mounds, or even (like the Baden culture) without them could be included." He therefore does not use the term and discusses instead the core Yamna Culture and its relationship with other cultures. He does not include the Maikop culture among those that he considers to be IE-speaking, presuming instead that they spoke a Caucasian language.