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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.[1]
pale green (centre) – Przeworsk culture
dark green – Nordic group
dark red – Jastorf culture
yellow – Harpstedt-Nienburger group
orange – Celtic groups
brown – Oksywie culture
pink – East Baltic forest zone cultures
magenta – West Baltic cairn culture
turquoise – Milogrady culture
black – Estonian group
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Most of the Western Balts arose from the West Baltic barrow culture dating back to the early Iron Age. The Western Baltic culture includes:
- Bogaczewo culture (from the end of c. 1st millennium B.C. to the end of the 4th c. A.D., possibly even the end of the 5th c.)
- Sudovian culture (from the mid-2nd c. A.D. to the end of the 6th c.)
- Sambian-Notangian culture (from the end of the 1st c. A.D. to the beginning of the 6th c.)
- Olsztyn group (from the end of the 5th c. A.D. to the mid-7th c. or the beginning of the 8th c.)
- Elbląg group (from the end of the 5th c. A.D. to the mid-7th c.)
- Low German group
- West Lithuanian group
- Central Lithuanian group
Geography, chronology and ancient mentions
According to Marija Gimbutas, the Baltic culture of the Early and Middle Bronze Age covered a territory which, at its maximal extent, included "all of Pomerania almost to the mouth of the Oder, and the whole Vistula basin to Silesia in the south-west" before the spread of the Lusatian culture to the region and was inhabited by the ancestors of the later (Baltic) Old Prussians.[2]
The Western Baltic cultures were located to the north-east of the Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures, between the Pasłęka and Daugava rivers. They lived there from the end of c. 1st millennium B.C. until the mid-7th century. According to Tacitus, these areas were inhabited by the Aesti, while Ptolemy speaks of the Galindians and the Sudines.
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The Balts decorated their pots by creating "deep incisions and ridges around the neck." Baltic graves consisted of huts made out of timber, or stone cists with floors of pavement "encircled by timber posts".[2]
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