The Funnelbeaker , or TRB or (German) Trichterbecher culture (ca 4000 BC - 2700 BC). is the principal north central European megalithic archaeological culture of late Neolithic Europe. It ranges from the Elbe catchment in Germany with a western extension into the Netherlands, to southern Scandinavia (Denmark up to Uppland in Sweden and the Oslofjord in Norway) to the Vistula catchment in Poland, The Funnelbeaker culture is preceded by the Ertebølle culture which is named after a Danish village. This predecessor culture was partly neolithic but still primarily hunter-gatherer. The successor culture was the Corded Ware culture and the overlapping Globular Amphora culture. The German variants of the Funnelbeaker culture include the Tiefstichgrüppe in Northern Germany as well as the Walternienburg-Salzmünde and Baalburg group of the upper Elbe.
Migration patterns
It is supposedly the first developed farming culture of southern Scandinavia, but opinions are divided on whether it was introduced by migration or not. After WWII, the consensus among Scandinavian scholars became that it had spread peacefully by cultural diffusion into Scandinavia and that the indigenous population spontaneously had adopted agriculture due to environmental changes. However, today the opinion is again changing and more scholars agree that there was immigration. Oddly, it was later pushed south from the Mälaren basin, and from the east, by a hunter and gatherer culture called the Pitted Ware culture (the debate on whether it was by demic diffusion or cultural diffusion mirrors the arrival of the Funnelbeaker culture). Still, it is richly represented in Denmark and southwestern Sweden (i.e. Bohuslän, Västergötland and Skåne).
Settlements
The settlements are located near those of the previous Ertebølle culture on the coast, and it was characterised by one family daubed houses ca 12 m x 6 m. It was dominated by animal husbandry of sheep, cattle, pigs and goats, but there was also hunting and fishing. Primitive wheat and barley was grown on small patches that were fast depleted, due to which the population frequently moved small distances. There was also mining (e.g. in the Malmö region) and collection of flintstone, which was traded into regions lacking the stone, such as the Scandinavian hinterland. The culture imported copper from Central Europe, especially daggers and axes.
Religion and graves
The houses were centered around a monumental grave, a symbol of social cohesion. Burial practices were varied, depending on region and changed over time. Inhumation seems to have been the rule. The oldest graves consisted of wooden chambered cairns inside long barrows, but later in the form of passage graves and dolmens. Originally, the structures were probably covered within a heap of dirt and the entrance was blocked by a stone. The Funnelbeaker culture marks the appearance of megalithic tombs at the coasts of the Baltic and of the North sea. The megalithic structures of Ireland, France and Portugal are somewhat older and have been connected to earlier archeological cultures of those areas.
The graves were probably not intended for every member of the settlement but only for an elite. At graves the people sacrificed ceramic vessels that probably contained food, and axes and other flint objects.
Axes and vessels were also deposed in streams and lakes near the farmlands, and virtually all Sweden's 10 000 flint axes that have been found from this culture were probably sacrificed in water.
They also constructed large cult centres sourrounded by pales, earthworks and moats. The largest one is found at Sarup on Fyn. It comprises 8.5 hectares and is estimated to have taken 8000 workdays. Another cult centre at Stävie near Lund comprises 3 hectares.
Objects
The culture is named for its characteristic ceramics, beakers and amphorae with funnel-shaped tops, which were probably used for drinking. One spectacular find which may be assigned to the Funnelbeaker culture is a pot excavated at Bronocice, Poland which shows apparently the very first depiction of a wheeled vehicle (here, a wagon) anywhere; this would date from somewhere after 4000.
The technology was flint-based, of which the deposits found in Belgium and on the island of Rügen as well as deposits in the Krakow area were important.
Ethnicity and language
Little can be said about its ethnic or linguistic roots. In the context of the Kurgan hypothesis, the culture is seen as non-Indo-European, representing the culture of what Marija Gimbutas termed Old Europe. The older, now largely discarded view held this to be essentially the Indo-European Urheimat, but this is now sought in the steppe to the east (see Yamna culture).
Sources
- James P. Mallory, "TRB Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
- Nationalencyklopedin