Sredny Stog culture

Holocene Epoch
↑ Pleistocene
Holocene/Anthropocene
Preboreal (10.3 ka – 9 ka), Boreal (9 ka – 7.5 ka), Atlantic (7.5 ka – 5 ka), Subboreal (5 ka – 2.5 ka) Subatlantic (2.5 ka – present)

The Sredny Stog culture (named after the Ukrainian village of Seredny Stih where it was first located, for which Sredny Stog is the conventional Russian-language designation) dates from the 4500-3500 BC. It was situated just north of the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and the Don. One of the best known sites associated with this culture is Dereivka, located on the right bank of the Omelnik, a tributary of the Dnieper, and is the most impressive site within the Sredny Stog culture complex, being about 2,000 square meters in area.

It seems to have had contact with the agricultural Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the west, and was a contemporary of the Khvalynsk culture. Yuri Rassamakin suggests that it should be considered an areal term, with at least four distinct cultural elements.

Inhumation was in a ground level pit, not yet capped by a tumulus (kurgan). The deceased was placed on his back with the legs flexed. Ochre was used. Expert Dmytro Telegin has divided Sredny Stog into two distinct phases. Phase II (ca. 4000-3500 BC) also knew corded ware pottery, which it may have originated, and stone battle-axes of the type later associated with expanding Indo-European cultures to the West. Most notably, it has perhaps the earliest evidence of horse domestication (in phase II), with finds suggestive of cheek-pieces (psalia).

In the context of the modified Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas, this pre-kurgan archaeological culture could represent the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language. The Sredny Stog culture was succeded by the Yamna culture.

Sources

• J. P. Mallory, "Sredny Stog Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.