Usatove culture
The Usatovo culture, 3500—3000 BC, is an archaeological culture facing the Black Sea between the mouths of the Bug River and the Danube in present-day Romania, Moldavia, and southern Ukraine.
It is seen as a hybrid, with roots in both the Cernavodă and the Tripolye cultures, overlain by an intrusive steppe-derived element of the presumably Indo-European-speaking Kurgan culture.
Metal artefacts are connected to contacts with the distant Caucasus.
It is seen as part of the "Balkan-Danubian complex" that stretched from Troy, the Danube valley up into the Elbe.
Sources
- J. P. Mallory, "Usatavo Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.