Abashevo culture
Abashevo culture is a later
bronze age (ca. 17th–16th centuries BC)
archaeological culture found in the valleys of the
Volga and
Kama River north of the
Samara bend and into the southern
Ural Mountains. It receives its name from a village of Abashevo in
Chuvashia. Artifacts are
kurgans and remnants of settlements.
The economy was mixed agriculture. Cattle as well as other domestic animals were kept. Horses were evident and there is evidence for the
chariot; the equipment (cheek pieces) is said to compare well to those of (earliest)
Mycenae.
It follows the
Yamna culture in its
inhumation practices in
tumuli. Grave offerings are scant, little more than a pot or two.
There is evidence of copper-smelting, and the culture would seem connected to copper mining activities in the southern Urals.
Linguistically, it is presumptively
Iranian. There were likely contacts with
Uralic-speakers, and this is a convenient place for the origin of some loan-words into Uralic.
It occupied part of the area of the earlier
Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture, the eastern variant of the earlier
Corded Ware culture, but whatever relationship there is between the two cultures is uncertain.
J. P. Mallory, "Abashevo Culture",
Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
