Copper Age
(4500-2500 BC)
Topics covered in this section:
Introduction
Over the previous several millennia, beginning around 6000 BC, pioneer
groups of hunters, foragers, and farmers migrated onto European soil. By
the start of the Copper Age (4500 BC), they had established a number of
villages and farming communities. However, farms still occupied only a tiny
part of the European land mass. Most of the landscape remained the domain
of hunters and foragers.
Dominance of Farms
But that was about to change. During the next two millennia of the Copper
Age (4500-2500 BC), farms and farming villages became the dominant
elements of the landscape. So prevalent were these agrarian groups, in fact,
that we see the virtual disappearance of the foraging societies.
As noted, the original pioneers had established a few farms throughout
Europe. Groups who arrived later laid down their roots as well, resulting
in a fusion of natives and later arrivals. But the pattern of migration
and assimilation into indigenous settlements was not uniform across all
of Europe.
Regional Development
Instead, we see broad regions of similar, though distinct, cultural
phenomena at various locations throughout Europe. Just one example that
many people are familiar with are the numerous megalithic monuments along
the Atlantic coastline such as Stonehenge. Not so well-known, but still
quite prevalent, are the tumuli (round burial mounds) common to eastern
Europe and the steppes.
Environmental settings played an important part in the specific ways
of life of the groups who settled in the different environments. Farms
and villages reflect these distinctive contexts.
Tribal Societies or Chiefdoms
The emergence of these various groups, in their unique environments,
produced a greater diversity of European cultures than at any other period
of prehistory. In terms of social complexity, however, they were simply
variations on the same theme. Nearly all the villages were simple tribal
societies or chiefdoms.
Differences among chiefdoms allowed for the self-conscious definition
of group and individual identities -- an ethnic classification, if you
will.
Phased Development
The Copper Age may be divided into two arbitrary phases:
- First Phase (4500-3500 BC)
- Second Phase (3500-2500 BC)
We will look at the characteristics of each phase in the following
sections, then summarize the entire Copper Age.
First Phase (4500-3500 BC)
In the initial period of time during the first phase, the process of
tribal grouping took place largely in isolation from concurrent developments
in the original foraging communities. But as time went on, we see a gradual
increase in the interaction between agrarian immigrants and the native
hunter-gatherer society.
Evidence of this interaction is most noticeable by the slow transformation
of the temperate environment through forest clearance.
In addition to horticulture, the new arriving tribal groups engaged in
livestock rearing, especially in the open parts of eastern Europe.
Gradual Modernization
Overall, Europe was much slower to modernize than the contemporary
settlements of the Near East. In Mesopotamia, for example, the invention
of irrigation and the plow had already provided the preconditions necessary
for the emergence of urban societies.
Whereas the Near East embraced modernization, Europe lagged behind.
Europeans still relied on common, antiquated Neolithic craft skills in
the fields of architecture, weaving, and pottery. Timber architecture
predominated in the forest settings of Europe rather the complex mud-brick
houses typical of the Near East.
True cities were still a long way off for most of Europe's inhabitants.
Instead, small villages, composed of free-standing, rectangular structures,
dominated the European landscape.
Artisans and Craftsmen
Stoneware
Raw materials were always in demand and good stone was traded on an
increasing scale. Obsidian and flint blades were especially prized.
Stone ornaments, chiefly only for display rather than as functional
items, provided a vital element of the economy of Neolithic and Copper Age
people. Fine jade axes, perhaps used for jewelry, are prevalent. Also we
find numerous bracelets made of fine stones or imported shells.
Pottery
Pottery showed a great deal of regional diversity in its sophistication.
Elaborately painted wares, often decorated in textile patterns, was common
in southeastern Europe. More rustic styles were prevalent elsewhere on
the Continent.
Textiles
Textile production reached considerable sophistication. Since the sheep
of Neolithic Europe were not wool-bearing, linen and other vegetable fibers
were in common use.
We see the invention of the upright, warp-weighted loom. In many parts
of Europe, woven clothing became the norm. However, woven clothing was slow
to replace the animal skins on the fringes of the Continent.
In an age named after a metal, you'd expect to find that metallurgy
took on a new level of importance to Copper Age people. And you'd be right
in that assumption.
The two main forms of metal used during the Copper Age were copper and
gold. Copper was obtained by smelting rich, chemically simple ores that
occurred fairly abundantly in parts of southeastern Europe. And gold was
obtained from riverine (placer) deposits throughout southeast Europe.
Both copper and gold were hammered into simple shapes that often
duplicated patterns which already existed in stone.
At first, both copper and gold metallurgy in Europe were confined
largely to southeast Europe. But unfortunately, southeast Europe lacked
the more sophisticated techniques of alloying and complex casting that
was in common use throughout the Near East at that time.
Metal, as a raw material, became a desirable status symbol, often traded
over vast distances.
Throughout Europe, stone was still in wide use in the manufacture of
tools used to clear forests, in woodworking, or in weaponry. Metal was not
used extensively in the manufacture of these types of tools. Rather, metal
was used as a medium of display and for the production of items with little
monetary value.
Grave Goods
Objects that portrayed social prestige were used increasingly as grave
goods. Occasionally we see a form of competitive display being used,
perhaps among factional groups within the community. The quality and
quantity of grave goods was meant to show distinct separations of social
roles.
Southeast Europe
Now let's turn our attention to southeastern Europe, where we can
uncover characteristics common to Romania's ancestors.
Farming
Farming had gained its first European foothold in the Balkans and in
the lands around the Carpathian Mountains. These farming societies
continued their distinctive culture well into the Copper Age. From an
agricultural standpoint, southeast Europe was the most sophisticated
region on the Continent at the time.
The farming villages managed to preserve their way of life without
the dilution experienced elsewhere in Europe. This was because the farming
societies were the first to arrive in the region, and they appeared early
enough so that an alternate way of life didn't have a chance to grow up in
parallel.
The earliest horticulturists to arrive occupied the most fertile enclaves
in the river valleys and old lake basins. In this fragmented landscape,
dense village populations could be sustained from a few small patches of
easily tilled soil.
Settlements
Each community occupied a site that would be lived in over many
generations. These villages consisted of clusters of mud or timber
houses. Each village intenseively worked the land within its immediate
reach. Natural disasters such as floods or fires occasionally destroyed
entire villages.
However, instead of packing up their belongings and moving elsewhere,
we find that the remains of old houses formed a "platform" on which
successors were built. Successive layers thus created artificial mounds.
For example, the mound at Karanovo in Bulgaria is 12m (a little over 39
feet) deep, built up from successive settlements over some 2000 years.
Archaeologists refer to these mounds as "tells," but each Balkan language
has its equivalent word -- e.g., mogila, magura, or halom. The tells were
more than an accidental by-product of a sedentary economy. Instead, they
were fixed points of human existence, the location of "hearth and home."
They were where life began and ended, for the dead were often buried where
they had lived, immediately adjacent to the family home.
Each building or artifact uncovered by archaeologists is "pregnant" with
symbolism. We find carefully painted tablewares; the tables themselves were
often reproduced in clay models. Elaborate hearths and clay ovens, with
decorated clay fittings, were the focal point of most houses.
Fine greenstone axes, flint blades, and pottery figurines depicting
female procreativity provided interior decoration.
Houses are laid out in such a manner as to be replications of a regional,
common plan. Whole villages are laid out as patterns of a cosmological
scheme, oriented on the cardinal points and enclosed by square palisades
with central entrances.
Although settlements were primarily devoted to horticulture, we can also
see a number of attempts to break away from the common agricultural model.
Several alternative outlets existed such as hunting and herding, as well
as mining of raw materials and their mutation into metals. Several villagers
also had the opportunity to engage in travel and trade.
Ever since Neolithic times, we can see a network of farming villages
gradually extending in a northeasterly direction. The chain begins in the
Balkans and follows a belt of light woodland between the Russian forests
and the Ukrainian steppe, as far east as Kiev.
The pioneers who extended this farming network maintained all their
Balkan traditions. They lived in similar sorts of rectangular houses and
they used the same kinds of artifacts, including elaborately painted
pottery and figurines.
Trade
We find both short-distance and long-distance trade in southeast Europe.
Metalliferous mountains lay only a short distance beyond the world of
villages and farms. Deep shafts in the hills behind the settlements follow
veins of green minerals, and provide large quantities of copper ore for
smelting. We also see many simple offerings, packed in clay jars, and left
for the "gods" in the mines as propitiation or in symbolic exchange for the
wealth extracted by the miners.
Within the villages there was hand-to-hand trading. Among the trade
goods were superb grinding stones or the products of an especially gifted
and proficient or artistic potter.
Rare or valuable items were traded over longer distances. Among these
trade goods we find salt; furs; honey or resins, which leave scant
archaeological traces; fine flint, suitable for long blades; pigments,
such as graphite, for pottery or body paints; axes and woodworking tools
made from precious, new materials; and, of course, gleaming gold and
copper ornaments.
Settlements located near mountains often traded their minerals and
other raw materials with societies on the "edges of the world." These
societies consisted of, for example, other farming settlements, fishing
societies along the rivers that flow into the Black Sea, cattle raising
groups, and various settlements across the flat, open country of the
Pontic steppes.
Varna, Bulgaria
Although not specifically a Romanian site, Varna is in Bulgaria,
Romania's immediate neighbor to the south.
In 1972 a construction worker unearthed a 6000 year old cemetery on
the shore of the Black Sea near the inlet of Varna. Subsequent archaeological
excavations recovered plentiful copper and gold artifacts, mostly sheet
ornaments sewn on clothing, but also gold scepters and shaft-hole axes.
The cemetery marks a break from the previous pattern of mud-walled
villages with household burials. This cemetery is not within the political
boundaries of the village.
Grave goods may not have been associated with individuals since most of
the graves in which they were found weren't human burials, but symbolic
interments with clay masks.
Steppe Dwellers
By the beginning of the Copper Age, the steppe dwellers had managed to
domesticate the horse. Horses allowed these tribal settlements to develop
into migratory chiefdoms as they pursued the herds from horseback. This
feature emphasized hunting skills in the region and lessened the peoples'
dependence on agriculture for survival.
Steppe dwellers decorated their pottery with cord impressions, perhaps
using the hemp ropes that would have been employed to control their horses.
This way of life expanded westward into some of the areas formerly controlled
by horticulturists. Some groups even seemed to penetrate in small numbers
along the Danube into Romania, where their typical burials and artifacts
occur.
This pattern seems to have played out everywhere the migratory tribes
came into contact with the substantial houses and settlements of the
cultivators. The hunting and herding steppe dwellers copied the patterns
they found, building circular burial monuments, which gave a form of focal
point to an existence otherwise spent in mobile tents.
Apparently the steppe nomads engaged in occasional warfare against the
farmers. On the steppes, a farmer's house wasn't typically built in
concentrated, closely packed tells. Instead they occupied defensible
promontories, protected by deeply cut ditches. Massive farming villages
of up to 200 houses can be found, grouped together on hilltops.
The migratory tribes lived in the vast expanses between farming villages.
It appears that farmers and migratory groups lived in an uneasy symbiosis --
exchanging their complementary products, but also facing the constant
threat of conflict. Both groups, however, were eager to acquire copper
ornaments traded from the Balkans.
They invented small pottery braziers which were probably used for burning
cannabis seeds as centuries later, the Iron Age Scythian tribes in this
region would do.
Carpathian Basin
In the Carpathian Basin, we find settlements comparable to those on the
steppes, but apparently enjoying a more peaceful way of life. Smaller, more
dispersed settlements were common. And they weren't concentrated on
defensible hilltops.
Large settlements and tells of the 5th millennium gave way to a new
pattern of settlement. Earlier, burials were within or near the settlement,
accompanied by decorated pottery, obsidian blades, and green stone axes.
During the Copper Age, cemeteries of several hundred burials became
common, probably serving several of the surrounding villages.
Graves became more "formal," with gravesites set out in rows and
inhumed bodies identified by post markers. They also tended to bury their
dead with larger quantities of grave goods than in the past.
Apparently the separate settlements enjoyed inter-village commerce.
Their domestic pottery became less elaborate and ethnically distinctive.
This indicates that a regional style was adopted, rather than separate local
village patterns.
Second Phase (3500-2500 BC)
The later Neolithic and Copper Ages represent one of the most complex
and interesting phases of European development. The implications of
establishing farming in a new region worked themselves out. The second
generation of agricultural and livestock rearing innovations soon became
standards.
The indigenous inhabitants of the Continent became increasingly
locked into an agricultural existence, while still maintaining a
bewildering diversity of cultural patterns.
Common conditions of the various agricultural societies, plus the
increasing level of contacts between them, began to slowly assert a sense
of community. That is, we see the development of a unity of purpose.
Near Eastern Influences
Extended trade between Europe and the Near East accelerated the
processes of acculturation. Though far away, the appearance of cities
and city-states in Mesopotamia had a profound effect on the European
hinterland.
Desirable metals and precious stones were dispersed, through trade
networks, over unimaginable and vast distances. The growing European
population (though still inhabiting a nearly empty landscape) created
a huge bulk demand for Near Eastern consumable commodities.
Accelerated Technology
An accelerated technological change was most prevalent in southeastern
Europe, which was already the most sophisticated in terms of technology.
Craftsmen honed their skills, producing esoteric luxury items. At the
same time, major advances in the transportation of manufactured goods
occurred.
Archaeologically, the most easily traced technology is in the field
of metallurgy. European craftsmen began to use copper-arsenic alloys in
their products. They invented the two-piece mould, which revolutionized
the ability to cast large objects. And their skills are apparent in the
new design of technologically superior axes.
Metal vessels, principally cups and jugs, made their appearance. With
the new wine crops being harvested in the Aegean, the production of
aloholic beverages flourished.
Now that the domestication of horses was common in the eastern steppe
regions, the invention of the first wheeled farming vehicles appear in
Europe. Farmers were now able to plant their crops using the light plow
and to harvest their crops using carts.
Even though southeastern Europe rapidly adapted to new technology,
the rest of Europe was more reluctant to change. We see a rather slow
dispersion of technology across Europe. Though the innovations were
obviously important, they didn't happen instantly or spread universally.
Nor were they adopted uniformly everywhere they appeared.
New forms of husbandry slowly replaced earlier forms of horticulture,
especially in those parts of Europe which had only recently adopted
farming. Wool-bearing sheep were introduced into Europe.
Even the use of the plow, which can be shown to have existed as far
north as Denmark by shortly after 3500 BC, didn't bring about a marked
alteration of cultural patterns there.
In all cases, regional cultures created during the preceding millennium
provided the sturcure within which these technological novelties were
incorporated. European settlements were sufficiently robust to absorb or
reject elements according to their compatibility with what already
existed.
Extended Trade Networks
From southeast Europe, the spread of trade can be traced into central
Europe and also, more slowly, along the Mediterranean to Italy and southern
France. Merchants in southeast Europe exported copper to as far away as
Denmark in the north and the steppe communities to the east. And in the
Aegean, inter-island trading introduced the Greeks to Anatolian (Turkish)
goods.
The northern Balkan and Carpathian communities made use of independent,
landward links to trade with the increasingly complex communities to the
east, across the steppes to the Caucasus.
As the trade routes became more established, the small-scale
opportunistic relocation of populations occurred along these routes. These
way stations grew into small communities as more and more people moved in
to profit from traveling merchants.
Summary
Although the population in Europe grew dramatically during the Copper
Age, the Continent was a huge place that could easily absorb the growing
human intrusion. Relatively small communities were predominant throughout
the Copper Age. At any given spot, in fact, we see quite a low density of
population. Occasionally, people gathered together to construct major
communal works. However, even where the population was most concentrated,
the landscape as a whole was still rather empty. The greater portion of
the land remained untilled and ungrazed.
The environmental impact of humans on the landscape remained relatively
light. Vast, uncleared forests still dominated the countryside. And the
quantities of raw materials removed from their source were tiny, leaving
barely a scar on the land.
Expansion by early farmers, especially in the heavily forested parts
of Europe, was constrained by how much land they could clear to plant
their crops. Farm life was brutally hard on these early pioneers. The
hopes expressed by the people in images of female procreation and
abundance did little to lessen the burden. Women themselves bore most
of the burdens of everyday life, and died after relatively short lives,
exhausted by the labors of cultivation and child rearing.
The more open country of eastern Europe provided a social stage where
wider networks of social interaction became possible. This interaction
also took place elsewhere as a result of the increasingly cleared landscapes
being carved by generations of agricultural effort.
Order within settlements was maintained by human action as independent
segments of society combined in opportunistic fashion to achieve temporary
and permanent goals. The exchange of goods and livestock remained one of
the most important economic activities of the communities. Leaders within
the settlements also opted to build simple or complex fortifications against
the threat of outside agression. And within the settlements themselves,
steps were taken to control any deviance from the community's common norms
of behavior.
New ideals of leadership, hospitality, and negotiation appeared. And
the control of men, animals, and the powers of nature became the paths
for some individuals to achieve social and material success. Passing the
results of this success down to descendants became a primary goal of those
who were able to attain power or social position.
Romanian Archaeology
Cernavoda I Culture
The Cernavoda I culture (4400-3500 BC) occupied a huge area. Remnants
of the society spread out from the Balkan Peninsula to Anatolia. The
people were primarily shepherd tribes, but they also used horses.
Go Elsewhere
At this point, you have a couple of options:
Enjoy your stay and have a great day!
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