Usatovo culture

Usatovo culture, 3500—3000 BC, 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 perhaps 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.