The Hinkelstein culture is a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between thes ...

situated in

Rhine-Main The Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region, often simply referred to as Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main area or Rhine-Main area (German: ''Rhein-Main-Gebiet'' or ''Frankfurt/Rhein-Main'', abbreviated FRM), is the second-largest metropolitan re ...

and

Rhenish Hesse Rhenish Hesse or Rhine HesseDickinson, Robert E (1964). ''Germany: A regional and economic geography'' (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, p. 542. . (german: Rheinhessen) is a region and a former government district () in the German state of Rhineland- ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It is a

Megalithic A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea. The ...

culture, part of the wider

Linear Pottery horizon The Linear Pottery culture (LBK) is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic period, flourishing . Derived from the German ''Linearbandkeramik'', it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Inci ...

, dating to approximately the 50th to 49th century BC. The culture's name is due to a suggestion of

Karl Koehl Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austrian ...

of Worms (1900). ''Hinkelstein'' is the term for

menhir A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. They can be foun ...

in the local

Hessian dialect Hessian (german: Hessisch) is a West Central German group of dialects of the German language in the central German state of Hesse. The dialect most similar to Hessian is Palatinate German (german: Pfälzisch, links=no) of the Rhine Franconian su ...

, after a menhir discovered in 1866 in

Monsheim Monsheim is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Geography Location Monsheim lies in the southern Wonne ...

. ''Hinkel'' is a Hessian term for "chicken"; the Standard German name for menhirs, ''Hünenstein'' "giants' stone", having sometimes been jokingly mutated into ''Hühnerstein'' "chicken-stone".

References

*Jean-Paul Farrugia: ''Hinkelstein, explication d'une seriation'' (Coll Interreg. Neol. 1997), S. 467-517. *C. Koehl: ''Neue Stein- und frühmetallzeitliche Gräberfunde bei Worms.'' Korrbl. DAG 31, 1900, 137-142. *E. Probst: ''Deutschland in der Steinzeit'', München 1986 *H. Spatz: ''Hinkelstein und Großgartach - Kontinuität und Wandel''. In AiD 3/1996 S. 8-13 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hinkelstein Culture Archaeological cultures of Central Europe Archaeological cultures in Germany Neolithic cultures of Europe 5th millennium BC