The Elshanka culture (Russian: Елшанская культура) was a

Subneolithic The Subneolithic is an archaeological period sometimes used to distinguish cultures that are transitional between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Subneolithic societies typically adopted some secondary elements of the Neolithic package (suc ...

or very early Neolithic culture that flourished in the middle Volga region in the 7th millennium BC. The sites are mostly individual graves scattered along the

Samara Samara ( rus, Сама́ра, p=sɐˈmarə), known from 1935 to 1991 as Kuybyshev (; ), is the largest city and administrative centre of Samara Oblast. The city is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Samara (Volga), Samara rivers, with ...

and Sok rivers. They revealed Europe's oldest pottery. The culture extended along the Volga from Ulyanovsk Oblast in the north through the Samara Bend towards

Khvalynsk Hills Khvalynsk Hills (russian: Хвалынские горы) is a hilly region in Saratov Oblast and Penza Oblast, Russia. A sector of the hills is a protected area under the name Khvalynsky National Park, which was established in 1994. Geography ...

and the Buzuluk District in the south. No signs of permanent dwellings have been found. Elshanka people appear to have been hunters and fishermen who had seasonal settlements at the confluences of rivers. Most grave goods come from such settlements. Elshanka is believed to be the source from which the art of pottery spread south and westward towards the Balkans (with one particularly important site being the Surskoy Island in the Dnieper Rapids where pottery was made from 6200 BC to 5800 BC). Elshanka pots, dated from 6700 BC onwards, usually have simple ornaments, though some have none. They were made "of a clay-rich mud collected from the bottoms of stagnant ponds, formed by the coiling method and were baken in open fires at 450-600 degrees Celsius". A man buried at Lebyazhinka IV (a site usually assigned to the Elshanka culture) had the

Haplogroup R1b Haplogroup R1b (R-M343), previously known as Hg1 and Eu18, is a human Y-chromosome haplogroup. It is the most frequently occurring paternal lineage in Western Europe, as well as some parts of Russia (e.g. the Bashkirs) and pockets of Central A ...

. I. Vasiliev and A. Vybornov, citing the similarity of pottery, assert that Elshanka people were the descendants of the

Zarzian culture Zarzian culture is an archaeological culture of late Paleolithic and Mesolithic in Southwest Asia. The period of the culture is estimated to have existed about 18,000–8,000 BCE. It was preceded by the Baradostian culture in the same region ...

who had been ousted from Central Asia by progressive

desertification Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused by ...

. Other researchers see Elshanka ceramic industry as a local attempt at reproducing Zarzian pots. A rapid cooling around 6200 BC and influences from the Lower Volga region led the Elshanka culture to be succeeded by the

Middle Volga culture Middle or The Middle may refer to: * Centre (geometry), the point equally distant from the outer limits. Places * Middle (sheading), a subdivision of the Isle of Man * Middle Bay (disambiguation) * Middle Brook (disambiguation) * Middle Creek (d ...

(with more complex ceramic ornaments) which lasted until the 5th millennium BC. It was succeeded in the region by the better known

Samara culture The Samara culture was an Eneolithic (Copper Age) culture that flourished around the turn of the 5th millennium BCE, at the Samara Bend of the Volga River (modern Russia). The Samara culture is regarded as related to contemporaneous or subsequ ...

References

{{reflist Archaeological cultures of Eastern Europe Neolithic cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures in Russia Samara Oblast 7th millennium BC Prehistoric Russia