The Korchak culture is an archaeological culture of the sixth and seventh century

East Slavs The East Slavs are the most populous subgroup of the Slavs. They speak the East Slavic languages, and formed the majority of the population of the medieval state Kievan Rus', which they claim as their cultural ancestor.John Channon & Robert H ...

who settled along the southern tributaries of the

Pripyat River The Pripyat or Prypiat ( , uk, Прип'ять, ; be, Прыпяць, translit=Prypiać}, ; pl, Prypeć, ; russian: Припять, ) is a river in Eastern Europe, approximately long. It flows east through Ukraine, Belarus, and Ukraine ag ...

and from the

Dnieper River } The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine an ...

to the Southern Bug and

Dniester The Dniester, ; rus, Дне́стр, links=1, Dnéstr, ˈdⁿʲestr; ro, Nistru; grc, Τύρᾱς, Tyrās, ; la, Tyrās, la, Danaster, label=none, ) ( ,) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and th ...

rivers, throughout modern-day northwestern

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

and southern

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

. It forms the eastern part of the so-called

Prague-Korchak cultural horizon The Prague-Korchak culture was an archaeological culture attributed to the Early Slavs. The other contemporary main Early Slavic culture was the Prague-Penkovka culture situated further south, with which it makes up the "Prague-type pottery" grou ...

, a term used to encompass the entirety of postulated

early Slavic The early Slavs were a diverse group of tribal societies who lived during the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages (approximately the 5th to the 10th centuries AD) in Central and Eastern Europe and established the foundations for the Slav ...

cultures from the Elbe to the Dniester, as opposed to the eastern

Penkovka culture The Penkovka culture ( uk, Пеньківська культура ''Penkivska kultura'') is an archaeological culture in Ukraine spanning Moldova and reaching into Romania. Its western boundary is usually taken to at the middle Prut and Dniester ...

. P M Barford (2001). The Early Slavs: Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe, chapters 2-4.

Archaeology

Excavations started in the 1920s by S. S. Gamchenko at the village of Korchak near

Zhytomyr Zhytomyr ( uk, Жито́мир, translit=Zhytomyr ; russian: Жито́мир, Zhitomir ; pl, Żytomierz ; yi, זשיטאָמיר, Zhitomir; german: Schytomyr ) is a city in the north of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative ...

, Ukraine. The Korchak culture was identified as a distinct culture by lu. V. Kukharenko. Open settlements consisted of ten to twenty rectangular, semi-subterranean dwellings with a stone furnace placed in one corner. Each dwelling held up to five people, with less than 100 people per settlement. They performed cremation burial in

kurgan A kurgan is a type of tumulus constructed over a grave, often characterized by containing a single human body along with grave vessels, weapons and horses. Originally in use on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, kurgans spread into much of Central As ...

burial mounds and in flat-grave cemeteries with cremations in

urns An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or ...

. The culture is characterized by the specific shapes of modeled unadorned vessels, which represent the first stage in the development of Slavic pottery.

References

* Kukharenko, Iu. V. “Slavianskie drevnosti V-IX vekov na territorii Pripiatskogo Poles’ia.” In the collection Kratkie soobshcheniia o dokladakh i polevykh issledovaniiakh Instituta istorii material’noi kul’tury, fasc. 57. Moscow, 1955. * Petrov, V. P. “Pamiatniki korchakskogo tipa (po materialam raskopok S. S. Gamchenko).” In the collection . Moscow, 1963. * Rusanova, I. P. Karta rasprostraneniia pamiatnikov tipa Korchak (VI–VII vekov novoi ery). Ibid., vol. 176. Moscow, 1970. * Peter Heather, Empires and barbarians: the fall of Rome and the birth of Europ

East Slavic history Archaeological cultures of Eastern Europe Early medieval archaeological cultures of Europe Archaeological cultures in Belarus Archaeological cultures in Ukraine Slavic archaeological cultures {{Europe-ethno-group-stub

Archaeology

See also

References