Unetice culture

The Unetice, or more properly Únětice, culture, (German: Aunjetitz) is the name given to a Chalcolithic and Bronze Age culture focused around the modern Czech regions of Bohemia and Moravia, southern and central Germany, and western Poland. The Unetice culture had trade links with Mycenaean Greece and the British Wessex culture. Unetice metalsmiths alloyed abunant copper resources with rarer Bohemian tin to produce bronze. The culture is distinguished by its characteristic metal objects including ingot torcs and lock ringss which have been found distributed over a wide area of Central Europe and beyond. Archaeological evidence suggests that its metal industry, though active and innovative, was concerned with producing weapons and ornaments mainly as status symbols for leading persons, rather than for widespread domestic use or for equipping large fighting forces -- developments which would wait until later periods in European history. It is thought that many allied cultures in the region were part of a general Unetice tradition. Category:Archaeology