The Hinkelstein culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture situated in Rhine-Main and Rhenish Hesse, Germany. It is a Megalithic culture, part of the wider Linear Pottery horizon, dating to approximately the 50th to 49th century BC.
| Geographical range | Europe |
|---|---|
| Period | Neolithic |
| Dates | circa 5,000 B.C.E. — circa 4,900 B.C.E. |
| Major sites | Rhine-Main, Rhenish Hesse |
| Preceded by | Linear Pottery culture |
| Followed by | Rossen culture |
The culture's name is due to a suggestion of Karl Koehl of Worms (1900). Hinkelstein is the term for menhir in the local Hessian dialect, after a menhir discovered in 1866 in Monsheim. 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".
Map of Germany showing important sites that were occupied in the Hinkelstein culture (clickable map).
References
edit- 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