Knovíz culture

Archaeological and genetic evidence tentatively suggests that the people of the Knovíz culture may have been ethnically Celtic.

Between 1892 and 1893 archaeologists J. L. Píč and Jiří Felcman excavated part of a settlement from the Late Bronze Age near the village of Knovíz.

[6] The following chronological table is based on Kuna (2008), Hrala (1973), and Bouzka (1962):[7] The K I period begins the transition between the previous Tumulus culture and the Knovíz culture, and is characterised by grooved amphorae with handles on the shoulders, decorated footed bowls and cups, and the earliest bi-conical vessels.

The cups and containers have a funnel-shaped neck, and the biconical vessels have a continuous profile, without a sharp change in angle.

The relatively high number of bronze grave goods at the Obory cemetery compared to other sites may indicate that the local population engaged in prospecting.

[20] The site contains distinctive pottery, including footed bowls and amphorae with handles at the base of the body.

Additionally, novel forms are found, including jugs with a more balanced height-to-width ratio and an S-shaped curved shape, and bi-conical vessels which have no precursors in this location.

[21] Near the village of Křepenice, the opening of a quarry at the Kamenná hůrka peak in the 1930s led to the discovery of a cremation burial ground with over 110 graves, placed in rows running roughly east–west.

[22] The Knovíz settlement at Obříství, at the confluence of the two largest Czech rivers, may have been an important communication node and long-distance trading port during the Late Bronze Age.

[13] From the period Bz D – Ha B1, human skeletons are found at this settlement which greatly exceed their occurrence at other Knovíz sites, indicating that this may have been a cult centre.

The second type involves continuous settlements where development occurred, often throughout the entire period of the Knovíz (and Štítary) culture.

[24] However, in both types of settlements there is evidence for small-scale movement within residential areas, likely due to factors including limited building life, as well as for hygiene reasons.

Hrala suggests that the Knovíz stage dwellings were likely to have been similar to the residential buildings of contemporary neighbouring cultures.

[26] Livelihood was probably based on agriculture, which is evidenced by the expansion of this culture along the fertile soil of the Elbe river basin and some of its tributaries, and supplemented by pastoralism, probably in the form of cattle farming, particularly in hilly and rocky areas.

[30] Domestic animal bones found at Knovíz sites include pig, goat, sheep, cattle, horse, dog, and one specimen of a cat.

[31] At the Hostivice-Palouky site, cultivated plant remains included barley, millet, legumes (pea, vetch, and lentil), wheat (spelta, einkorn and emmer) and a few oat grains (which were probably only weeds).

[37] A set of small glass beads are found from the burial ground in Tuchoměřice, which apparently originate from Frattesina in northern Italy.

Chemical analysis also suggests that the beads from the Knovíz culture also have a unique mixed alkali composition like those of Northern Italy, and likely originate from this area.

This suggests the existence of a south-north trade route from northern Italy across the Alps to the Knovíz and other western Urnfield cultures.

Burials typically take the form of a flat grave without a covering mound, with remains placed in a pit and usually in a single urn, which is often an amphora-shaped container.

[45] In addition to cremation graves, skeletal inhumations are also found,[2] which are an "exceptional phenomenon", and appear to have been reserved mostly for men, sometimes children, and rarely women.

[49] Skeletons are often found disarticulated or partially articulated with the bones artificially modified, with signs that the flesh has been removed with tools.

In the Knovíz culture, this shift in funerary rite was not universal and many individuals did not receive a ritual funeral.

[13] A 17 meter diameter moat with a single passage and a sandstone stele, apparently a ritual site related to the cult of the sun, was discovered at Čakovice.

This progressive decrease in size may later result in the particularly small 'Celtic' or 'Germanic' pony (Equus caballus celticus) of the Iron Age.

[56] The peoples of the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture are considered an important part of the formation of historical European nations.

[6] A study by Patterson et al. (2022) found that average Early European Farmer ancestry increased in some populations of North-Central Europe and Britain during the Bronze Age, with "the first individuals with greatly increased EEF ancestry associated with artefacts traditionally classified as part of the Knoviz culture."

The study notes that "this is particularly striking as the Knoviz individuals are from a population that is genetically similar to the Margetts Pit and Cliffs End Farm outliers" from Britain.

They further note that this similarity is "striking in light of the fact that some scholars have hypothesized Central European Urnfield groups like Knoviz to have links to Celtic language spread."

[58] The authors emphasise that their results "do not prove that Czech_LBA_Knoviz is the continental European origin of the Margetts Pit and Cliffs End population, especially as the M-LBA in France is so far poorly sampled.