Przeworsk Culture

a culture that flourished in the area now occupied by Poland and adjacent regions of the Ukrainian SSR from the late second century B.C. to the early fifth century A.D. It is named after a burial ground near the town of Przeworsk. The culture has also been called the Wend culture and the Pit-Burial culture. Przeworsk settlements were unfortified, and the dwellings were usually aboveground structures with walls made of vertical posts, although semi-subterranean dwellings were also built. Cremated remains have been discovered in the culture’s moundless burials. The main occupations of the people were crop cultivation and livestock raising. The most highly developed crafts were pottery-making, blacksmithing, and jewelry-making. A large center for the commercial production of wheel-made pottery was unearthed in the Kraków area, and iron-ore mines and iron smelteries were discovered in the świętokrzyskie Mountains. Most archaeologists consider the Przeworsk culture to be a Slavic culture developed by the Wends.