Kazan Culture

an archaeological Bronze Age culture dating from the 16th to ninth centuries B.C.. In its early stages, the Kazan culture was widespread in the Kazan Volga region and neighboring parts of the Lower Kama region; later it spread over a vast area in the basins of the Kama, Belaia, Viatka, and Vetluga rivers. The culture grew out of the Volosovo culture under the influence of the Timber-Frame (Srubnaia) culture; it was replaced by the Iron Age Anan’ino culture.

The Kazan culture was represented by settlements with semi-subterranean dwellings and by burial grounds (with both flat graves and barrows) containing both supine and flexed burials. The tribes of the Kazan culture engaged in land cultivation and stock raising. The working of copper and bronze was well developed, with the crafting of daggers, spearheads, celts, and ornaments—plaques, temporal pendants, and spiral rings. The characteristic flat-bottomed (later round-bottomed) modeled pottery was decorated with geometric ornamentation.