Prague Culture

an ancient Slavic archaeological culture of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. The Prague culture is named after the characteristic hand-modeled pottery of the Prague type, identified by I. Borkovský (1939) from among early medieval remains excavated near Prague. The culture is characterized by unfortified settlements of semisubterranean dwellings with stone hearths and by flat-grave burial grounds with cremated remains in urns. It was originally widespread over what is now southern Poland, Czechoslovakia, and the northwestern Ukraine. Later it expanded into what is now northern Poland, the eastern German Democratic Republic, southern Byelorussia, the central part of the Right-bank Ukraine, Moldavia, and Rumania. This led to the blending of the Prague culture with local, earlier cultures and to the development of local variants. The connection between the Prague culture and later Slavic cultures is being traced.