Western Baltic culture
The Western Baltic culture was the westernmost branch of the Balts, representing a distinct archaeological culture of the Bronze Age and Iron Age, along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. It is a zone of several small archaeological cultures that were ethnically Baltic and had similar cultural features. They included tribes such as the Old Prussians, Galindians, Yotvingians and Skalvians, in addition to the little-known Pomeranian Balts or Western Balts proper, in the area now known as Pomerania.
History
Most of the Western Balts arose from the dating back to the early Iron Age. The Western Baltic culture includes:- Elbląg group
- Low German group
- West Lithuanian group
- Central Lithuanian group
Geography, chronology and ancient mentions
According to Marija Gimbutas, the Baltic culture of the Early and Middle Bronze Age covered a territory which, at its maximal extent, included "all of Pomerania almost to the mouth of the Oder, and the whole Vistula basin to Silesia in the south-west" before the spread of the Lusatian culture to the region and was inhabited by the ancestors of the later Old Prussians.The Western Baltic cultures were located to the north-east of the Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures, between the Pasłęka and Daugava rivers. They lived there from the end of until the mid-7th century. According to Tacitus, these areas were inhabited by the Aesti, while Ptolemy speaks of the Galindians and the Sudines.