Mariupol Culture

The Mariupol culture known as The Mariupol-type cemeteries was a transitional culture from Neolithic to Eneolithic (Copper Age) of the second half of 5th millennium BCE at the Sea of Azov and neighbouring regions along rivers Dnieper, Don, Orel', Chir; Crimean peninsula, reaching as far as North Caucasus and Kuban Region as well as river Volga. In older works is referred to as a part of wider Dnieper-Donetsk culture or called Mariupol type. As noted expert on Neolithic and Eneolithic Eastern Europe D.Ya. Telegin: The Mariupol-type cemeteries seem to have had their origins in the late Mesolithic and endured into the Copper Age, a period of more than two thousand years (c. 6500–4000 cal BC). They were primarily fisher-hunter-gatheres familiar with livestock through exchange or pastoralism. Anthropologically they belonged to massive hypermorphic type of large Europeoid race. Final stages of this culture are described as Post-Mariupol. It was superseded by Sredny Stog culture.