The Pitted Ware Culture (sometimes abbreviated PWC) is the name given to Early and Middle Neolithic period people, hunter-fisher-gatherers who lived in coastal southern Scandinavia and parts of Russia between about 3300 and 2300 BC. Three characteristic artifacts are associated with the PWC: tanged projectile points, cylindrical cores, and pottery decorated with pits.
Pitted Ware (or Pit Ceramic) was a contemporary culture to the Funnel Beaker Culture (TRB). Unlike the TRB farmers, the PWC relied on marine resources such as seal and hunted wild boar. The importance of pig to the Pitted Ware Culture has been noted at several sites such as Korsnäs where pig bone has been identified as grave goods within burials.
Sources
Fornander, Elin, Gunilla Eriksson, and Kerstin Lidén in press Wild at heart: Approaching Pitted Ware identity, economy and cosmology through stable isotopes in skeletal material from the Neolithic site Korsnäs in Eastern Central Sweden. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology in press.
Gunilla Eriksson. 2004. Part-time farmers or hard-core sealers? Västerbjers studied by means of stable isotope analysis. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 23(3):135-162.
This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.
