The Cernavodàculture, ca. 4000âÂÂ3200, is a late Copper Age archaeological culture distributed along the lower Eastern Bug River and Danube and along the coast of the Black Sea and somewhat inland, generally in present-day Bulgaria and Romania. It is named after the Romanian town of Cernavodà(Bulgarian ÃÂerna vodá (ÃÂõÃÂýð òþôá in cyrillic) means 'black water').
It is a successor to and occupies much the same area as the earlier Karanovo culture and GumelniÃÂa culture, for which a destruction horizon seems to be evident. It is part of the "Balkan-Danubian complex" that stretches up the entire length of the river and into northern Germany via the Elbe and the Baden culture; its northeastern portion is thought to be ancestral to the Usatove culture.
It is characterized by defensive hilltop settlements. The pottery shares traits with that found further east, in the Sredny Stog culture on the south-west Eurasian steppe; burials similarly bear a resemblance to those further east.
It has been theorized that Cernavodàculture, together with the Sredny Stog (Russian: áÃÂõôýøù áÃÂþó - middle (hay)stack) culture, was the source of Anatolian languages and introduced them to Anatolia through the Balkans after Anatolian split from the Proto-Indo-European language, which some linguists and archaeologists place in the area of the Sredny Stog culture.