The Brnjica culture, alternatively Donja Brnjica-Gornja Stražava cultural group, is a Late Bronze Age archaeological culture in present-day Kosovo and Serbia dating between the 14th and 10th/9th centuries BCE.

Description

The Brnjica cultural group was a Late Bronze Age cultural manifestation in what was to become Dardania, closely connected to the Balkan-Danubian complex. It dates between the 14th and 10th/9th centuries BCE. In Yugoslavian historiography, starting from Milutin Garašanin, the Brnjica culture was interpreted as the "Daco-Moesian" and non-"Illyrian" linguistic component of the later Dardani, an Iron Age Palaeo-Balkan group appearing as an Illyrian people in ancient literary tradition. The Brnjica culture is characterized by several groups: Brnjica type pottery has been found in Blageovgrad, Plovdiv, and a number of sites in Pelagonia, Lower Vardar, the island of Thasos and Thessaly dating to 13th and 12th century BCE.

Sites

Donja Brnjica

The main site of the culture is a necropolis at Donja Brnjica, (Albanian: Bërnica e Poshtme) near Pristina.

Hisar

Hisar is a multi-periodal settlement at a hill near Leskovac. Traces of life of the Brnjica culture (8th century BCE) are seen in the plateau that was protected by a deep moat with a palisade on its inner side, a fortification similar to that of another fortification on the Gradac site in Lanište in the Velika Morava basin.