The Jastorf culture (named after the site of Jastorf in Lower Saxony) was a pre‐Roman Iron Age archaeological culture that developed from the late Hallstatt period to the turn of the era (c. 6th century BC – 1st century AD). It emerged from local late Hallstatt traditions (the Nordic culture) under the influence of La Tène cultural traits, and is particularly noted for its large gender‐segregated cemeteries.

Its chronology is divided into an older phase (600–250 BC, with three sub‐phases A–C) and a younger phase (250 BC – 0, phases Ripdorf and Seedorf). After the turn of the era, Jastorf sites disappear, replaced by those of the Elbe cultural group. The culture was concentrated in the lower Elbe basin, with local variants in Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg and Brandenburg, and finds extending into Jutland, Schleswig–Holstein, central Germany and Bohemia. It bordered Celtic settlement to the west and south, and the Oksywie and Przeworsk cultures to the east.

Burial rites were almost exclusively cremation, initially with stone settings, later flat graves. Grave goods typically included ornaments and clothing accessories of iron, such as winged pins, brooches and belt buckles. Pottery was coarse and hand‐made, with characteristic roughened surfaces; in later phases, wide‐mouthed vessels became more common.

Settlements were open and dispersed, separated by natural boundaries such as rivers, marshes and forests. The economy was based on mixed farming, gathering and iron production, with evidence of trade contacts with southern Europe. In some areas, ritual sites in wetlands have yielded human remains, wooden idols and offerings of metalwork and food.

On present‐day Polish territory, two local groups are distinguished: the Nadodrzańska group, characterised by pit graves and winged pins, and the Gubińska group with urn burials capped with bowls or stones. Both disappeared in the first half of the 1st century BC.