«Neolithic Revolution» in Archaeology of Ukraine at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Abstract

Due to a significant replenishment of the sources at the beginning of the 21^stcentury, there was a change of conceptions on the Neolithization process on the territory of Ukraine.

The south-east version of neolithization of Ukraine, which was well-known at the second half of the 20^th century with the name of «eastern stock breeding impulse», was not confirmed. On the other hand, there are numerous archaeological, palaeozoological and palaeobotanic data in behalf of south-western variant of neolithization of Ukraine. Ukraine, and first of all the Dnipro right bank territory, switched to the Neolithic at the end of the 6^th - 5^th millennia BC (cal.), the way the whole Central Europe did. It happened in the mode of «balkanization» due to the four main waves of the Neolithic farmers-colonists from the Balkans and the Danube River region:

1) Hrebenyky culture (the second half of the 7^th millennium BC);

2) Criș (the first half of the 6^th millennium BC);

3) Linear Pottery culture (second half of the 6^th millennium BC);

4) Cucuteni-Trypillia (the 5^th millennium BC).

As in Central Europe, on territory of Ukraine, there were two types of the Neolithic: north-eastern woodland and south-western agriculture and cattle breeding ones. To the south-west province of the Neolithic in Ukraine included farmers and cattle breeders of the Criș, Linear Pottery, and Cucuteni-Trypillia cultures, genetically related to the Neolithic of the Balkans and the Danube region. The woodland Neolithic of the region covers the cultures of indigenous hunters and fishers, who were already acquainted with clay ware, but did not yet own the skills of productive economy. They were the Dnipro-Donetsk, Pit-Comb Ware, Volynian, Surska, Donetsk, and Tash-Air cultures.

The earliest in Ukraine reliable traces of substantiated economy are observed in the Körös culture materials of Zakarpattia region (first part of the 6^th millennium BC (cal.)) and the Linear Pottery culture of Volyn and Dnister region (second half of the 6^th millennium BC (cal.)). Finally, in the 5^th millennium BC, the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture population arriving from the south-west to Neolithic Ukraine completely neolithizated the Right-Bank forest-steppe region from the Carpathians to the Dnipro River.

The Buh-Dnister culture (BDC) developed under the Criș culture’s influence from Moldova territory between the Dnister and the South Buh Rivers in the middle of the 6^th millennium BC (cal.). Pressed by the new migration waves of the farmers from the Danube region (Linear Band Pottery and Cucuteni-Trypillia), the BDC bearers moved aside in the north-east direction in Kyiv and Cherkasy Dnipro regions, where the Dnipro-Donets culture appeared at the end of the 6^thmillennium BC (cal.).

The historical value of the Trypillia culture for the Ukrainian prehistory is in final victory of production economy on the Dnipro’s right bank first, and later, on the south of Left-Bank Ukraine. In fact, the population of the Black Sea steppe region, the Sea of Azov, and Donbas regions obtained the first skills of cattle breeding and agriculture from the Trypillians in the 5^th and the 4^th millennia BC (cal.). These Neolithic innovations from Trypillia to the steppe Eneolithic of the Black and Azov Seas regions were provided by so called «steppe Trypillia», known by the burials of Zhyvotyliv-Vovcha type.

Consequently, the Neolithic of Ukraine is not an exception from the whole-European context. Right-Bank Ukraine was neolithizated synchronously with Central Europe as a result of colonization by the oldest farmers-colonists from the Danube region in the 6^th-5^th millennia BC (cal.). While in the 5^th-4^th millennia BC, Neolithic innovations from forest-steppe of Right-Bank Ukraine spread northward to Polissia and to the east and south-east of Ukraine.

At the beginning of the 21^st century, there was a change of conceptions of neolithization of the region in archaeology of Ukraine. The old south-west conception was replaced by the south-western one which corresponds to a general-European vision of the Neolithic revolution in Central Europe by its colonization in the 7^th-5^th millennia BC by the Neolithic farmers from the Balkans through the Danube region