Last December, when checking the territory before the construction works in a forest near lake Basov Ugol not far from Rovno (Rivno), a group of Ukrainian archaeologists, led by Bogdan Prishchepa, has discovered an ancient settlement. They found pottery, bone and stone ornamentation, flint arrowheads and a place for sacrifices, which contained a bull skeleton. Altogether, about 100 artifacts were found. There are three layers in this settlement. The first one is dated by III millennium BCE, the second -- by III-II centuries BCE and the third one belongs to the Slavic tribes, VIII-X centuries CE. Bogdan Prishchepa assumes that the settlement belonged to the tribes which were predecessors of later Germanic, Baltic and Slavic tribes. He thinks that the find proves the theory that all these ethnic groups originate from the territory of modern Ukraine.
Sources in Russian:
E-newsGazeta in Ukrainian
Novy Region
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2 comments:
Do you remember what they used for dating the layers of the settlement? Were these large settlements?
My trips in Ukraine have led me to believe that man is very old from that area. I have seen some interesting sites in Ukraine that have to do with the Stone People.
I did an article on what my wife and I saw. If you go to August, Under "Ukraine: Stone People"
Do you have any Idea about this tribe of people?
Kyle
Sorry, there's little I can say about these finds in Rivno. In the III millennium BCE the area was a home for the culture of funnel bowls, the culture of spherical amphorae and the late Tripolye culture. In III-II centuries BCE and later, there was such a mess of cultures there that I won't even try to guess :). I just think that this was a forested area, so these settlements hardly have anything to do with the Scythians. Some proto-Slavs, must be.
Now, your photos. There are thousands of such statues all over the Ukrainian steppes. They are called "stone babas" (каменные бабы, from Turkish "wawa", forefather or grandfater). Most of them were made by Polovtsians (XII-XIII centuries). Some are Scythian (IV-I centuries BCE) and there are some even earlier, eneolithic statues. Don't you remember, was it not far from Donetsk and Zaporizhye? If so, it must be the natural reserve "Stone Grave". That place is an ancient volcano (2 billion years old). This is a hill and when the territory of Ukraine was covered by a sea, its summit was above the water and some unique plants survived there till our days. They also have a large collection of Polovtsian statues, like those on the photos. If you had more time, you could see petroglyphs and burials, some of which are dated by the III millennium BCE. Moreover, there's a little river there, called Karatysh, which, as some historians think, is the river Kalka, where in 1223 Russians and Polovtsians lost the first battle to the Mongols (see Russian history 33).
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