History of Cherkasy Oblast - Prehistory and Early History

Prehistory and Early History

More than 40 thousand years ago, the primitive inhabitants of the region used flint and bones of gigantic animals (mammoths, fleecy rhinoceroses, and bisons) as tools for land-tilling and bunting. The remnants of that epoch were found at the archaeological site by the village Velyka Burimka of the Chornobaivskyi Raion. In the village of Mezhirich, Kanivskyi Raion, a mammoth bunters settlement was discovered, dating back to 2000–1500 B.C. Its contemporary – a bison bunters settlement – was found in the village of Hordashivka of the Talnivskyi Raion.

More than six thousand years ago, Cucuteni-Trypillian culture settlements were built in the western part of the region in the Talnivskyi, Umanskyi, and Mankivskyi Raions. As one of the most significant societies of ancient Europe, scholars state that the level of the socio-economic development of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture can be compared to that of the Ancient East, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The Cucuteni-Trypillian people practiced plowing and cattle-breeding, created highly-developed ceramics (they are known for their elaborately-decorated pottery), textile weaving, and other crafts.

Cucuteni-Trypillian settlements were laid out in oval or circular patterns, with rows of often interconnecting single and two-storeyed dwellings. The largest of these settlements, some of which are located in this region, contained about 15 – 20 thousand inhabitants, making them some of the largest settlements in the world at that time. There is evidence that Cucuteni-Trypillian people believed in natural phenomena, were animistic, and worshiped the images of sun and moon, water and animals. There is also speculation that they practised the Goddess Cult, as is evidenced by the numerous ceramic female statuettes that seem to have been honoured as symbols of fertility and prosperity.

The Scythians who lived on the territory of the left-bank Ukraine left more than a hundred of protowns, settlements and funeral mounds, the largest of which were located in the valley of the Tiasmyn River – Pastyrske, Sharpivske, Buda-Makyivske, and Motronynske. The Scythians were involved in active trading with the Black Sea Greek colonies, from as early as the 7th century B.C. Scythian settlement ruins still remain near the Vasiutyntsi and Krytky villages of Chornobaivskyi Raion. The so-called Golden Scythians roamed throughout the forest steppe of the region with their countless herds of cattle and horses. In 1996 a world-famous discovery was made of a rich horde of golden grave goods and ornaments in a burial mound of a nameless Scythian chief near the village of Ryzhanivka in Zvenyhorodskyi Raion.

At the beginning of the 1st century A.D., the region appeared to be at the heart of the old-Slavonic tribes formation. The mighty Ant tribes, who lived on this territory in the 5-7th centuries A.D., are considered to be the forefathers of Ukrainian nation. The valuables found at the Porossia archaeological site prove the high-level development of their civilization. The constant threat of aggression from the South made them built walls and fortifications. Some of them (as Zmiyovyi) still stretch snakelike for hundred kilometres along the Dnieper, Ros' and Sula River's right and left banks, reaching 10 metres height at some places.