Settlement and economy in Neolithic Ukraine: a new chronology

The authors use their revised chronology for the Mariupol-type cemeteries (presented in Antiquity 76:356-63 (2002)) to offer a new sequence for Neolithic settlement and economy in Ukraine. They find that the transition to the Neolithic began about 6500 cal BC, but co-existed with Mesolithic communities for a further millennium. In about 4500 cal BC early copper age cultures appeared, which in turn coexisted with the Neolithic in neighbouring areas. Co-existent cultures are defined in terms of their artefacts, subsistence strategies, burial practice and physical types. The Mariupol-type cemeteries seem to have had their origins in the late Mesolithic and endured into the Copper Age, a period of more than two thousand years (c. 6500-4000 cal BC). Keywords: Neolithic, Ukraine, settlement, chronology.
Defining the Neolithic The question of the origins and subsequent development of food-producing economies in Ukraine in the prehistoric period is comparatively well studied for many cultures such as the [...]