Ukraine - Early History
From the Danube region right across South Russia, right across the country to the north of the Caspian, right across the country to the east of the Caspian, as far as the mountain masses of the Pamir Plateau and eastward into the Tarim basin of Eastern Turkestan, there spread a series of similar barbaric tribes and peoples all at about the same stage of culture. They had few cities, mostly they were nomadic; at times they settled temporarily to cultivate the land. It is evident this great stretch of country was becoming a region of accumulation for these barbaric peoples. They were very loosely attached to the lands they occupied. They lived in tents and wagons rather than houses. A brief cycle of plentiful and healthy years, or a cessation of tribal warfare under some strong ruler, would lead to considerable increases of population; then two or three hard years would suffice to send the tribes wandering again in search of food. From before the dawn of recorded history this region of human accumulation between the Danube and China had been, as it were, intermittently raining out tribes southward and westward. It was like a cloud bank behind the settled landscape that accumulated and then precipitated invaders. Those various peoples came down out of their northern obscurity into the light of history; and meanwhile beyond that light the reservoir accumulated for fresh discharges.
Fertile lands, temperate climate, rivers full of fish and forests rich in game - since olden times Ukraine was known as a favorable land for inhabitation and settling. Archeological finds are evidences of constant settlements since primitives have appeared. The first settlers of the Ukrainian lands appeared, probably, traveling to the coasts of the Black Sea through the Caucasus and the Balkans. As is well known, in the epoch of the late Palaeolith in the middle of the last ice period (40-10 c. BC) a type of man that exists nowadays was developed - Homo Sapiens. About 800 primitive settlements have been fixed on Ukrainian lands referring to this epoch. The total number of the population was approximately about 20 thousand people. Topographical memorial groups testify that separate settlements of 5-8 men of certain patrimonial community have already been organized in "groups", obtaining the features of early tribe grouping, in other words the elements of life socialization.
By the end of the mesolithic, fundamental civilization changes are observed, named the "neolithic revolution", and the period from the VI to the III Millenia B.C. is marked out as a separate epoch - neolithic, that is New Stone Age. Epoch-making transition of primitive man to reproduction agriculture - farming and cattle breeding that resulted on the territory of Ukraine in cultural and agricultural zones development different in the way of life - agricultural and cattle-breeding as well as hunting and fishing zones, where local, kindred patrimonial tribes with the common features of material culture have been organized.
The end of the IV-III Millenia BC was characterized by the appearance of the first metal - copper, used not only for ornaments but also for weapons and tool. Household effects have been developed at the same time: people began to use mattock and draft-cattle, domesticated horse and sheep, improved ceramic ware technology production. The population has increased. People settled new territories, appeared special tight natural habitats - archeologists call them "historical and cultural regions" - inhabitants of which differed in material culture and way of life, devotions and, as it is supposed, in language. The most significant memorials of this period in Ukraine is associated with so the called Trypillya tribes. This name originates from the village of Trypillya of Kyiv, where the famous archeologist Vikentij Khvojka have found remains of this culture for the first time. As it was cleared up with time, this culture existed since the second half of the IV century to the end of the III Millenia BC on the great settlement tract at the meeting point of the Dnipro and Dniestr Rivers approaching on the south the Black Sea steppes and on the north - Volyn' and Kyiv Polissya of the Desna River.
According to typological features and geographic-space extension the Trypillya culture was related to memorials of the Danube basin, Balkan Peninsula, insular Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor of that time that proved their reference to the cycle of cultures, which have formed the European Mediterranean civilization. The Trypiltsi belonged to grain-grower and cattle breeding tribes with advantageous farming, their stated cult of fertility goddess "the Great Mother" prove this fact (anthropomorphic image of Mother the Great has been found during archeological dig of almost every Trypillya settlement). Today the most scientists guided by the analysis of skeleton remains, associate identification of the Trypiltsi with the Mediterranean race, probably, Virmenian anthropological type, prevailing among ancient inhabitants of Eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor and Anterior. This is deeply intertwined with the fact that the Ukrainian territory was, as it were, an outlying district of this cultural habitat, the principle tract of which was found in the Danube valley, on the north of Balkan Peninsula and on the insular tract of the Aegean Sea.
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