Copper Age Landscape History between Dnister and Southern Bug, Ukraine.

• Applicant: Dr. Vitalii Rud, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Prehistory and World Archaeology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 537033648

Over the last years (2016–2021) intensive archaeological field investigations in two test microregions in the Dniester-Southern Bug interfluve, near the modern towns of Kryzhopil and Chechelnyk in Ukraine, were carried out. This area is the western neighbor of the distribution area of the Cooper Age Cucuteni-Trypillia megasites and appears to have played a key role in the spread of innovations to the east. As a result, more than 50 Cucuteni-Trypillia sites have been investigated in this microregions during field research, of which geophysical prospection and excavations have been carried out in some. According to radiocarbon dating, the investigated in the region settlements span the period from 4250 to 3450 BCE. This research has shown that chronologically, Cucuteni-Trypillia communities in the Dniester-Southern Bug region appear to have had very different settlement trajectories compared to areas to the east. These concern, for example, the earlier onset of large aggregated settlements already around 4300/4200 BC and the early disintegration of large, aggregated settlements and the transition to a decentralised mode of settlement behaviour in significantly smaller local communities starting around 3800 BC. The main objective of the project is therefore to further investigate Cucuteni-Trypillia cultural development in this region by processing, analysing, and publishing the extensive materials obtained during the 2016-2021 surveys. On the microregional level the reconstruction of the Copper Age settlement systems and settlement dynamics in the two investigated microregions will be performed. At the regional level, which concerns the Dniester and Southern Bug middle basins interfluve, the differences in both natural and cultural dimensions between the two microregions will be evaluated. At the macroregional level, the data obtained from the microregions will be compared with corresponding data from other microregions within the Cucuteni-Trypillia distribution in order to show the nature and intensity of interactions between communities of different regions and the intensity and spatial range of the circulation of people, ideas and innovations within and from the region. The settlement process of the microregions during post-Copper Age (Bronze Age to the early Middle Ages) periods will be also characterized.

• DFG Programme: WBP Position