New Trypillian Plastics From the Middle Dnieper Region

The anthropomorphic figurines from Trypillian sites reflect not only certain ideological views and aesthetic preferences of the respective populations but also serve as reliable indicators for determining the placement of communities within the general structure of the Cucuteni-Trypillia cultural complex. This holds true for the figurines discovered by the Northern Expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine during the recent research at three multi-layered sites in Kyiv region where the Trypillia horizon was identified among the cultural layers. The first site originates from the territory of the Kyivan Rus’ settlement as part of the Dnieper fortified line southward from Hrebeni village. It is known in 19th-century publications but despite the extensive explorations in the region in the late past and the early current centuries it has been overlooked and was surveyed only in 2016. It was discovered that this site, in addition to layers from the Kyivan Rus’ period, contains Trypillia artifacts including the figurine discussed in this paper. The second artifact was found in the medieval settlement of Khodosivka-Roslavske in the southern outskirts of Kyiv which was discovered in 2007. The site, explored over a wide area, proved to be multi-layered with the artifact found in Trypillia layers as follows. The objects from both sites are represented by the upper parts of female statuettes with modeled heads, torsos, and buttocks. Despite some differences in the composition of the clay and the modeling of the head, arms, and breast, the figurines from these sites belong to fairly common examples of ceramic statuettes from the BII and CI stages of the Trypillia culture. Their analogies are reflected in the developed classification schemes and have been found not only in the Dnieper River area but also in the Southern Bug area, the Bug-Dniester interfluve, and the Middle Dniester basin. The statuette from the adjacent multi-layered site which combines a Slavic settlement from the last quarter of the 1st millennium at the Kozakiv Yar and a Late Trypillia settlement at the Zotsieva Hora differs significantly morphologically and typologically from the mentioned examples. It has only one parallel in the Middle Dnieper area at the settlement Syrets I in Kyiv. Both settlements belong to Sofiyivka local group of CII stage. The flat rounded body of the figurine, made of dense clay and fired in the oxidizing medium, is combined with the buttocks and legs with grooves in the upper part for attaching the head. Such statuettes are not typical for Trypillia sites but are inherent to synchronous sites beyond the Carpathians. According to scholars, they reflect cultural influences from the specified region defined in the literature as the process of «badenization»

Horizon · Ideology · Pottery · Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History · Metallurgy and Cultural Artifacts