UDK 94(477)”...

/05”
BBK 63.3(4Ukr)2
V42

Project leaders:
A. V. Tolstoukhov — doctor of philosophy, corresponding member of Academy of Education of Ukraine,
the President of Strategic Policy Institute;
V. A. Zubanov — the President of the Charity Fund “East—West together”

Author
M. Yu. Videiko — candidate of historical sciences, senior research fellow

Різні імена в давні часи носила ця земля, її ліси, ріки й рівнини: Кіммерія, Скіфія, Сар-
матія, Замор’я, Леведія, Дорі, Архейм, Русь, Борисфен, Данпрастадир, Істр, Тірас, Гіппаніс...
Усі ці, часом незрозумілі, а то і взагалі невідомі нині назви було дано у давні часи представ-
никами народів, що жили у нашому Краї. Що стояло за цими назвами, як жили люди, котрі
придумали та промовляли ці слова? Десятки тисяч років давньої історії землі, що її сьогодні
називають Україною, були відкриті завдяки польовим археологічним дослідженням впро-
довж останніх ста п’ятдесяти років. Щороку чимало експедицій шукають і знаходять у цій
землі сліди минулих епох і подій. Із таких знахідок і складається мозаїка давньої історії. У
книзі представлено її окремі сторінки, епізоди, які охоплюють період від трипільської архео-
логічної культури (5400—2650 рр. до н.е.) до появи Русі із столицею у Києві (ІХ століття).
Історичні події, викладені в книзі, співвіднесено до території України у її сучасних межах.
Розраховано на широке коло читачів.

Videiko M. Yu.
V42 Ukraine: from Trypillia to Rus./ Mykhailo Videiko. — K.: Krion, — 2010. —
528 p.: pic.
ISBN 978-966-1658-48-5
In ancient times this land, its forests, rivers and plains had different names: Cimmeria, Scythia,
Sarmatia, Zamorya, Levedia, Dori, Arkheim, Rus, Borisfen, Danprastadir, Ister, Tiras, Hypanis... All
these sometimes unintelligible and by now even unknown names were given in ancient times by repre-
sentatives of peoples who lived on the territory of today’s Ukraine. What did these names mean, how
did people who invented and uttered those words live? Dozens of thousands of years of the ancient his-
tory of the land which is now called Ukraine have been discovered thanks to field archeological inves-
tigations for the last one hundred and fifty years. Every year numerous expeditions seek and find traces
of the past epochs and events in this land. The mosaic of the ancient history is based on these findings.
This book represents its separate pages, episodes which cover the period from the Trypillian archeo-
logical culture (5400—2650 B.C.) till the appearance of Rus with its capital in Kyiv (the 9th century).
Historical events described in this book are correlated with the territory of Ukraine with its
present-day borders.
The book is intended for a wide range of readers.
UDK 94(477)”.../05”
BBK 63.3(4Ukr)2

© Zubanov V. A., Tolstoukhov A. V., 2010

ISBN 978-966-1658-48-5 © Videiko M. Yu., 2010
 Section 3

Peoples and languages of

“The land of Trypilliada”

he land of Trypilliada” – this name was given by our colleagues from Moldova to the issue of the journal

“T dedicated to the centenary of the birth of a famous researcher of the Trypillian culture T. S. Passek. The
fact that the words “languages” and “peoples” in the name of this section are in the plural is not acciden-
tal. There is no doubt that contrary to established definitions, “Trypillians” were not, at least for the biggest part of their
2500 year history, a united people. And even more, they hardly spoke the same “Trypillian” language during this time.
So, modern re-enactors of the latter (and there are lots of them) will have a lot of work in the future connected with
the reproduction of the system of sounds of the Trypillian language in its entirety and variety. However, the author has
doubts (and these doubts are grounded) that this task will be performed with a persuasive result.

Dimensions of the history

of the ancient peoples
The very duration of the existence of the Trypillian
culture should have suggested certain thoughts to
researchers a long time ago. For instance, today we are
fully aware of the difference between the Russian,
Ukrainian and Belorussian languages. This difference is
the result of certain processes including historical events
during the last millennium (note – only 1000 years).
Moreover, we can easily notice the difference between
modern Ukrainian and the language in which documents
of the times of hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky were written
almost three and a half centuries ago. Not everybody can
easily notice the difference between the Ukrainian lan-
guage of the early 1960s of the 20th century and the begin-
ning of the 21st century. However, this difference can also
be noticed if you apply some efforts. So, taking into
account the above mentioned, how can we believe that
“Trypillians” for more than 3000 years spoke the same
language, to say nothing about the fact that this language
couldn’t be other than Ukrainian?
Nonetheless it’s worth noting that a certain contribu-
tion to these, to put it mildly, simplified views about the pos-
sibility of continuity of the language (and the culture on the
whole) has been made recently by archeologists themselves
including the discoverer of the Trypillian culture
V. Khvoika. Speaking about his research at the 9th
Archeological Convention in Kyiv in August of 1899 he
stated that, no doubt, the people to whom the found antiqui- V.V. Khvoika, one of the first researchers of the
ties had belonged was nothing, but “the branch of the Aryan Trypillian culture. Picture and photographer, the
tribe to which by rights the name of protoslavs belonged…”. beginning of the 20th century

39
 Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes

especially to say something about the language of people

Pictures from the researcher’s archives
(the beginning of the 20th century) which represent
the views of V.V. Khvoika about the appearance
and the everyday life of Trypillians
A discussion which aroused after making this report in one
of the lecture halls of St. Volodymyr University was just the
first in the line of others that followed1.
It is understood that it is not easy at all to determine
after seven–five thousand years the ethnic background and
who left the Trypillian culture. To do this without any
inscription (as written language was still in the process of
development and the one which existed – pictography –
was not intended for the fixation of the sound of the lan-
guage of its creators).
In order to give some grounded answers to the
question “who were Trypillians?” it is necessary to com-
bine the data obtained by different sciences – from
archeology to molecular biology. I doubt that one sepa-
rate researcher – either a linguist or an archeologist –
will be able to handle it. It’s worth noting, for the sake
of justice, that the analysis of printed matter for the last
one hundred years suggests that researchers of the
Trypillian culture themselves haven’t hastened to
express publicly their opinion about the question “who
are Trypillians”. Perhaps they were just busy and maybe
they understood that this was not a simple task and prob-
ably it even had no (at least then) solution.
The ancient history of humanity has a few dimen-
sions each of which is accessible for research by a certain
science. Among them – archeology, linguistics and…
genetics, but even they cannot do it without cooperation.
Recently archeologists have obtained rather detailed
information about the movement and types of activities of
separate groups of people, but in most cases they can’t say
what language these people spoke. Linguists can recon-
struct ancient languages, but they can’t say for sure where
people who spoke these languages lived. At the same time
the recording of the history of humanity on the molecular

1
In December of 2007 the subject of the origin, ethnic background of Trypillians and their language was discussed in the same heated
way in a big conference hall of Kyiv Teacher House, i.e. just a few hundred meters from the red building of the University and for the
reason of the presentation of the Ukrainian translation of works by V.V. Khvoika dedicated to the research of the Trypillian culture
which were published with the name: Дослідження трипільської цивілізації у науковій спадщині археолога Вікентія Хвой-
ки. — К., 2006. — Ч. І — Ч. ІІ (The research of the Trypillian civilization in the scientific heritage of archeologist Vikentiy Khvoika).

40
 Section 3. Peoples and languages “The lands of Trypilliada”

Residents of a Trypillian
settlement in Dnister area,
reconstruction. Watercolor
of 1950 s of the 20th century

level of the DNA has much

more information than the
most credible annals. Thus we
can see: all the mentioned
above experts were just des-
tined to cooperate.
A famous British arche-
ologist Sir Colin Renfrew for forever how
many years has been the head and who must be portrayed that
of a research institute which played (and still plays) the main
carries out researches with the role in the formation and artistic
close cooperation of experts reproduction of this or that image of
from different fields of sci- deity.
ence. It’s a pity, but there’s no On the other hand the establish-
such institute in Ukraine yet. ment of the Trypillian culture is the result of
As only on this level of interdisciplinary research, accord- processes the duration of which
ing to a lot of experts who by the request of Sir Renfrew amounts not to one dozen and even
came to participate in the conference held by his Institute, not to one thousand years, but to
it’s worth looking for the keys to solving lots of secrets of more than two millenniums. Of
the ancient history of Europe. Here is a short summary of course, these processes could
the arguments and facts in the fields of archeology, lin- include migration of certain
guistics and molecular biology which modern science has groups of population (from
for now in connection with Trypillians and their Central Europe, for instance),
ethnic/linguistic background. but there were also not less (or
even more) other contacts, exchange
of goods (including grain) and impor-
What do we know about Trypillians? tant information – for example, what
exactly was the depth for sowing
The data of archeology (and of physical anthropolo- grains. In each case the terms of
gy, too) suggest that first, the population of the Neolithic sowing could be determined only on
Age which had preceded Trypillia was rather diverse and the spot – they were different in the
heterogeneous – both in terms of culture and composition. Balkans, in Central Europe and in
Second, there are no grounds to speak about any rather Prykarpattia.
large-scale migration in the land which is now called The analysis and comparison
Ukraine from the north of Anatolia or even the Balkans. of material culture – pottery, statuettes,
These remote regions are not where we should look for types and technologies of building
the source of the establishment of the Trypillian culture. dwellings, typical instruments and tools of
On the other hand, without the knowledge and technolo- labor show that the initial “Trypillian popu-
gies of the Asian “fertile crescent” European grain grow- lation” which had the honor to create all
ing would have remained a good but impracticable proj- these artifacts could have emerged as a
ect. It’s worth noting that the key element here is knowl- result of interaction of several groups of
edge and technologies and an inflow of population in this people of the Neolithic Age. These
case is not the necessary condition of progress. groups of people, by the way, not very
Quite a lot of ceramic statuettes have survived to this numerous ones (judging by the number
day and the pictures of persons on them have certain por- of the found ancient settlements which
trait features. Perhaps they can give some idea about how
residents of Old Europe looked like many thousand years
ago. However, I would like to warn against attempts to Portraits of residents
of Old Europe. Fragments
study the anthropology of ancient epochs solely on the of realistic statuettes
basis of cult sculptures. Since in the sacral field, as it is of the end of the 6th and the
well known, it is the canon, a rule established once and 5th millennium BC, the Balkans

41
 Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes
bearers of the Linear
Band Pottery culture
CriÕ
Early Trypillia-Precucuteni
Vessels of archeological cultures of Old Europe the representatives of which, in the opinion of archeologists,
could take part in the formation of the archeological complex of the early stage of the Trypillian culture.
The second half of the 6th millennium BC
amounted to not more than two dozen and which were
small, thus the number of their residents amounted within
the limits from a few hundred to one thousand – maximum
two thousand people), most likely were at that moment rep-
resentatives of different cultural and ethnical groups.
Now archeologists can define a rather wide outgoing
territory with which these groups of people are connected –
the so-called the Balkan-Danube-Carpathian region. But
the place where the most ancient Trypillian settlements are
located occupies a much smaller territory – between the
Carpathians, the Prut and the Dnister, approximately on the
joint of the present northern borders of Romania, Moldova
from one sine and the west of Ukraine from the other one.
It seems that representatives of different European tribes by
force of some circumstances pulled up their roots and used
different ways to cross the Carpathians searching for the
new “promised land”. Here they met the scarce population
which belonged to the culture of Linear Band Pottery and
probably some other “aboriginals”.
What could be the reason of the escape of some pop-
ulation from Central Europe? The answer to this question,
strange as it may seem, can be obtained lately and
42
Vin…a
Tisa
Boian
Hamangia
obtained in a simple way. It is enough to turn on TV at the
end of winter or at the beginning of spring to hear in the
news program the information about countries which are
situated to the west of the Carpathians. In the first place in
the news program you will see stories about catastrophic
flood, rain, storms, avalanches from mountains, water
flows which flooded glens, streets of villages and towns.
Narrators will show some experts who will speak in uni-
son about what? That’s right, about the consequences of
the global warming.
Reconstructions of the climate of the 6th millennium
BC show: Europe has already experienced something like
that in the epoch which preceded the emergence of the
Trypillian culture. And the consequences of the global
warming in the 6th millennium BC were not compensated
either by the efforts of the European Union or by the
humanitarian aid. In those times residents of villages on
the Danube or in the foothills of the Carpathians could
wait for help from nowhere. The loss of dwellings,
reserves of food, cattle and harvests in the fields in those
ancient times undoubtedly led to the extinction of whole
tribes (and the cultures created by them).
 Section 3. Peoples and languages “The lands of Trypilliada”

Trypillia-Cucuteni, two and a half thousand years of

the history and cultural diversity. There are a lot of cultures,
but there is only one civilization. The dates indicated
on the maps are BC

Those who had survived had to start with a clean

slate uniting with people with the same bad luck in the
fight for life. It is quite possible that the same thing hap-
pened to the ancestors of the first Trypillians. A new com-
munity was formed in a relatively trouble-free area which
was not threatened by fierce natural disasters. At the same
time lands and other natural resources were in abundance
here and farther to the east for one thousand kilometers
and more there was a country which hadn’t been inhabit-
ed by grain growers yet.
That, the most ancient, community of Trypillians
existed for about 600–800 years. It existed till it spread
from the Carpathians to the interfluve of the Southern Bug
and the Dnieper. In Romania their culture is called
Precucuteni, in Ukraine – the early stage of the Trypillian
culture or Trypillia A. Taking into account the means and
ways of communication of that time in combination with
a settled way of life and a constant inflow of population
(no wonder, finally it led to economic upturn, “an increase
of the GDP” and thus prosperity and flourishing!), this
disunity quite logically led to the formation of new groups
and cultures.
An important factor of cultural genesis in the region
was still an inflow of new refugees and travelers across the yet. Thus in 600–800 years, in a wonderful summer (or
Carpathians, nobody asked for a permit for living on passes spring) people with painted pottery appeared in the Trypillian
world. These people created a new face
of the new culture, Cucuteni.
At first the border between “the
painted” Trypillians-Cucutenians and
the descendants of the first settlers lay
along the Dnister, then – somewhere

Pottery made by Trypillians

of different regions: Dnister area
and Dnieper area of the second
half of the 5th millennium BC
might as well be included into two
Middle Dnieper area different archeological cultures
Dnister area
43
 Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes

along the Southern

Binocular-like vessels from Bug. In the end in a few
two regions of Trypillia: hundred years the first
the one with an incised
ornament comes from the Trypillians had only part of
Middle Dnieper, the Middle Dnieper area – some-
painted one is made on the where from the mouth of the
Dnister; they demonstrate a
union of ceremonial sphere Teterev to the north till the
despite a noticeable Bukrinsky peninsula in
difference in the material the south. However,
culture. The second half of
the 5th millennium BC the “painters” were
constantly trying to
bite off tasty morsels
Middle Dnieper area even from that territory having come to
the left bank of the Dnister in the area of
present Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi.
Nonetheless, from the very beginning at a frontier –
either the Dnister, the Southern Bug and then the tributaries
of the Dnieper communities were emerging all the time;
judging by pottery they consisted of a certain proportion of
“the first Trypillians” and “the painters”. Moreover, from
time to time this community was penetrated by people with
other traditions of making pottery – from Steppe tribes
(from the steppe) from the south to representatives of not
Dnister area less civilized neighbors from the west and the north-west.
Things came around in such a way that till the end of the 5th
millennium BC the Trypillian-Cucuteni world became very
heterogeneous (in terms of archeology). So, there are no
valid reasons to claim unambiguously that already between
4500–4000 BC the same “Trypillian people” who spoke the
same language lived on the territory from the Carpathians
to the Dnieper.
There is one more proof which suggests that there
was no such “general Trypillian” language and cultural
unity. This is geography and the time of the appearance of
fortified settlements. They started building them in quite
the interfluve of the considerable amounts exactly at the time of the expansion
Southern Bug and of painted pottery to the East, and fortifications were built
the Dnieper not at a frontier, but in the middle of 100% “Cucuteni”
territories of the West. In other words, local tribes
waged a fierce struggle for resources. The next
“march to the east” quite logically led to… the
consolidation of the first Trypillians. Those unit-
ed and established the first prototowns which
have been mentioned above. Their counterparts
responded with similar organizational measures.
As a result, each created Trypillian group,
and in different periods they numbered from 3–4
to 6–9, had its own fortresses, prototowns and thus
all “the vertical power structure” which was possi-
ble (and necessary) in those ancient times. With the
number from 3–5 to 25–35 thousand people in each
the interfluve of the
Dnister and the The difference between anthropomorphous
Southern Bug statuettes from different regions of the
Trypillian culture, the 4th millennium BC

44
 Section 3. Peoples and languages “The lands of Trypilliada”
About 5000 BC
The image of the Great
Goddess, the way through
millenniums; almost one and
a half thousand years passed
between making the first and
the second statuette About 3600 BC
group they were also quite self-sufficient in terms of pop-
ulation reproduction. And they understood quite clearly
that the increasing population could survive only on con-
dition that they defend their territory form their neighbors.
It has been known for long that people are united best of
all if they have a common enemy even if this enemy is a
Trypillian, a relative or a brother.
And this Trypillian doesn’t seem to be a Trypillian at
all, but a Cucuteni, and everything is wrong about him: his
pots are different and he paints “wrong” ornaments, not
according to the precepts of the great ancestors, and in
addition he uses quite a different paint. And his language –
you just listen how they, there, behind
the Southern Bug (or the Dnister, the
Prut, the Dnieper – your choice) pro-
nounce our words in a wrong way…
A few words about the
Trypillian language
Speaking about the language. In
2003 New Zealand scientists R. Grey and
C. Atkinson published a statistical model
of disintegration of the Proto-Indo-
European language.We are interested in
the most ancient stages which are cov-
ered by this model, to be more exact peri-
ods between 8700 and 6100 years
ago (that is 6700–4100 BC). At that
time there was certain rhythmics of the
division of language groups of –
800–600–400–400–400. As we can see,
for the period of 2600 years an acceler- The probable scheme of the division and synthesis of the Trypillian
ated process of disintegration was car- language for 2500 years of history: from unity to diversity
ried out – from the initial years of 800 to 400.
Even if we take the arithmetical mean 600
years, during the period of the existence of the
Trypillian culture the “primordial” linguistic
community might have, in general, experienced
not less than four divisions!
However, there should have been many
more “branches” because every “branch” which
was separated at the beginning in the next 600
years would have split itself and so on. But there
was not only division, but also union of different
groups. That’s why it is quite possible that the language
of groups described above (with different material cul-
ture) could be as “synthetic”. In the end, for two odd mil-
lenniums as a result of similar processes quite a branched
tree of “Trypillian languages” might have grown.
It is understood that it is necessary to
admit the participation of all neighbors in the
process of the formation of this “tree” – not
only Trypillians – from steppe tribes to distant
relatives from the west and forest tribes from the north.
And linguists will have to work with this model (even if it
is rather hypothetic) if they ever venture to reconstruct
Trypillian languages and don’t ignore opinions and results
of the work of archeologists while doing it.
For now a version about how the language of
Trypillians might look have been presented in the most
grounded way by Yuriy Mosenkis. His doctoral disserta-
tion which was defended in T. Shevchenko Kyiv National
University in 2002 had the following name: “The prob-
lems of the reconstruction of the language of Trypillian
cultures”. Please note that the researcher raised the ques-
45
 Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes

about 7300-4600 years ago

TRYPILLIA
The Proto-Indo-

8700 years ago

European
language

The tree of Indo-European languages

according to R. Grey and C. Atkinson
(2003) and its comparison with the period
of the existence of the Trypillian culture

46
 Section 3. Peoples and languages “The lands of Trypilliada”

Anthropomorphous statuette. Anthropomorphous statuette.

Dnister area, the second half Volhynia, the second half
of the 4th millennium BC of the 4th millennium BC

tion about the existence of a few
“Trypillian cultures”2 which, however,
had a common language, in his opinion.
The researcher made an attempt of
systemic reconstruction of the primary
language of the bearers of the Trypillian
culture. For this purpose he used a wide
range of methods of linguistics including
the method of “things and words” devel-
oped by him. The main conclusion: the
Trypillian language is an ancient (Pre-
Indo-European) component of Slavic
languages, the existence of which among
other things, distinguishes this language
from other Indo-European ones, but makes
it closer to the ancient languages of
Eastern Mediterranean – from the Balkans
to Crete. Taking into consideration the
above mentioned the conclusion that the
Ukrainian language preserves the heritage
of Trypillia in its vocabulary (dozens of
words) and also in terms of sounds, a lot of proper
names (first of all the names of rivers) looks quite logical.
And according to the researcher it is not strange at all
because the Ukrainian language is spread on the territory
which used to be inhabited by thousands of Trypillians3.
It’s worth noting that ideas regarding the linguistic
(and cultural) succession of Trypillians and Ukrainians
arouse the same grounded criticism on the part of other
experts. One of their main arguments is the statement that
the Ukrainian language belongs, as it is known, to the Indo-
European language family and that’s why cannot in any
way have roots in the Trypillian one which is claimed to be
a non-Indo-European language. Everything here seems to
look quite logical, but for two things: the statement puts a
sign of equality between the ethnic and linguistic belong-
ing, which is very and very doubtful in all regards, and the
statement that the language of Trypillians does
not belong to the “non-Indo-European” language
family is not grounded in a proper way.
As in the latter case the argument is focused
on the geographical localization of the mysterious
“ancestral home” of the speakers of Indo-European
languages. The last one is connected with, among
other things, the dating of the time of the collapse of
“the Pre-Indo-European language”. But the problem is
that the most ancient inscriptions in the languages
which belonged to this language family had been
done a millennium later after this event. It hap-
pened approximately in the middle of the 2nd mil-
lennium BC. Sometimes in order to match the data
of archeology and linguistics separate researchers
singled out a few “ancestral homes”.
Promising at the first glance methods of
searching for the elusive “ancestral home” led4 to dia-
metrically opposite conclusions. Some researchers
placed Pre-Indo-Europeans in the steppes and forest
steppes considering them to be cattle-breeders and
nomads who straddled horses, travelled on carts and
attacked their peaceful neighbors-grain growers. Other
researchers described their homeland as a mountain
country with forests the residents of which led a settled life
of grain growers, extracted and worked metal.
There was also an opinion that Pre-Indo-Europeans
had had little to do with such achievements as cattle-
breeding and grain growing, to say nothing about metal-
lurgy and the wheel. It is not difficult to understand why
after reading a big number of similar scientific works it is
difficult in the first place to believe in the real existence of
not only the ancestral home, but also the mysterious and
elusive “Pre-Indo-Europeans” themselves.
The idea of “the steppe ancestral home” is very pop-
ular in Ukraine5. You should think so – we have lots of
steppes – all the south till the shores of the Black sea and

2
Мосенкіс Ю.Л. Проблема реконструкції мови трипільської культури: Автореф. дис. … дLра філол. наук. — К.,
2002. — 23 с. (Mosenkis Yu.L. The problem of the reconstruction of the language of Trypillian cultures: Abstract of dissertation
… Doctor of Letters).
3
Mosenkis Yu.L. Ukraine and the initial appearance of languages // http://ideya.uazone.net/pervisn.html
4
Comparing the so-called basic vocabulary with ecology, material and spiritual culture these methods theoretically make it pos-
sible to compare the views about the surrounding environment, the culture of speakers of a certain language.
5
You can find more details about this question in the work: Павленко Ю. В. Праславяне и арии. — К., Феникс, 2000. —
С. 119—124 (Pavlenko Yu.V. Protoslavs and aria); Павленко Ю. Етномовна ідентичність носіїв трипільської культури//
Трипільська цивілізація у спадщині України. — К., Просвіта, 2003. — С. 128—132 (Pavlenko Yu. Ethnic-linguistic identity
of the bearers of the Trypillian culture// Trypillian civilization in the heritage of Ukraine); Залізняк Л. Передісторія України X—
V тис. до н.е. — К., 1998. — С. 253—265 (Zaliznyak L. Prehistory of Ukraine of the 10th –the 5th millennium BC); Отрощенко
В. В. Індоєвропейська проблема в контексті енеоліту України //Етнічна історія давньої України. — К. 2000 — С.26—31
(Otroshchenko V.V. The Indo-European problem in the context of the Eneolithic Age of Ukraine // The ethnic history of ancient
Ukraine); Рассамакін Ю. Я. Енеоліт України та індоєвропейська проблема //Давня історія України. — К.: Наукова
думка. — Т.1. — С. 301—309 (Rassamakin Yu.Ya. The Eneolithic Age of Ukraine and the Indo-European problem //Ancient his-
tory of Ukraine).

47
 Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes
the Sea of Azov and also the biggest part of the Crimea in
addition! And in those steppes there are dozens of thou-
sands of burial mounds, the most ancient of which appeared
in the epoch which is very close to the time of these Pre-
Indo-Europeans. In addition, there are appropriate archeo-
logical finds and colleagues from the West were very favor-
able to the importance of the role of “kurgan peoples” in
this question for long. They were because for the last
decade “the kurgan theory” as a result of a few discoveries
and also a more careful study of finds which have been dis-
covered before has started to lose its numerous supporters.
In “Indo-European fundamentals” ascertained with
the help of “linguistic paleontology” besides others there is
a very weak side: the dating of these very “fundamentals”.
48
Trypillian portraits from the interfluve of the Southern
Bug and the Dnieper, the 4th millennium BC
Using statistical methods for this dating linguists depend on
mathematical formula and coefficients developed by them-
selves with all the consequences which are caused by them.
To tell the truth, the appearance of computers made it pos-
sible to model the most impossible situations in an unprece-
dented amount which was not possible before. The men-
tioned before R. Grey and C. Atkinson for whom a com-
puter program had gone over about ten million (!) models
and determined the most probable one dated this mysteri-
ous time of the collapse of the proto-language of Pre-Indo-
Europeans as about 8700 years ago.
I can say that this date unveiled a lasting myth about
“the steppe ancestral home” to a certain extent, but at the
same time confirmed the hypothesis about the participa-
tion of grain growers of the Balkans and then immediate-
ly after them Trypillians in “the process of Indo-
Europeization”. Besides, the existence of other steppe
“Indo-Europeans” also remained quite possible.
Reconstructions which are based on the new date, in our
opinion, are also more viable because they take into
account the processes of interaction of different groups of
the ancient population of Europe.
In search of the Trypillian genealogy
It’s worth noting that the third arbiter in the dispute
about the origin of ancient peoples – molecular biology
seems to support it, too. Information about the genetic
structure of populations is presented in the form of certain
groups-clusters which are marked with Latin letters.
Having prepared a map of the expansion of these groups or
their combinations, we can trace the origin of present
groups of the population and also their genealogy, i.e. the
 Section 3. Peoples and languages “The lands of Trypilliada”

Genetic diversity of Europe (according to the data of the study of the Y chromosome). Purple and green colors belong
to representatives of the most ancient (from the Lithic Age) population of Europe. Red is typical for the region where
grain growing in the Far East was invented (according to Semino et al, 2000). Not numerous data of genetic researches
about Trypillians make it possible now to connect them (on the basis of the mother right) to a greater extent
with “purple” and to a smaller extent with “red”

connection with these or those ancestors6. Not much has
been done regarding the study of this structure connected
with prehistoric times, but they are also worth out attention.
It has been determined before that groups H and V are
characteristic, to be more exact the most widespread, for
Europe from the times of the ancient Stone Age (the Lithic
Age). Groups T and J are characteristic of Anatolia, the
ancestral home of grain growing. If a large-scale migration
of grain growers from the overpopulated “ancestral home”
had occurred (as it is claimed by the domestic supporters of

6
This question has been covered in numerous publications, at many conferences with the participation of geneticists and arche-
ologists: Cavalli-Sforza L., Menozzi P., Piazza A. 1994. The History and Geography of Human Genes. Princeton University
Press, Princeton, NJ. – 518 p.; Richards M., Macaulay V., Torroni A., and Bandelt, H.-J. 2002. In Search of Geographical
Patterns in European Mitochondrial DNA//The American Journal of Human Genetics, 71. – P. 1168–1174; Archaeogenetics:
DNA and the population prehistory of Europe. – Ed. by Colin Renfrew and Katie Boyle. – The McDonald Institute for
Archaeological Research, Cambridge, 2000. – 342 p.; Sokal R.R., Oden N.L., Wilson C. (1991). Genetics evidence for the spread
of agriculture in Europe by demic diffusion. Nature 351: 143–145. Barbujani G., Bertorelle G. Genetics and the population his-
tory of Europe//Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2001. No. 98. – P. 22–25.

49
 Chapter 1. From Trypillia to the Antes

Cucuteni-Trypillian portrait gallery from the territory

of Romania and Moldova, the 5th–the 4th millennium BC

Stepoviks-Indo-Europeans), then
there would have been T and J
in Europe and on the Trypil-
lian territory in ancient times.
Indeed, after the analy-
sis of a few dozen skeletons of
the bearers of the culture of Linear
Band Pottery (LBP) the researcher
determined: 25% – T and J, another
25% N1A (a rather rare group), but 29.2%
(i.e. one third) belonged to the European “aboriginals” –
H and V7. In any case the trace of migrants from Anatolia
was rather clear. Taking into account the fact that bearers
of the LBP are considered to be the ancestors of
Trypillians by many scientists, it would have been logical
to reveal rather numerous groups T and J. However, in the
materials from Verteba cave which are dated between
3500–2800 BC T was determined only in one case and the
rest of the samples were H8, i.e. aboriginals.
Thus the Trypillian population of this area of the
Ternopil region of the second half of the 4th – the begin-
ning of the 3rd millennium BC was mainly represented by
not the genetic heirs of the LBP, but mainly by the heirs
of European hunters for mammoths and north deer! It’s
worth noting that it didn’t prevent them from being right-
ful heirs and bearers of the cultural traditions and tech-
nologies which had appeared rather far from the
Carpathians and the Dnister. The research has just been
started and it is quite possible that genetic heritage of the
bearers of the LBP will also be determined in greater
numbers among earlier samples, but the tendency sug-
gests certain thoughts.
The most interesting thing is that group H (to be
more exact its type) still prevails on the territory of
Ukraine, both in the west and in the east. It appears that
no matter which “ancestral home” researchers assume,
either the eastern or the western one, both of them will
relate to the entire Land! This, by the way, makes its ter-
ritory one of the key ones for the reconstruction of the
ancient history of Europe.
And one more thing. The results of the study of the
DNA show that the prehistoric ancestors of modern
Ukrainians lived in this land many millenniums before the
appearance of Trypillians and also a lot of millenniums
after the disappearance of the Trypillian civilization. Part
of these ancestors belonged to different Trypillian tribes.
Languages, cultures, political structures, borders changed –
and people lived their life.
In any case, the history of a people is not just a result
of an ordinary change of generations. I think that at the
end it would be good to cite the words of a famous
Ukrainian archeologist, ethnographer, philosopher and lit-
erary man V.P. Petrov which he said at a lecture for the
students of Ukrainian Free University in Munich in 1949
about the fact that it’s worth always keeping in mind:
between modern Ukrainians and the population of the
Neolithic Age (he meant Trypillians) there are a few
epochs through which our ancestors lived, a few stages of
ethnic deformations, phases of development after which
the Ukrainian people became as we know it now9...

7
The results of the study of the genes of the bearers of the culture of Linear Band Pottery are given in the article: Haak W., Forster P.,
Bramanti B. et al. 2005. Ancient DNA from the First European Farmers in 7500-Year-Old Neolithic Sites//Science 310. –
P. 1016–1018.
8
The results of the research were published in: Сохацький М., Нікітін О., Ковалюх М., Відейко М. Перші дослідження ДНК
за антропологічними матеріалами трипільської культури із печери Вертеба //Трипільська культура. Пошуки,
відкриття, світовий контекст. — К., 2007. — Табл. 1. (Sokhatsky M., Nikitin O., Kovalyukh M., Videiko M. The first studies of
the DNA basing on the anthropological materials of the Trypillian culture from Verteba cave //Trypillian culture. Searches, dis-
coveries, world context).
9
Петров В. Походження українського народу. — К., 1992. — С. 26. (Petrov V. The origin of the Ukrainian people).

50