In the first
subsection of the article, the issue of tracing intercultural connections of
the modern Western Ukrainian region on the basis of military archaeological
finds is raised. For example, a bronze helmet from the Ternopil region,
belonging to the extremely rare Oranienburg type, which was used in the south
of Europe (for example, in Knossos) from the 15th century B. C. and
in Central Europe during the 14th–13th centuries B. C.
was introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. Considerable
attention is paid to an exceptionally interesting and rare complex of elite
horseman equipment, which includes items of protective armor (two bronze
helmets of the proto-Etruscan comb type) and metal parts of a chariot harness
which was discovered near Borshchiv, Ternopil region. It has been established
that this and similar finds from the west of the Ukrainian Forest Steppe
witnessed the possibility of closer contacts of the studied communities with
the population of the Apennine Peninsula.
In the second
subsection, the newly discovered sites of the West Podillia group are analyzed,
which witnessed the unusual intensification of the eastern and western vectors
of development in the material culture of the West Podillia population from the
end of the 8th to the beginning of the 7th century B. C.
In particular, considerable attention was paid to the complex of bronze vessels
(two cast cauldrons, covered on top with a large bronze situla) from the
village of Panivtsi of Borshchiv district, Ternopil region, mentioned in the
author's 2014 monograph. It has been observed that particularly interesting
archaeological materials that witnessed the mutual contacts of the carriers of
the West Podillia group with the contemporary civilizations of the Eastern
Mediterranean, which were obtained by the West Podillia Hallstatt
Archaeological Expedition, which, under the leadership of the author, resumed
the study of the Early Iron Age sites near the village of Zalissya Borshchiv
district, Ternopil region. The presence of exceptional samples of local gray
clay ceramic ware were noted, in particular on a ring pallet and with L-shaped
rims, and imported ware – fragments of archaic Greek ceramics with residues of
white and purple paints, in particular in the form of a wide band, possibly
from the shoulders of a Clazomenian amphora. A unique find was the discovery in
Zalissya for the first time in Ukraine of a hub of a ceramic wheel with four
broken spokes and a longitudinal hole for mounting on an axle, which could come
(based on numerous analogies) from a four-wheeled ritual platform, which became
especially widespread in the Hallstatt culture of the Upper Danube and the
Eastern Alpine region. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of the
discovered grave goods, the ash pan in Zalissya can be dated back to the second
half of the 7th – the first quarter of the 6th century B.
C.
The last – the third – subsection is devoted to the problems of
researching of sites of the Late La Tène period in the western region of
Ukraine. Already known and new locations have been analyzed, which
significantly correct the previous ideas about what happened in the Upper
Dnister region and its adjacent areas after the disappearance of the latest
sites of the Cherepyn-Lahodiv group. It is noted that so far the sights of
Upper Dnister region of the Middle and Late La Tène periods do not
have the usual correlate in the form of archaeological culture. Today – and this is especially emphasized in this
subsection – we are dealing
only with a group of local sites that cannot be included either in the
Zarubinetska culture, or in the Lukashivka-Poienești culture, or in the
Getae-Dacian culture, or in the Jastorf culture, or to Sarmatian. For a more
convenient designation of the sites of this Upper Dnister group, it is proposed
to use the name post-Cherepyn-Lahodiv, which would more accurately indicate
their place in the local cultural-chronological scale, or sites of the Kolodrib
type (Pre-Lypytsia horizon).
