Not exactly "World News", but there's no other category to post this stuff in.
Jan 13 2025
A study recently published in Science Advances uses ancient human remains to reveal the remarkably high genetic heterogeneity in the region during the last 3,500 years up to around 500 years ago.
The analyses shows that at the end of the Bronze Age, broad-scale ancestry proportions are similar to contemporary populations in the rest of Europe—a mixture of European hunter-gatherer, Anatolian early farmer and Steppe pastoralist ancestries—and these ancestry components have been present in the Ukraine region since then until today.
However, from the Early Iron Age until the Middle Ages, the appearance of eastern nomads in the Pontic region became a regular occurrence. Their genetic composition varied from Steppe-like superimposed on the locals to high degrees of East Asian ancestry with minimal local admixture.
At the same time, individuals from the rest of the Ukrainian region had ancestry mostly from different regions in Europe. The palimpsest created by migration and population mixing in the Ukraine region will have contributed to the high genetic heterogeneity in geographically, culturally and socially homogeneous groups, with different genetic profiles present at the same site, at the same time and among individuals with the same archaeological association.
The study is led by Lehti Saag, a researcher at the University of Tartu Institute of Genomics (UT IG) and a former Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at University College London (UCL), alongside professor Mark Thomas from UCL and Pontus Skoglund from the Francis Crick Institute. The study was made possible by the resilience of Ukrainian researchers—second author Olga Utevska who is currently a MSCA4Ukraine fellow at UT IG, and numerous archaeologists still actively conducting excavations in Ukraine despite the war. Source
1. Scythian burial at the Skorobir necropolis in the fortified settlement of Bilski (Poltava and Sumy regions of Ukraine).
Aug-Sep 2023
"DAI4UKR: Research of the Skorobir Necropolis – One of the Largest Burial Mounds of the Early Iron Age in Eastern Europe". The Bilsk hillfort (8th–4th centuries BC) is a key site of the Scythian period in the Ukrainian forest-steppe, identified with the Herodotus city of Gelon.
Among other settlements of the region, it stands out for its considerable information potential, complex structure and vivid archaeological evidence. To address the issues related to the ethnic and social composition of the population in different periods of the settlement, it is crucial to consider the results of excavations of burial sites, supplemented by data from excavations of settlement layers.
1.
They are promising for elucidating the formation of the necropolis and solving a number of issues related to ethno-cultural processes in the region during the archaic and early classical periods in the development of the Scythian culture.
In August–September 2023, a joint expedition of the Karazin University and the Historical and Cultural Reserve “Bilsk” excavated two burial mounds in the southern part of the Skorobir necropolis. Although previous studies have shed light on the general features of the funeral rite and construction techniques of burial structures, other issues remain debatable – the formation and time limits of the existence of the necropolis, the ethnic composition of various social groups, or the status of the buried persons. Among them, in recent years, elite burials of women were discovered, whose headdresses were decorated with gold elements, and among the items of burial equipment there were imported items. Remains of Scythian burials were found in each of the burial mounds investigated this year.
Only the skull and a few bones of the upper body remained from the deceased. A set of quivers and details of a horse’s bridle were found in the grave: iron rods, cheekpieces, and bronze decorations: a horse’s forehead, rhomboid plaques, and a vorvorka (bead ornaments common in the Scythian period). The burial is tentatively dated to the first half of the 5th century BC.
2.
The obtained materials provide important information on the formation of the necropolis, the earliest burials in which appeared in the first quarter of the 6th century BC and belonged to representatives of the elite. For the first time, new evidence has been recorded, indicating that, along with the earlier mounds of the local elite, after a certain time, mounds of other social groups appeared. Their graves had a simple structure, smaller sizes and simple things were left in them. Source
Ukraine was a migration hub until around 500 years ago, study finds
Jan 13 2025
A study recently published in Science Advances uses ancient human remains to reveal the remarkably high genetic heterogeneity in the region during the last 3,500 years up to around 500 years ago.
The analyses shows that at the end of the Bronze Age, broad-scale ancestry proportions are similar to contemporary populations in the rest of Europe—a mixture of European hunter-gatherer, Anatolian early farmer and Steppe pastoralist ancestries—and these ancestry components have been present in the Ukraine region since then until today.
However, from the Early Iron Age until the Middle Ages, the appearance of eastern nomads in the Pontic region became a regular occurrence. Their genetic composition varied from Steppe-like superimposed on the locals to high degrees of East Asian ancestry with minimal local admixture.
At the same time, individuals from the rest of the Ukrainian region had ancestry mostly from different regions in Europe. The palimpsest created by migration and population mixing in the Ukraine region will have contributed to the high genetic heterogeneity in geographically, culturally and socially homogeneous groups, with different genetic profiles present at the same site, at the same time and among individuals with the same archaeological association.
The study is led by Lehti Saag, a researcher at the University of Tartu Institute of Genomics (UT IG) and a former Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at University College London (UCL), alongside professor Mark Thomas from UCL and Pontus Skoglund from the Francis Crick Institute. The study was made possible by the resilience of Ukrainian researchers—second author Olga Utevska who is currently a MSCA4Ukraine fellow at UT IG, and numerous archaeologists still actively conducting excavations in Ukraine despite the war. Source
1. Scythian burial at the Skorobir necropolis in the fortified settlement of Bilski (Poltava and Sumy regions of Ukraine).
Research of the Skorobir Necropolis – One of the Largest
Aug-Sep 2023
"DAI4UKR: Research of the Skorobir Necropolis – One of the Largest Burial Mounds of the Early Iron Age in Eastern Europe". The Bilsk hillfort (8th–4th centuries BC) is a key site of the Scythian period in the Ukrainian forest-steppe, identified with the Herodotus city of Gelon.
Among other settlements of the region, it stands out for its considerable information potential, complex structure and vivid archaeological evidence. To address the issues related to the ethnic and social composition of the population in different periods of the settlement, it is crucial to consider the results of excavations of burial sites, supplemented by data from excavations of settlement layers.
1.
They are promising for elucidating the formation of the necropolis and solving a number of issues related to ethno-cultural processes in the region during the archaic and early classical periods in the development of the Scythian culture.
In August–September 2023, a joint expedition of the Karazin University and the Historical and Cultural Reserve “Bilsk” excavated two burial mounds in the southern part of the Skorobir necropolis. Although previous studies have shed light on the general features of the funeral rite and construction techniques of burial structures, other issues remain debatable – the formation and time limits of the existence of the necropolis, the ethnic composition of various social groups, or the status of the buried persons. Among them, in recent years, elite burials of women were discovered, whose headdresses were decorated with gold elements, and among the items of burial equipment there were imported items. Remains of Scythian burials were found in each of the burial mounds investigated this year.
Only the skull and a few bones of the upper body remained from the deceased. A set of quivers and details of a horse’s bridle were found in the grave: iron rods, cheekpieces, and bronze decorations: a horse’s forehead, rhomboid plaques, and a vorvorka (bead ornaments common in the Scythian period). The burial is tentatively dated to the first half of the 5th century BC.
2.
The obtained materials provide important information on the formation of the necropolis, the earliest burials in which appeared in the first quarter of the 6th century BC and belonged to representatives of the elite. For the first time, new evidence has been recorded, indicating that, along with the earlier mounds of the local elite, after a certain time, mounds of other social groups appeared. Their graves had a simple structure, smaller sizes and simple things were left in them. Source
