Prehistoric Ukraine: From the First Hunters to the First Farmers

by Malcolm C. Lillie (Editor), Inna D. Potekhina (Editor), Chelsea E. Budd (Editor)

Overview

This volume covers the Prehistory of Ukraine from the Lower Palaeolithic through to the end of the Neolithic periods. This is the first comprehensive synthesis of Ukrainian Prehistory from earliest times through until the Neolithic Period undertaken by researchers who are currently investigating the Prehistory of Ukraine. At present there are no other English language books on this subject that provide a current synthesis for these periods.

The chapters in this volume provide up-to-date overviews of all aspects of prehistoric culture development in Ukraine and present details of the key sites and finds for the periods studied. The book includes the most recent research from all areas of prehistory up to the Neolithic period, and, in addition, areas such as recent radiocarbon dating and its implications for culture chronology are considered; as is a consideration of a DNA and the new insights into culture history this area of research affords; alongside recent macrofossil studies of plant use, and anthropological and stable isotope studies of diet, which all combine to allow greater insights into the nature of human subsistence and cultural developments across the Palaeolithic to Neolithic periods in Ukraine.

It is anticipated that this book will be an invaluable resource for students of prehistory throughout Europe in providing an English-language text that is written by researchers who are active in their respective fields and who possess an intimate knowledge of Ukrainian prehistory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789254587
Publisher:	Oxbow Books
Publication date:	10/14/2020
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Malcolm C. Lillie is Professor of Archaeology at Umeå University, Sweden. Previously he was Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology and Wetland Science at the University of Hull, England. Malcolm undertook MSc. and Ph D research at Sheffield University, the latter under the supervision of the late Professor Marek Zvelebil. He was awarded his Ph D in 1998. His main research interests are the Prehistory of Ukraine, in situ preservation in wetlands, prehistoric and wetlands archaeology in general, and the analysis of prehistoric human remains.

Inna Potekhina is a Head of the Bioarchaeology Department in the Institute of Archeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev, and an Associate Professor at the University of “Kyiv–Mogila Academy”, where she teaches a course of anthropology and bioarchaeology of ancient cultures. Inna is an author of more than 150 articles and 4 monographs. Scientific interests include anthropology of the prehistoric populations of Southeastern Europe; the genomic history of Mesolithic-Eneolithic Ukraine; palaeodemography and palaeodiet reconstructions.

Dr Chelsea Budd is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Archaeology at the University of Umeå, Sweden. She completed her Ph D at the University of Oxford in 2016. Her main research interests are Early European Prehistory, isotope geochemistry, and the application of statistical modelling techniques to archaeological research.

Table of Contents

Biographies of Contributors
Dedication – A page or two dedicated to Dmitri Telegin
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction (Malcolm Lillie and Inna Potekhina)

1. A brief outline of the study of the Lower and the Middle Palaeolithic of Ukraine: main trends, discussions and results (Vadim N. Stepanchuk)
2. The Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Periods (Leonid Zaliznyak)
3. Landscape change, Human-landscape interactions and Societal developments in the Mesolithic period (Leonid Zaliznyak)
4. The Neolithic Period in Ukraine (VII-III millennia BC) (Nicholas Tovkailo)
5. The Prehistoric Populations of Ukraine: Population dynamics and group composition (Inna Potekhina)
6. Radiocarbon dating of sites in the Dnieper Region and Western Ukraine (Malcolm Lillie, Chelsea Budd and Inna Potekhina)
7. Palaeopathology of the Prehistoric Populations of Ukraine (Malcolm Lillie)
8. The Prehistoric Populations of Ukraine: Stable Isotope studies of fisher-hunter-forager and pastoralist-incipient farmer dietary pathways (Chelsea Budd and Malcolm Lillie)
9. The Adoption of Agriculture: Archaeobotanical Studies and the Earliest Evidence for Domesticated Plants (Giedre Motuzaite Matuzeviciute)
10. The Genetic Landscape of Present-Day Ukraine from the Early Holocene to the Early Metal Ages (Alexey G. Nikitin)
11. An Overview of Ukrainian Prehistory: Future Research Directions (Inna Potekhina and Malcolm Lillie)

Bibliography
Index