The FirstHunter-Gatherers

We are all, directly or indirectly, a product of our geog­raphy and environment, interacting with and dependent on the natural world for our survival and well-being. Thus it always was, with human existence revolving around the ability to adapt to the physical world.

To the north of the European part of the Great Plain lies a different landscape, what was an immense forest and marsh rich in fish and game such as bison, moose, deer, and wild boar, with fur-bearing species including beaver, ermine, and marten. Wild fowl nested in pools, lakes and thickets; nuts, honey and berries were common, as well as a wide variety of mushrooms. Formed by the waters of the melting Baltic ice sheet, the marshy terrain of what is today eastern Poland, the Baltic countries, northern Ukraine, Belarus, and part of western Russia is the largest system of wetlands in Europe. Large trees grew on the higher rises of ground with the low-lying terrain consisting of marshy weeds, forest swamps, and moor. Much of the area would be flooded in the springtime, to be drained by rivers car­rying the water to the Black and Caspian seas and into the large inland lake formed by the melting ice which would become the Baltic Sea.

The first Cro-Magnon humans arrived in Europe about 50,000 years ago, by two main routes which led into the conti­nent from the stretch of land that joined Europe and Asia Minor at that time. Aroute led the newcomers across Greece and along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea into western Europe while the second took them to the valley of the Danube River and into the ice-free plain of Eastern Europe. This was the Upper Paleolithic Age which is marked by more sophisticated stone implements attached to wooden shafts and handles. Two early cultures can be discerned, the so-called Aurignacian from 43,000 to 33,000 âñ, and the later Gravettian dated 28,000 to 20,000 âñ.

These cultures survived the coldest period of the ice age, between 21,000 âñ and 16,000 âñ, in sheltered regions—the Aurignacian in the western Pyrenee Mountains and in Ukraine, and the Gravettian in the Balkan Peninsula, and some of the earliest evidence of modern man is found in Eastern Europe.¹ While Europe to the north of the Alps and the Pyrenee Moun­tains was covered in ice the east European plain remained ice- free. Here, woodlands survived along river valleys, with pollen analysis indicating birch forests growing in the higher ranges of the Caucasus Mountains. The first signs of modern man in Eastern Europe come from the Kostenki site on the Don River in Russia, 400 miles to the southeast of Moscow. Here in 20 sites stone, ivory, bone, and shell artifacts confirm the presence of a fully developed Upper Paleolithic industry dating to about 43,000-40,000 âñ.² Animal bones indicate the hunting of horses, mammoth, bison, moose, and reindeer. By 23,000 âñ we begin to find Gravettian burials, such as a grave with two children 9-13 years of age lying head to head and a man perhaps 60 years old, which were uncovered at Sunghir, about 150 km northeast of Moscow. Great care had been taken in the burial, with all three bodies decorated with hundreds of mammoth ivory beads, fox teeth pendants and other ivory ornaments.

they were used as currency in trade. Abison carved from ivory was also found in the grave, smeared with red ochre powder, perhaps symbolizing a successful hunt.

A big part of the hunt was for the wooly mammoth, no part of which was wasted, such as the massive bones, which were used for building. The southern steppe was then treeless and the Paleolithic hunters developed ingenious methods for constructing shelters. In a settlement discovered in 1966 at Mezhirich in Ukraine on the banks of the Dnipro River were found virtually complete remains of four round huts built en­tirely of mammoth bones and skulls, dating to about 12,000 âñ. Each hut was 4-5 meters across, was most certainly covered with thick mammoth hides, and it took 95 mammoths to build the huts. The work was labor intensive since a mammoth skull itself weighs some 100 kg, but these were probably the first ar­chitecturally designed dwellings in Europe.³ Gravettian Upper Paleolithic artifacts were also found, such as bone awls, needles, amber ornaments, as well as evidence for a flint industry.⁴ One such dwelling excavated at Mezyn, near Chernyhiv in Ukraine dating to about 18,000-15,000 âñ revealed the first set of an “orchestra” of musical instruments made from mammoth bone and ivory; a rattler, a castanet-like bracelet, and a percussion instrument.⁵ With the extinction of the woolly mammoth (and a warming period) man began to rely on the auroch cattle, rein­deer, and horses. From about 8,000 âñ, bison and moose also began to appear in the expanding forests.

As the ice continued to melt, geological changes began to appear. One in particular which must have had a great effect on early inhabitants of north-Eastern Europe was the massive flooding which we know to have occurred of a body of fresh water known as Lake Anculus, today known as the Baltic Sea. Recent geological evidence obtained at the Rhine-Meuse delta and Canada indicates two huge discharges of fresh water into the North Atlantic occurred about 6500-6400 âñ.⁶ A large body of water from the melting glaciers had been trapped in an ice dam in Canada forming a 1.5 million square mile freshwater basic, covering eastern Manitoba, northwestern Ontario, and parts of North Dakota known as Lake Agassiz.

Many wetlands around the newly formed sea remained and peat bogs which were forming at the time reveal exception­ally well-preserved wooden artifacts found in Latvia and Lithua­nia, such as fishing tools, oars, ladles, fishing nets and fabrics of linden bark, as well as a carved owl and an elk goddess. All Neolithic forest sites are near lakes, bogs, or rivers, and are often built on wooden piles sunk into the water to safeguard against the spring floods. Northeastern Europe was a productive region, with Lake Ancylus, rivers, and vast marshes teeming with life. Rivers were especially rich in fish, some of which grew to great size, such as catfish and sturgeon, and early man learned to take advantage of the migrating fish coming up with the spring floods. The Dnipro River which drains the great marsh was par­ticularly productive and settlements began to be established on the high grounds of its shores.

Drawn by the rich fish stocks of the Dnipro River and the game of the more southern forest-steppe region by 8000 âñ hunter-gatherers were moving south along the river, perhaps on floating devices such as dugout canoes used for fishing and movement during the spring floods. The Dnipro River was a natural extension of the great northern marsh and served as the most direct route south into the Pontic steppe. Here the new­comers discovered large herds of wild cattle, bison, deer, and horses which roamed freely on the vast expanses. During the spring thaw the Dnipro River would flood its banks for many miles and when the water subsided a lush growth would carpet the steppe. Extensive grazing was possible even after snowfall, attracting great herds and the fur-bearing predators such as wildcat, lynx, wolves, foxes, martens, polecats, and badgers.

The original home of ancestral Indo-Europeans is there­fore the northern European forest and most evidence points in this direction, particularlythe lack of natural body pigmentation which favors the development of vitamin D when solar radia­tion is limited. The trait of lightness of skin and a high frequency ofblondness could have been encouraged further by human selection, bright yellow hair being symbolic and desirable to sun worshippers. The unusual lack of natural pigmentation was noticed by other people, such as the Chinese, whose Chronicles describe fair-haired, blue-eyed people in Central Asia (who had arrived by about 2000 âñ) as well as redheads, referred to as “red hairy apes.” The recessive trait ofblondness occurs even today in western Asia. The most severe lack of skin, hair or eye pigmentation is known as albinism, the highest frequency oc­curring in the Pripet marsh of Eastern Europe.⁸

Linguistics also provide evidence for the common origin of the Indo-Europeans whose “calendar” had only three seasons: winter (cold period), summer (hot period), and spring when prairie vegetation came to life. There was no word for “autumn,” typically a farming season for harvesting crops. All had a forested wetland origin indicated by common Indo-European words for “tortoise,” “eel,” and “salmon,” none of which live in rivers that empty into the Black Sea, but are common in the northerly Baltic region. The word for “boat” is somewhat com­mon although there was no word for “sea,” the Indo-European “mare”—“more” denoting a marsh or a lake.

A distinctive feature of the Dnipro Rapids settlements is that for the first time we find cemeteries, eight in all, with 15 to 45 graves each. Several populations inhabited the sites, as three distinct body types have been identified from the skeletal re­mains; narrow-faced people with gracile bodies at a site in Voloske, a broad-faced type of medium build at Vasylivka I, and broad-faced robust types at Vasylivka III.¹¹ Two of the 19 males at Voloske and 2-3 of the 45 at Vasylivka III were wounded by flint blades, and by 7000-6200 âñ we only find the Vasylivka III robust body types remaining, and their particular body burial posture. By 5700-5300 âñ we find the first signs of later Indo-European burial practices at the Vasylivka V cemetery such as red ochre and superimposed bodies, a precursor of later collective burials. There are also the usual grave deposits, such as flint blades and scrapers.¹²

With increasing populations, the Dnipro Rapids settle­ments began to expand into the steppe, aided by the shallow ford at the southern end of the cataracts, which could be crossed in both directions. By 6500-6000 âñ there are two groups of settlements on the Ukrainian steppe, one on each side of the Dnipro River; the Buh-Dnister culture to the west and the Dnipro-Donets culture to the east of the rapids. The Buh- Dnister people were one of the first to establish themselves on the steppe, then a zone of mixed open grassland and forest. The culture developed between the Buh and Dnister rivers, and to date 75 dwelling sites have been excavated, ten on the west bank of the Buh. They built bark-covered huts with sunken floors, depended mainly on fish (pike, eel, and roach from the carp family) and hunted antelope, red and roe deer, wild pig, and the two types of horse: “Equus hydrantius,” which was hunted to extinction, and “Equus caballus” before the species was do­mesticated. Fur-bearing animals were also hunted such as beaver, muskrat, bear, and others. It seems that wild wheat was also gathered, some 500 years before the arrival of the Crish agriculturalists.¹³ Knives, spear points, and arrowheads were fashioned out of flint and at times from obsidian while tools were made from antlers.

As the Buh-Dnister expanded to the west of the Dnipro River they encountered an entirely different people arriving from the Crish River area in Romania. These were the descen­dents of the first farmers from the Middle East, who had mi­grated to Asia Minor and from there to Greece, Bulgaria, the Danube Valley and into Moldavia and Ukraine. Theybrought with them domesticated goats, sheep, pigs, their own cattle, and crops such as peas, millet, barley, and the four varieties of wheat; einkorn, emmer, spelt, and the baking wheat “triticum aestivum.” They also introduced plums, apricots, and grapes, and most Iikelyknewhow to ferment beer and wine. The agri­culturalists probably also brought with them domesticated cats who earned their keep by controlling mice populations and other small rodents, and help preserve stored cereals. All that is known of the early farmers is from their settlements as they left no cemeteries and it is still a mystery what they did with their dead. From the preponderance of artifacts with female at­tributes and symbolism which have been uncovered it is clear that they were a matriarchal culture.¹⁴ The Crish people con­tinued to expand eastwards towards Moldavia and the Dnipro River in Ukraine where they are known to archaeology as the Cucuteni and the Trypillia people, respectively.