Beside or by turn? The Buh-Dnister foragers and the Linear Band Pottery farmers on the Southern Buh River (Ukraine)

Abstract

For a long time, finds of the Linear Band Pottery culture (LBK) on the Southern Buh numbered only two bowls from the Buh-Dnister culture site of Bazkiv Ostriv. After the recent discovery of a few more vessels and four stationary LBK settlements, some scholars have assumed the Neolithic incomers regularly inhabited the most of the region. However new direct AMS dates on the Buh-Dnister pottery have shown the existence of the indigenous hunter-gatherers here from 5300 to 5000 BC. Therefore, today, the cluster of four sites is the only verified area that was settled by the early farmers near the town of Zavallia. The occurrence of the settlements at very this place is explained by the fertile local soil and the desire of the inhabitants to control the huge deposit of graphite, which was a centre of an extensive exchange network for the North-Pontic indigenous groups. This could have given the local LBK community significant social prestige through the active production and exchange of valuable goods.