Bilohrudivka culture

Bilohrudivka culture. An archeological Copper Age–Bronze Age culture of the pre-Scythian period (1100–1000 BC) in the forest-steppe of Right-Bank Ukraine, discovered by B. Bezvenhlinsky and Petro Kurinny in 1918 in the Bilohrudivka forest near Uman. The inhabitants buried their dead in a crouched position under stone slabs with human figures carved into them. Excavations of kurhan-like mounds called zolnyky uncovered pottery, Eneolithic flint-and-bone tools and weapons, and molds for pouring bronze articles. The culture is believed to be either proto-Slavic or Thracian in origin.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]