Yukhnove culture

Yukhnove culture. An archeological culture of the 6th to 2nd century BC which existed along the upper reaches of the Desna River and Seim River. It was identified by M. Voevodsky in the 1940s and named after a site excavated in the Novhorod-Siverskyi region by Dimitrii Samokvasov in the 1870s. The people of this culture engaged mainly in agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, fishing, and bronze and iron metal-working. Their southern settlements also traded with northern Black Sea centers (see Ancient states on the northern Black Sea coast) and had contacts with the tribes of the forest-steppe region of Left-Bank Ukraine. Excavations at culture sites revealed the remains of wooden fortifications, bone, iron, and bronze implements and weapons, and pottery.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]