Kozachyi Yar 1: An enclosed Trypillian settlement on the Southern Bug River in Kozavchyn (Ukraine)

Abstract

Summary In Kozavchyn on the Southern Bug, an Early Copper Age settlement surrounded by trenches was explored by means of field surveys and magnetic prospection. In addition to the enclosing trenches, the magnetogram revealed a palisade trench and remains of pits and burnt houses, which covered a contiguous area with archaeological findings of almost 4 ha situated on a spur with the field name “Kozachyi Yar”. The settlement belongs to the Trypillia BI local group Sabatynivka, as does the nearby site Kamyane, “Kamyane-Zavallia 1”, also surrounded by ditches, which was investigated a few years ago and dated to the last third of the 5th millennium BC. The Sabatynivka group is documented in a narrowly confined area on both sides of the Southern Bug River and may have once been a jointly acting political entity. Internal conflicts or external threats from the steppe area to the east are often considered as reasons for the enclosure of CTCC settlements. It seems conceivable, however, that the apparently once much more numerous enclosures had less of a protective than merely a delimiting character.