Chernyi Les Culture

an archaeological culture of pre-Scythian farming tribes of the middle Dnieper region, which migrated in the tenth to eighth centuries B.C. from the forest-steppe region between the Dnestr and Dnieper rivers to the basin of the Vorskla River. It is named after an ancient site in the Chernyi Les on the upper Ingulets River.

The Chernyi Les culture originated from the Belogrudovo culture of the Bronze Age (seeBELOGRUDOVO CULTURE). During the period of the Chernyi Les culture, bronze and stone tools were replaced by iron tools, although implements made from bone were still widespread. The culture is characterized by bronze celts and daggers, swords with iron blades and bronze hilts, bronze and bone arrowheads, wide bronze bracelets, and wire temporal rings. The pottery includes tulip-shaped jugs and glazed goblets, bowls, and buckets, ornamented with hatched triangles. A group of ancient towns of the Chernyi Les culture, including Subbotovskoe, an important center of bronze casting, were concentrated in the basin of the Tiasmin River. The dead were cremated, and burial mounds were sometimes erected; the graves of warriors are distinctive. In the seventh century B.C., the Chernyi Les culture merged with the Scythian cultures.