Chernoles culture

The Chernoles culture is an iron age archaeological unit dating ca. 750â€"200 BC. It was located in the forest-steppe between the Dniester and Dnieper Rivers, in what is now northern Ukraine.

It formed north of the Zarubintsy culture and east of the Przeworsk culture, apparently in the same place Herodotus (4:17) placed his "Scythian farmers". It is the site of very ancient Slavic hydronyms (river names).

The most interesting thing about this culture is that it is a viable candidate for being the place the Proto-Slavic language coalesced.

References

* James P. Mallory, "Chernoles Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
* Boris Rybakov on Chernoles Culture (in Russian)
* Boris Grekov on Chernoles Culture (in Russian)