Researchers have found 5,000-year-old clay figurines mysteriously hidden behind boar tusks in a Ukrainian cave

Verteba Cave in Ukraine has recently provided ambiguous but promising information about the time of the dawn of agriculture in Eastern Europe, around 5,000 years ago.

Led by Sokhatskyi Mykhailo, archaeologists from the Borschivskyy local history museum made discoveries in March that could shed light on the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture that spread across the territory of Ukraine, Romania and Moldova modern for two millennia. Mykhailo is a prominent scholar of the Trypillian culture, which flourished during the late Neolithic and Chalocolithic periods (6000-2750 BCE).

According to a report by Ha’aretz. In an unprecedented discovery, five female clay figurines have been placed in a previously unknown niche in the wall of this well-studied cave, “sheltered by the tusks of a boar”, Mykhailo said. They may have been totems, intended to protect their owners from evil, themselves protected by enigmatic means.

Trypillian pottery found in Verteba Cave. Photo: Mykhailo Sokhatskyi.

The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture possessed metalworking skills and created pottery, grew and kept domestic animals in sprawling colonies they inhabited for 80 years before mysteriously burning them and moving on, according to Arkeo news. Pottery finds are very rare, but Mykhailo’s team unearthed a huge clay storage pot filled with an as yet unidentified white material.

The entrance to the labyrinthine cave of Verteba, which stretches over eight kilometers, is near the western Ukrainian village of Bilche-Zolote, north of the Dniester River. Experts have studied the cave since its discovery in 1829, calling it “Pompeii on the Dniester”, due to its rich deposits of ancient materials, some of which are on display in the cave, which is open for public tours. .

Recent discoveries have revealed three distinct historical layers of deposits, giving information on some 800 years of habitation. These are periods marked by incursions into the region by tribes from neighboring regions, and in fact the skeletons discovered in the cave suggest violent deaths. Other evidence suggests difficult lives, marked by malnutrition or disease.

For these reasons, experts believe the cave was a hiding place during violent times, and in fact, thousands of years later Jews fleeing the Nazis also used the cave as a refuge, Ha’aretz points out.

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