Ancient Ukrainian Fast Facts

Coins, maps, and medical instruments may have been the inventive purview of the Greeks. Ancient Romans can certainly lay claim to aqueducts, central heating, and elected government. Yet, Ukrainians have their own history of recorded inventions, too. Why not take a moment to peruse a sampling of the ancient discoveries of Ukraine?

The world’s oldest house made from mammoth bones and likely covered with mammoth hides, dates back 15,000 years and was found near Kiev in 1965 by a Ukrainian farmer while digging a new cellar underneath his home.

The earliest domestication of a horse dates back to 4,000 B.C. Worn horse teeth discovered at the Copper age site of Dereivka in southern Ukraine suggests that a bit, likely made from a piece of rope, was used. Indeed, the world’s first known horseman was purported to have ridden in Dereivka in central Ukraine. As trousers were the dress of Scythian warriors of ancient Scythia-Ukraine 2,600 years ago, it is also possible that these earliest horsemen of the Ukrainian Steppe invented our everyday attire.

Inscribed on a mammoth tusk, the images depict a river with dwellings along the bank on the oldest map in the world, dating back to 12,000 B.C., was discovered in Ukraine in 1966.

Besides supplying the foundations of houses, the “paper” for maps, and the warmth of clothing for the early ancients, the wild mammoth may have also contributed to man’s earliest musical and costume discoveries. According to some scholars, the region of Mezhirich in Ukraine produced the remains of primitive instruments. With a mammoth skull fashioned into a drum-like instrument and eagle bones carved into flutes, perhaps the Scythians of Ukraine had their own orchestra.

Jewelry, made by Stone Age hunters of Europe and Asia by 30,000 B.C., also dates back to the earliest Ukrainian settlements. Designs on bracelets carved from mammoth ivory mirror the embroidery patterns on Ukrainian costumes and cloths to this day.
Inventions, archeological discoveries, and modern-day insights into mankind’s pasts are found around the world and now, many secrets buried deep in the ancient landscapes of Ukraine are now being told as well.