BUDZHAK CULTURE OF THE NORTH-WEST PONTIC REGION: CONTACTS AND CONNECTIONS WITH CORDED WARE CULTURE

The feature of historical and cultural development of the North-Western Pontic region at the end of the 4th—3rd millennium BC are the relations of its population with the bearers of foreign cultures. First of all it concerns the Budzhak culture which is the part of the Yamna cultural and historical area. The integration process in the Late Chalcolithic Age led to the formation the Budzhak culture of Yamna cultural and historical community based on local protobudzhak horizon. The most significant were the connections with Corded Ware culture, Globular amphorae culture, as well as with the cultures of the Carpatho-Danube. Contacts are manifested in two aspects — ceramics of the Budzhak culture (imports, imitations) and in the presence of Yamna culture burials (or with the features of it). They were found in different territories, in South-Eastern and Central Europe. The analysis of the material culture of Budzhak population suggests the establishment of contacts with the Corded Ware culture in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC. This allows us to reconstruct the possible ways along which the movements and contacts of different population groups took place. There has been no invasion of the steppe «Kurgan culture» into the west but trading colonization, based on was an exchange of natural resources — metals of Balkan-Carpathian area and salt from estuaries Northwestern Black Sea. The archaeological situation with the climatic fluctuations allowed the author to create the new model of correct cultural and historical processes in South-Eastern Europe in the 4th—3rd millennium BC, to evaluate both migration and trade colonization of new territories and adaptive capabilities of the ancient population of the North-Western Black Sea. The relations of Budzhak and Corded Ware cultures lasted for quite a while and were substantial in nature.