Deriivka

Deriivka is a Copper Age settlement and cemetery on the right bank of the Dnieper in Kirovohrad Oblast, Ukraine, dating to c. 4500-3500 BC and associated with the Sredny Stog culture. The site gained fame for a high percentage of horse bones and a horse burial with apparent bit wear, initially interpreted as the earliest evidence of horse domestication and riding. However, radiocarbon dating later showed the horse skull dated to the Scythian Iron Age (c. 700-200 BC), undermining claims of 4th-millennium horseback riding. The site remains significant for understanding early pastoralism and the Sredny Stog culture's role in Proto-Indo-European expansion.