Molochna River, near Terpinnia, Ukraine
Kamyana Mohyla
Cave images from the Mesolithic into the Middle Ages (the walls are harder to date than the camps)
A hill of loose sandstone blocks by the Molochna holds dozens of caves and grottoes cut with animals, people, and signs. Some archaeologists put the oldest pictures in the 22nd millennium BC. Dated camps beside the hill, and portable pieces from those camps, sit in the Mesolithic. The walls and the camps are not the same object.
Why this is extraordinary
From the air Kamyana Mohyla is a rash of sandstone blocks on the steppe beside the Molochna, a low hill with sandy paths scuffed around it. The Encyclopedia of Ukraine gives the pile about 18 metres of height, 165 metres of length, 90 of width, something like 3 hectares, more than 3,000 slabs, and 68 caves and grottoes found so far. The rock is Miocene sandstone. Most archaeologists call the stack a natural monument, a rare stone in a soft country. Some geologists have said a pile this discrete is hard to accept as entirely natural, and that part of it was assembled. The photograph shows jumble, not courses. Both readings can live with that picture until someone maps which blocks were moved.
Inside the gaps are the pictures: animals, people, geometric marks, some of them once rubbed with red ochre. The ochre’s organic part has not been dated in the sources used here, so the paint is not yet a clock. The argument about age is therefore an argument about style. The encyclopedia says the oldest images have been put in the Upper Paleolithic, and that some archaeologists would say the 22nd millennium BC, while others make the same panels much younger. Mesolithic, Neolithic, Eneolithic, Bronze Age, Scythian, Sarmatian, and medieval Christian marks are all claimed for one hill or another of its caves. A place people can return to for ten thousand years will look like all of them if you cannot date the wall.
What does have a number is the rubbish next door. At the settlement called Kamyana Mohyla 1, portable engraved pieces sit in Kukrek layers measured at 9134 ± 13 before present, sample BE-6733, and 8340 ± 24 before present, sample BE-6731. Those dates belong to the layers and to the objects in them. They become dates for a cave wall only if that wall can be tied to the layer. A project account of the hill also reports a grave built from the hill’s own slabs, the buried person radiocarbon-dated to 2570–2460 cal BCE, with a Yamna pot and the head and feet of a cow. That is a Bronze Age reuse of stone that was already lying here. It dates a funeral. It does not date a petroglyph.
The geometric signs are the other open name. The encyclopedia calls them some of the oldest proto-writing on this territory. Proto-writing means marks that carry information without yet being a full script. A tally, a clan badge, and a sentence all repeat. No source used here reads a line of these signs, or gives one of them a sound. Fish and bulls on the same walls are pictures of fish and bulls. They do not become text by proximity. No account used here points a cave mouth at a solstice or names a star in a panel. If that reading exists for a particular groove, it is not in these sources. What this changes: a binder date in the 22nd millennium would put this steppe hill with the old painted caves. A binder date that matches the Kukrek layers would make the walls and the portable pieces one Mesolithic sanctuary, and the Paleolithic year would remain a style that lost its sample.
Why it matters
If the cave pictures are Upper Paleolithic, this steppe hill joins the painted caves of western Europe in age. If they are Mesolithic and later, they belong with the fishers and then the herders who actually left datable rubbish here. A third reading treats the repeated signs as proto-writing. A sign is not a script until it repeats in a way someone can read.
The pin is the hill near Terpinnia. The aerial photograph is the pile of blocks. The standing slab is lichen-covered, with branching grooves the file calls petroglyphs. Red ochre is reported on some surfaces and has not, in the sources used here, been dated from its organic part.
Photo tour
2 photographs, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.
What is still unexplained
These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.
Location and dating
- Location
- The right bank of the Molochna, about a mile from Terpinnia, Melitopol raion, Zaporizhzhia oblast. The settlement called Kamyana Mohyla 1 is the neighbouring camp, not a second hill. The pin is the sandstone pile.
- Period label
- Current consensus — open to revision Miocene sandstone for the rock. Human pictures argued from the Upper Paleolithic, with a 22nd-millennium BC estimate on one side, through Mesolithic layers dated around 9100 and 8300 before present, into the Bronze Age and the medieval centuries. The grave of reused slabs is 2570–2460 cal BCE.
- How this dating was done
- Radiocarbon on the Kukrek layers that held portable art, and on a burial that reused the hill’s sandstone. The wall pictures are dated by style and by which camp they are thought to match, which is a typology. The ochre has no organic date in the sources used here. There is no archaeoastronomy measurement in those sources.
- What could change it
- A date on organic binder in a named cave panel, or a panel stratigraphically sealed by a dated layer, would move a wall picture off the style chart and onto a number.
What is actually there
- A sandstone pile up to about 18 metres high, with 68 caves and grottoes reported and more than 3,000 slabs.
- Most archaeologists call the pile natural. Some geologists allow a partly assembled hill.
- One estimate puts the oldest pictures in the 22nd millennium BC. Others place them much later.
- Portable pieces sit in Kukrek layers at 9134 ± 13 and 8340 ± 24 before present.
- A burial of reused slabs dates to 2570–2460 cal BCE.
- Geometric signs are called proto-writing in one encyclopedia entry. No sign-by-sign reading is in the sources used here.
Open questions
| Question | Status |
|---|---|
| Are the oldest cave pictures Paleolithic, or Mesolithic like the dated portable pieces? | Open. The camps have numbers. The walls, so far, have styles. |
| Do the geometric signs record language? | Open. Repetition is real. A reading is not, in the sources used here. |
The current narrative
Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.
The current narrative — open to revision
A sanctuary used from the Mesolithic onward
The hill is a natural sandstone pile that people carved from the Mesolithic into historic centuries. The dated portable art and the dated burial anchor the human use. The 22nd-millennium estimate for the cave walls is a style judgment without a pigment date.
What supports this
- Kukrek layers at Kamyana Mohyla 1, with portable art, at 9134 ± 13 and 8340 ± 24 before present.
- A wide later use, including a slab burial at 2570–2460 cal BCE and medieval marks, which fits a place revisited rather than one Paleolithic workshop.
- Ochre on the walls has not had its organic fraction dated, so a Paleolithic year for a panel is not yet a sample.
What pushes back
- The encyclopedia records a serious Paleolithic reading, including a 22nd-millennium BC estimate, and names caves whose subjects resemble European ice-age art.
- A style can be older than the camp that happens to be dated beside it. Portable art does not automatically date a wall.
- If some blocks were moved, the “natural pile” is only mostly natural, and a built hill could be older than the Mesolithic rubbish.
What would settle it
It is the centre because the numbers that exist are Mesolithic and later. The Paleolithic reading stays until a wall panel gets a date of its own, either older or younger.
Emerging narratives
Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.
An emerging narrative
The signs are proto-writing
The geometric marks are an early system of proto-writing, older than any full script in this steppe, and they record information beyond the animal pictures they sit beside.
What supports this
- The encyclopedia calls them some of the oldest proto-writing on this territory, and it says they occur in more than one period.
- A sign repeated across panels is the first thing a script needs. The entry says the marks are numerous.
- A sanctuary used for millennia is a place where a conventional sign could be maintained.
What pushes back
- No source used here reads a sequence, gives a sign a sound, or shows a grammar.
- Animal pictures on the same walls are pictures. Sharing a grotto with a grid does not promote them.
- Without a date on the panel, “oldest” is as movable as the Paleolithic-versus-Mesolithic argument.
What would settle it
The signs are real and worth not folding into the animals. Calling them proto-writing is a hypothesis about information. It leads if a repeated set can be shown to mean the same thing in more than one dated panel.
Should the current view be reevaluated?
Open to revision
The hill and the carvings are not in doubt. The age of the oldest walls is a published disagreement, and the writing reading is a name for signs that have not been read. Open keeps the Mesolithic numbers in front and the earlier estimate beside them.
What drives this
- A sandstone cave hill with pictures of animals, people, and geometric signs.
- Portable art in layers at about 9100 and 8300 before present, against a 22nd-millennium BC estimate for some walls.
- A proto-writing description with no published reading of a text.
This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.
Weigh it yourself
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If the contested reading is right
What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.
The oldest cave pictures are Upper Paleolithic
The steppe would have a painted sanctuary on the same clock as the great western European caves, and the Mesolithic camps would be later visitors to an already marked hill. The writing signs, if they are later, would still need their own date.
Why it is still worth a test
Organic material in the paint of a named early panel, or a panel sealed under a Mesolithic layer.
Sources
- Kamiana Mohyla Encyclopedia of Ukraine
- Rediscovered Mesolithic rock art from the Kamyana Mohyla complex Open Archaeology, 2022
- Kamyana Mohyla, rock art A project account of the panels and the 2570–2460 cal BCE burial
Image credits
- Kamyana Mohyla from above. Sandstone blocks pile into a low hill, with sandy paths around them and steppe beyond. The petroglyphs are in the gaps, not on this skyline. . Eldar Sarakhman, CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown unedited.
- A slab at the site, lichen-covered, with branching grooves the file calls petroglyphs. A concrete shelter stands to the right. In this photograph the lines are hard to separate from cracks. . Petro Vlasenko, CC BY-SA 3.0. Shown unedited.