Repin culture

The Repin culture (sometimes wrongly Repino culture) is a 4th millennium BC Eneolithic archaeological culture of the Pontic–Caspian steppe and East European forest steppe. It developed from preceding local Neolithic cultures, and later developed into the Yamnaya culture. The economy was based on pastoralism, supplemented by hunting. This culture is sometimes classified as an earlier phase of the Yamnaya culture.

The Repin culture is dated, based on radiocarbon dating of pottery shards, to 3900–3300 calibrated ВС. According to David Anthony, it probably originated in the lower Don region. The Repin culture was bordered by the Deriivka and Kvityana cultures to the west and the Konstantinovka culture to the south.

Some scholars refer to it as the Repin stage of the Yamnaya culture, although others prefer to classify Repin as a distinct Eneolithic culture.

According to A. T. Sinyuk, the Repin culture developed from the preceding local Neolithic cultures. Sinyuk states that the (pre-Corded Ware) Sredny Stog I and Neolithic lower Don cultures are fundamental components in the formation of the Repin culture. Sinyuk and Yuri Rassamakin suggest that the origins of the Repin culture are not connected with the Khvalynsk culture. In contrast, Nina Morgunova and Mikhail Turetskij argue that Cultural continuity between the Yamnaya, Repin, Khvalynsk, and Sredny Stog cultures is demonstrated by the funerary rites and pottery styles.

Rassamakin argues that "there is no longer good support for the simple and attractive idea of a direct evolution of Eneolithic cultures beginning with the Samara and ending with the formation of the Yamnaya culture in the Volga-Ural interfluve. It is no longer accepted by the majority of researchers."

The type site is called Repin Khutor (in Russian: Репин хутор, or Репих Xутор). The coordinates of Repin Khutor are (according to Kuznetsov-Mochalov 2017): 49°11′29.13″ N, 43°48′05.25″ E. It is located near the location of a former hamlet (khutor) called Repin (in Russian: Репин, or хутор Репин), on the right bank of the middle Don River a few kilometers upstream from its confluence with the Ilovlya River, to the west of another archaeological site, the former village of Zadono-Avilovskiy.

Repin Khutor is located at the edge of the steppe grass. It was excavated in the 1950s. At the site, 55% of the osseous material was horse bones, 18% cattle, 9% sheep or goat, 9% pigs, and 9% red deer. This suggests that horse meat was the most important part of the diet here.

A Repin antelope hunters' camp, occupied between c. 3700–3600 BC, situated on the lower Volga. The osseous material here comprises 62% saiga antelope, 13% cattle, 9% sheep, 7% horses, and 7% onagers.