ABSTRACT
The Pen'kovka culture has been described as stretching over both Right- and Left-Bank Ukraine, from the Prut River to the west and to the northern Donets to the east. Prykhodniuk believed that the Pen’kovka culture originated in the valley of the Lower Desna (to the northeast from Kiev) at some point during the 4th century. He distinguished two phases of the Pen’kovka culture, the latest of which he dated to the second half of the 7th century. The hoards represent a unique phenomenon in the archaeology of Eastern Europe and have recently received a great deal of scholarly attention. Ol'ga Shcheglova proposed that most hoards were family collections of valuables, while a few were jeweler's hoards. Most scholars agree that, to a much greater degree than the Pen’kovka culture, Kolochin was a direct successor of the Kiev culture, which is the only reason why the Kolochin culture is attributed to the early Slavs, despite evidence to the contrary.
