Marianivka culture. Bronze Age culture of the early 2nd–early 1st millennium BC located in Left-Bank Polisia and the northern forest-steppe regions of Ukraine. It was named after the site excavated in 1929 near the village of Marianivka, Sumy oblast. Excavations there and at other sites revealed surface dwellings and shallow pit-houses of a relatively large size, pottery with feather-like and pitted ornamentation, flint and quartz tools, and a small number of bronze items. The tribes of this culture engaged in hunting, fishing, and (later) agriculture and animal husbandry. The culture can be divided into three chronological periods—early Marianivka, middle Studenok, and late Bondarykha (the latter being regarded as a separate or equal culture, the Bondarykha culture). Evidence suggests that the origins of the Marianivka culture are linked to the Pit-Comb Ware culture.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]