Evidence for the earliest securely dated hominin presence in Europe comes from 1.4 million-year-old stone tools from
Korolevo, in western Ukraine. Settlement by
modern humans in Ukraine and its vicinity dates back to 32,000 BC, with evidence of the
Gravettian culture in the
Crimean Mountains. By 4,500 BC, the
Neolithic Cucuteni–Trypillia culture was flourishing in wide areas of modern Ukraine, including
Trypillia and the entire
Dnieper-
Dniester region. Ukraine is a probable location for the first
domestication of the horse. The
Kurgan hypothesis places the Volga-Dnieper region of Ukraine and southern Russia as the
linguistic homeland of the
Proto-Indo-Europeans. Early
Indo-European migrations from the Pontic steppes in the 3rd millennium BC spread
Yamnaya Steppe pastoralist ancestry and
Indo-European languages across large parts of Europe. During the
Iron Age, the land was inhabited by
Iranian-speaking
Cimmerians,
Scythians, and
Sarmatians. Between 700 BC and 200 BC it was part of the
Scythian kingdom.