Rovno amber

Rivne amber, occasionally called Ukrainian amber,

Small amounts of rough, partially worked, and fully shaped amber have been recovered from Paleolithic and Neolithic sites in the Dnieper area. At a site near Mezhyrich, four large mammoth bone huts attributed to Cro-Magnon Homo sapiens included over 300 pieces of amber attributed to Rivne origins. Many of the amber pieces are roughly fashioned into triangular and circular shapes. Dating of the site ranges between 13,300 and 10,500 B.C., when the regions of Baltic amber deposits in Kaliningrad and Lithuania were still covered with ice-sheets. A small female statuette of carved amber was found near Dobranichevka, while a 12 cm (4.72 in) disc with a central hole, and a hunting scene carved on one side was found in a Globular Amphora culture tomb in the Dubno district of Ukraine.^[3]

Mining

The main use of amber until the 20th century was for burning, and rarely was it shaped for crafts.^[3] As such, before the 1990s amber recovery wasn't overseen by the Ukrainian government, with small amounts found after rains and thaws and during well construction and while the Kyiv-Kovel rail line was being built.^[2] Small scale collecting of the amber started to gain momentum in the 1950s when granite deposits in the Klesiv area were beginning to be developed. At that time the amber was picked from drainage piles and tailings dumps of the granite quarries,^[2] often limited in access by the quarry operators.^[3] Following an increase in the amber for jewelry production in Kyiv, Lithuania, and Poland, during the 1970s investigation and eventual start of the Pugach quarry in Klesiv culminated in 1991. In 1993 the Ukrainian government first started state overseen mining, under the auspices of Ukrburshtyn and at the same time making other major amber mining illegal. The current mining, centered on the Pugach quarry is operated by Burshtyn-Ukrainy.^[3]

90% of Ukrainian amber is extracted illegally and the trade is controlled by armed organised crime groups. The amber is extracted by pumping water into the sandy sediments forcing the amber to the surface, creating pits. Areas where the amber is found are often covered in pine-beech forest, which is illegally deforested to extract the amber. Annual volumes of amber extracted illegally are suggested to be around 300 tons.^[7] The richest placer deposits of Rivne amber are associated with the Obukhiv (late Eocene) and Mezhigorje (early Oligocene) Formations; deposits in the Kyiv region are known to come from the base of the Mezhigorje Fm. ^[8] The majority of Rivne amber is mined from the lower part of the aforementioned Formation, with the most notable locality being the Pugach Quarry in Klesiv. ^[9]

Composition

Amber from the Klesiv deposit and others in Ukraine have up to 0.1%