The internet is now full of news about the bone skates that were recently excavated at the two sites on the Taman Peninsula: 39 at Yastrebovskoye-Berezhnoe 1 and four at Armaturny Zavod 1. Most are made from horse metapodia, but a few are from cow metapodia. They are unmodified except for flattening of the grinding surface.
These particular skates are from the Hellenistic period, but older skates have been found in this area, including the skates from the Sabinatovka Culture described by Jakov Pertovič Gerškovič. Those skates are from the Late Bronze Age, making them among the earliest on record. These skates fit right in with the steppe origin of skating.
I first saw them mentioned on Arkeonews just a few days ago. Then they were picked up by AncientOrigins. They have been published (in Russian) in the Bulletin of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. A full pdf is available on Academia.edu. Scroll down to page 144 for the article.
References
Jakov Pertovič Gerškovič. 1999. Studien zur spätbronzezeitlichen Sabatinovka-Kultur am unteren Dnepr und and der Westküste des Azov’schen Meeres. Rahden, Westphalia: Marie Leidorf.
A. K. Kasparov and E. S. Kondrashova. 2025. “Faunal materials from archaeological sites in the vicinity of Krymsk in the Krasnodar Region.” Bulletin of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences, p. 143–150.