Archaeological cultures of the Upper Paleolithic. Cultural areas and archaeological cultures Tools and techniques for their manufacture

On the transition from Paleolithic to Neolithic The period of archaeological classification following the Late Paleolithic - the Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age - has been studied very poorly in the territory of modern China and is difficult to separate from both the Old Stone and New Stone Ages

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LOWER PALEOLITHIC

Olduwamyskaya cultmra

The Olduvamian culture (Oldowan culture, pebble culture) is the most primitive culture of stone processing, when, to obtain a sharp edge, the stone was usually simply split in half, without additional modification. Arose about 2.7 million years ago, disappeared about 1 million years ago. The first pebble tools could have been made by Australopithecus, the last by Archanthropus.

The name of the culture is given by part of the East African Rift System - the Olduvai Gorge in the Serengeti, Tanzania, in the area of ​​the Ngorongoro Crater. Here, Louis Leakey and his wife Mary discovered the remains of multi-layered Paleolithic settlements. The lower layers (about 1.7 - 1.8 million years ago) gave the name to the Olduvai culture. The remains of Zinjanthropus and Prezinjanthropus were discovered here, and the upper layers were attributed to the Chelles and Acheulian cultures and contained the remains of Olduvai Pithecanthropus. And in 1961, Jonathan Leakey discovered a skilled man here. Based on their findings, the Leakey family put forward a hypothesis of the African origin of man, with primary localization including in the Olduvai Gorge area.

Oldvoy

There are three types of weapons:

1) polyhedrons - roughly beaten or hammered, rounded stones with many edges. It is assumed that they were impact tools and served for processing plant and animal food,

2) various tools on flakes, used for cutting up animal carcasses,

3) choppers - the most characteristic weapon of this era, which had cutting and chopping functions.

It is curious that at this initial stage of tool making we encounter not just one tool, but a whole set capable of providing people with a variety of plant and animal foods (Clark, 1977). The dimensions of the tools do not exceed 8 - 10 cm. Among the tools there are both massive ones made of pebbles and stone fragments, as well as primitive cores and tools on flakes.

The most common are choppers (Fig. 16). These are massive tools, made, as a rule, from pebbles, the top or edge of which has been hewn off with several successive blows. Sometimes the blade is chipped on both sides.

The rest of the surface of the pebbles is untreated and is convenient for holding the weapon in the hand. The chopper blade is massive and uneven. In addition to choppers, the Olduvai era is characterized by polyhedra, discoids, spheroids, side scrapers on flakes, flakes with jagged and notched edges, etc. The flakes themselves are massive and short, with a strongly protruding impact cusp and an obtuse angle of the platform to the shear plane.

If these tools have a random shape, then their blades are repeated from monument to monument. Experts have no doubt about their definition. In addition, Olduvai tools were found in the cultural layer along with broken animal bones - the remains of hunting kills, i.e. in the same environment as the tools of all later Paleolithic eras.

Abbeville culture

Abbewiml culture (Chellean culture, early Acheulean culture) is an archaeological culture of the Early (Lower) Paleolithic.

The Abbeville culture arose approximately 1.5 million years ago, replacing the Olduvai culture, and ended approximately 300 thousand years ago, when it was replaced by the Acheulean culture.

However, some archaeologists view the Abbeville culture not as the next, but as the initial phase of the Acheulean.

Due to the deterioration of the climate and the onset of glaciation, the carriers of the Abbeville culture were forced to leave Europe and concentrated in Africa.

It was originally called the Chelles culture (this name is still often used in Russian literature) after the French city of Chelles near Paris. In the 1920s-30s. It was found that the tools found near the city of Abbeville (in the Somme Valley, France) were more typical of the Early Paleolithic era than those found at the city of Chelles, and the Chelles culture was renamed the Abbeville culture. The tools were discovered in 1839–1848 by the Frenchman Jacques Boucher de Pert (1788–1868), director of the customs bureau of the city of Abbeville, who gave the name “stone axe” to the type of tools found. The tools he found are also called hand axes

The Abbeville hand ax has long been considered the main tool of the Lower Paleolithic.

A typical ax is shaped like a human hand with closed fingers or a flattened pear. The manufacturing technology of a hand chopper is more complex than a chopper. To make them, large pieces of stones were used, broken off from large blocks of stone (boulders). The hand ax was made by double-sided upholstery.

The stone was given the desired shape by striking it with another stone, which served as a hammer. To do this, the workpiece required about 30 blows (chips).

The working part was the tapered end of the chopper; through targeted blows, this end acquired a sharp edge. The opposite end (“heel”) had a thickened and rounded shape; when using a chopper, this end was clamped in the palm of a person. The maximum dimensions of a hand chopper are 20 cm, weight 2.5 kg.

The purpose of hand axes is not completely clear: apparently, it was a hunting and kitchen tool. Hand axes were used to finish off hunted animals and split their bones to extract bone marrow, cut tendons to separate meat from bones, pierce and scrape the skin of animals, dig up the roots of edible plants and tubers, and cut branches from a tree trunk.

The Abbeville culture used fire and could build temporary shelters from stones and branches. 300 thousand years ago the total human population was about 1 million people.

Guns Abbeville culture, found in Spain.

Klektonian culture

Klektonian culture, English. Clactonian culture is one of the oldest archaeological cultures of the Lower Paleolithic, which existed in Western Europe about 550-475 thousand years ago. Most of the artefacts were found in the Thames basin. The name comes from an eponymous site near the town of Clacton-on-Sea in Great Britain, Essex, where flint tools of this culture were found.

Characteristic of this culture was that its representatives looked for flint “semi-finished products”, close in shape to finished tools, after which they “modified” them by breaking off small pieces. In this way they made scrapers, burins and other tools.

Apparently, Klektonian tools coexisted with Acheulian ones, which were made using identical technology, but which also included hand stone axes made by double-cutting flint.

In the 1990s. A number of researchers have come out with the point of view that the difference between the Clectonian and Acheulean industries was imaginary. In their opinion, the Klektonian industry coincided with the Acheulean one, and the absence of stone axes in the “Klektonian” finds was explained by the lack of need for them, or by the quality of local raw materials for the manufacture of Paleolithic tools.

However, in 2004, excavations at the Southfleet Road site in Kent uncovered a Pleistocene elephant butchered by primitive people. Numerous Klektonian tools were discovered near the elephant, among which, however, stone axes were still missing.

Since a stone ax would have been a much more convenient tool for hunting elephants than a simple flake, the find is considered strong evidence that the Clectonian industry developed independently of the Acheulean one.

The area where the elephant was found was abundant in flint raw materials of suitable quality for making stone axes, so it must be assumed that the people who hunted this elephant did not know the technology for making double-sided stone axes.

Proponents of the hypothesis that the Clectonian industry existed independently of the Acheulian industry point out the lack of concrete evidence of a relationship between the two industries, and the origin of several tools that allegedly indicate such a relationship is controversial.

The traditional view that the Clectonian industry predates the Acheulean industry is now increasingly being challenged, as Acheulean tools have been discovered at Boxgrove in Sussex and High Lodge in Suffolk in strata associated with the English Stage - a glaciation that preceded the Hoxnian stage, and therefore , and Klektonian culture. But regardless of whether the Acheulean and Klektonian tools belonged to a common culture or to different ones, cultural contacts certainly existed between their creators.

Acheulean culture

Acheulean culture (1.6 million - 150 (-120) thousand years ago) - the culture of the Early Paleolithic. It arose on the basis of the Chelles or (if the Chelles are considered as the early period of the Acheulean) Olduvai culture. The first human culture to leave Africa. In Eurasia it is replaced by the Mousterian culture, and in Africa by the Sangoi culture.

It was distributed in Africa, Western Europe (Saint-Acheul in France and Torralba in Spain), the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan (Borykazgan and Tanirkazgan sites), the Middle East (Gesher Bnot Yaakov) and Korea (Chongonni site).

Acheulean hand ax from Dashtadem 3 (Armenia)

MIDDLE PALEOLITHIC

Mousterian culture

The culture of the angelic type is being replaced by a new culture, Mousterian (Mousterian is a cave on the banks of the Veser River, in France, where a site of ancient people, the so-called Neanderthals, was found, more highly developed and having more developed technology than the most ancient people of the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic (including Sinanthropus) (100-40 thousand years ago), which is sometimes distinguished from the Lower Paleolithic into a special “Middle Paleolithic”.

The Mousterian culture is widespread not only where the Acheulean people lived, but also in places where the people of the Chelles and Acheulean times did not go. Such a widespread settlement of Mousterian man, although he now lived in much less favorable conditions than his predecessors, was possible because he was able to overcome the difficulties that arose thanks to the development of culture.

Highly developed monkeys - the closest ancestors of man, who lived at the end of the Tertiary and at the beginning of the Quaternary period, as well as primitive people such as Sinanthropus and his immediate descendants everywhere existed in a relatively mild climate, in fairly favorable conditions for life.

Over time, significant changes occurred in the natural environment that surrounded primitive people. Due to insufficiently clarified reasons, the action of which in one way or another covers the entire globe and all continents, periods of glacial advance begin, separated from each other by breaks (interglacial periods). The pattern of alternation of ice ages in the Alps is clearer and better developed, where it has a classical character in its clarity and completeness. The history of glaciation of the Alps and the adjacent part of Europe is divided into the stages of Günz, Mindel, Ries and Würm. They are separated by interglacial periods, respectively called Günz-Mindel, Mindel-Ries, Riess-Würm. The Würm stage is divided by Western researchers into four more stages. A number of scientists outline three stages of glaciation for the territory of the USSR: Likhvin, Dnieper (maximum), Valdai. The first of them corresponds, in general, to the Mindel period of the Alpine scheme, the second to the Rissky period, and the third to the Würm period.

The existence of Mousterian man in Europe and its neighboring countries dates back to the time of maximum glaciation in these countries, to the Rissky, or Dnieper, stage of the Ice Age. To visualize the scale of these events and their significance for the history of Paleolithic man, it should be borne in mind that continuous ice masses then stretched from the British Isles in the west and almost to the Ob in the east. The ice cover reached the areas where the cities of Molotov and Kirov are now located on the territory of the European part of our country, then dropped steeply to 50° N. sh., which it crossed in two places, jutting out to the south with wide protrusions-tongues, reaching the areas of the current cities of Stalingrad and Dnepropetrovsk, and then retreated somewhat to the north-west.

The area of ​​the ice sheet exceeded 9.5 million square meters. km. Its thickness reached, according to geologists’ calculations, 2 km. Slowly moving layers of ice leveled the hills, plowed through the valleys and destroyed all life in their path. The heat-loving vegetation of the past in the area immediately adjacent to the glaciers has disappeared. The corresponding animals also became extinct or moved south, to places more favorable for them. They are being replaced by a new animal world. Instead of the “southern elephant fauna,” a new, “mammoth fauna” is widely distributed, represented in addition to the mammoth by woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, arctic fox and other animals. This process was lengthy and uneven in its pace in different areas. Heat-loving fauna continued to exist for a long time in southern Europe, in Italy and in those countries (for example, in Africa) where catastrophic changes in climate did not occur during the Quaternary period. In the south, then came the time of rains and downpours (pluvial period), when the present Sahara was covered with lakes, rivers and grassy plains, interspersed with dense groves of tropical trees.

Stone scraper

Neanderthal man

The man of the Mousterian time, in many of his characteristics, was already significantly higher than the most ancient people such as Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus and Heidelberg man. The remains of people from the Mousterian period were first discovered in Europe in 1856 in the Neanderthal Valley (Germany). Then new finds followed - in Spain, Belgium, Yugoslavia, France, Italy. On the territory of the USSR, the bones of people of the Mousterian period were discovered in the Kiik-Koba cave in Crimea, in the Teshik-Tash grotto (Uzbekistan). In other countries outside Europe, such remains were found in Palestine, Iraq, South Africa, and Java. In their physical structure, the people of Mousterian times often show very significant differences from each other, which is why they are divided into separate groups. Excellent, for example, are the Palestinian finds, on the one hand, and the European ones (“Chapelles” (Named after a skeleton found in a cave near the village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints (France).)) on the other. European finds also differ from each other. But in general, they have so much in common that all these ancient people of the Mousterian time are usually referred to by one common name - Neanderthals (based on finds in Neanderthal).

Judging by European finds, the Neanderthal was of a stocky build with a massive skeleton and powerful muscles. His height was small, not exceeding 155-165 cm for men. Since the Neanderthal’s body was relatively short, and the curves of the spine were weakly expressed, it is possible that he walked with a stoop and ran slightly bent to the ground.

This gait is evidenced by the massive foot bones of a Neanderthal from the Kiik-Koba cave in Crimea. The Neanderthal hands found in the Kiik-Koba cave turned out to be paw-shaped. Features of the Neanderthal skull: low, sloping forehead, as if “running” back, strongly protruding brow ridges, merging into a continuous supraorbital ridge. The upper jaw protrudes strongly forward, the incisors are large, spade-shaped. There is no chin protrusion. The brain of Neanderthals - and this is much more important than the external features of the skull relief - was already significantly developed. In addition to its significant volume (1300-1600 cubic cm), its structure also shows signs of further evolution. On casts made from the internal cavity of Neanderthal skulls, the development of individual lobes of the brain associated with the location of centers of higher mental activity is clearly visible: the frontal lobes increase, the parietal lobe grows.

According to the development of the brain, the cranial vault increases, the slope of the forehead decreases, the back of the head rounds, i.e., features are discovered that further connect the Neanderthal with modern man. Such features, as we will see later, were most clearly expressed in Neanderthals, whose remains were found in Palestine.

Mousterian stone tools

Neanderthal did not die out and did not retreat south before the cold breath of glaciers. On the contrary, he continued to continuously settle into new areas and further develop his culture, first of all, to improve tools and the technique of their manufacture.

Ancient hand axes, made by chipping a boulder, are still occasionally found in the Mousterian layers, but the decisive importance belongs to tools made by the “cleaving technique” from plates and flakes chipped from a disc-shaped core (core). The chipping technique is being improved. If earlier the cores had irregular outlines, now they acquire definite and stable shapes in the form of disks, which ensured the correct outlines of the blades and flakes.

In addition, during the Mousterian period, special attention was paid to the special preparation of the cores that were struck. The outstanding Russian archaeologist V. A. Gorodtsov clearly demonstrated the importance of such an operation in a series of systematic experiments he carried out on the manufacture of flint tools. “Noticing that the long fragments that I broke off from the core were thicker at the bottom, and often broke before reaching the lower base of the core, I began to trim the lower ends of the cores, and the job went well. A precisely directed blow to a certain point on the impact plane of the core is of decisive importance, but achieving such a blow in practice is often hampered by the imperfect forms of the chippers, the working ends of which are usually uneven and thick, often completely covering the intended impact points, due to which the fragments are knocked off either too thick or too thick. thin, small. In general, I still managed to overcome the difficulties encountered, and I was able to work all forms of tools found in Mousterian-type sites,” wrote V. A. Gorodov about his experiments.

Thus, the undercutting of cores, characteristic of the Mousterian time, was of great importance in improving the technique of flint splitting and provided the necessary form of blanks for the manufacture of Mousterian tools - blades and flakes. Neanderthal man also used the flint retouching technique more skillfully and confidently than his predecessors. He no longer follows the ready-made outlines of the flakes, but gives them a certain appropriate shape.

A direct indication of the development of retouching techniques are the “anvils” that first appeared in Mousterian times, usually pieces of animal bones covered with gouges as a result of pressure on them from the sharp edge of flint products during processing. Such “anvils” were apparently used when applying subtle and careful retouching to the blades of tools, which became more and more widespread in Mousterian times. The nature of the tools themselves changed significantly during the Mousterian period. The shapes of tools become not only more stable and defined, but also significantly more differentiated.

Large, bilaterally processed points of triangular or almond-shaped shapes could serve as universal cutting tools, as well as daggers. Double-pointed tips could be attached to the end of a long wooden spear. The small plate-like points were undoubtedly only cutting and piercing instruments. Among them, the most notable are the points, the convex edge of which is processed in such a way that fingers could rest against it when cutting. The scrapers of the Mousterian period also differ in their form and character; some of them served as scrapers, others as knives and scrapers themselves for processing hides. At the end of the Mousterian time, new forms of tools began to spread in the form of rough chisels, apparently intended for processing wood, and later bone. The improvement of stone processing techniques and the complication of a set of stone tools clearly reflect, thus, the continuous enrichment of the labor skills and production experience of the people of the Mousterian time, which underlay the progressive development of their entire culture.

Artificial fire production. Economic life

The fact that the people of Mousterian times, in new, much more severe conditions, spread even wider than before is obviously explained by their new most important achievement - the invention of methods for artificially producing fire. Sinanthropus already knew how to systematically use fire, as mentioned earlier, and this was a great achievement of ancient man; but fire received by man by accident was used. During his work, a person noticed that sparks appear from the impact of stone on stone, and heat is released when drilling wood; this is what he used. It is impossible to say when and where exactly man first developed methods of artificially producing fire, but Neanderthals, apparently, had already firmly mastered them in various areas of the globe. The progressive development of man of the Mousterian time is found primarily in the economic field. Hunting was once one of the most important sources of existence for ancient people. Now it rises to the level of the leading occupation, leaving behind gathering, which should have been much more important among the most ancient people, the predecessors of the Neanderthals due to the imperfection of their hunting tools.

Of particular interest for understanding the economic life of Mousterian man is the fact that in a number of cases a certain specialization of ancient hunters is observed: they hunt primarily for certain animals, which is, of course, due to nothing more than natural conditions and the associated abundance certain types of animals.

At the Ilskaya site (North Caucasus), bison bones accounted for at least 60% of the mass of animal bones. It is believed that bones belonging to at least 2 thousand bison can be found here. In the highlands of the Alps, they mainly hunted such a predator, distinguished by its strength, enormous size and fury, as the cave bear. Equally revealing are the finds in the Teshik-Tash grotto in Southwestern Uzbekistan. Judging by the tubular bones of animals, broken and split to extract the brain, often even finely crushed, discovered during excavations in huge quantities, the people from Teshik-Tash were skilled and dexterous hunters. The most important source of subsistence for the inhabitants of the grotto was hunting mountain goats - kieks, a difficult, complex and dangerous task even for modern man, who is immeasurably better armed. The main weapon of Neanderthal man was apparently a spear. Thus, in the La Quina cave, in France, animal bones with sharp fragments of flint embedded in them were discovered.

Such wounds were apparently inflicted by a spear with a flint tip. On one of the Neanderthal bones found in the Es-Skhul cave (Palestine), traces of a wound inflicted by a wooden spear without a stone tip were found. As you can see, the weapon pierced the victim’s thigh with such terrible force that it pierced through the head of the femur and came out with its end into the pelvic cavity. The weapons of the Mousterian hunters were still very primitive.

The decisive importance should have been not individual, but collective hunting techniques that united all members of each Mousterian group. Such round-up hunts were especially widespread in rugged areas, where animals were driven to cliffs, falling from which they were killed or injured. Such, for example, is the area in the vicinity of the Teshik-Tash grotto, whose inhabitants hunted mountain goats.

The improvement of technology and the development of hunting, naturally, should have contributed to the further improvement of general living conditions, including the more or less long-term settlement of groups of people in places convenient for hunting and rich in game. Consolidating the achievements of his predecessors, Mousterian man not only widely developed caves as natural dwellings with ready-made walls and vaults, but constantly created open-air settlements for more or less long periods. Where there were no caves, in the harsh conditions of that time, the simplest shelters from rain, wind and cold were undoubtedly built in the form of barriers or canopies.

The beginnings of the tribal system

Joint labor activity, a common home, a common fire that warmed its inhabitants - all this, with natural necessity, rallied and united people. The strengthening of social ties caused by the need to unite people to fight nature is clearly evidenced by the entire situation of the Mousterian settlements, their entire culture, all traces of their activity, including even such seemingly ordinary and inexpressive finds from this side as “kitchen waste” "in the form of thousands or even tens of thousands of animal bones found in the cave dwellings of Neanderthals and at their open-air sites. They show how man gradually overcame the animal egoism inherited from the prehuman state.

Rock painting

Unlike animals, man no longer cared only about himself and not only about his own children, but also about the entire community. Instead of eating the prey at the hunting site, Mousterian hunters carried it to a cave, where women, children and the elderly remained busy with housework around a blazing fire. The custom of collective distribution of food and joint consumption, characteristic of the primitive communal system at all its stages, is clearly evidenced by all the ethnographic material known to science.

It is very likely that it was at this time that the transition to a new form of social life begins. The first rudiments of the most ancient form of clan society, the maternal clan community, that is, a collective connected by ties of kinship, emerge. Due to the form of marriage relations that existed at that time, only the mother of the child was indisputably known, which, along with the active role of the woman in economic life (gathering, participation in hunting) or her role as the keeper of the fire, determined. her high social position. By this time, the forms of marriage relations had already gone a long way in development, although it is difficult to say with certainty what level they had reached. Initially, as noted earlier, relations between the sexes, apparently, were of a nature unregulated by social rules. The further development of the family followed the line of narrowing the circle of persons participating in marital communication, first of all by limiting marital communication between the generation of parents and children, then between half-brothers and sisters, etc.

Development of Neanderthal thinking

There can be no doubt that the progressive development of labor and society caused corresponding progressive changes in the consciousness and thinking of primitive man.

There are idealistic theories that try to prove that the thinking of primitive man was supposedly completely irrational and mystical, that our distant ancestors supposedly had completely false, fundamentally incorrect, completely distorted and fantastic ideas about reality. However, it is enough to become familiar with the actual process of development of primitive man and his culture to be convinced of the opposite.

It is absolutely clear that if the content of the consciousness of our primitive ancestors were not real ideas that correspond to objective reality and are fundamentally a true reflection of the laws and phenomena of the real world, but only some mystical ideas and groundless fantasy, then humanity would not. could continue to develop successfully. If the consciousness of primitive man to some extent did not reflect objective reality in its present and true form, he would not be able to resist the forces of nature and would ultimately become their victim.

Having so-called mystical thinking, man would not be able to make his tools and improve them. The path from ignorance to knowledge, from vague, unclear, and false ideas about reality to more accurate and true ideas was, of course, extremely slow and difficult. But precisely because this positive knowledge, which lay at the basis of man’s conscious activity and at the basis of his thinking, consistently grew and became enriched, man went forward and forward.

The development of the consciousness of primitive man was based on the consistent growth of his work activity, his daily work practice, as the only source of knowledge and a criterion for the reliability of ideas about the world around him. The development of the mind of Neanderthal man is particularly clearly reflected in the further improvement of his tools.

The more complex mental activity of Mousterian man compared to his primitive ancestors is evidenced by the presence of skillfully executed colorful spots and stripes at the end of Mousterian time. These are rather wide stripes of red paint, applied by the hand of a Neanderthal man across a small slab of stone discovered during excavations of a Mousterian settlement in the La Ferrassie cave (France). Neanderthal man could not yet draw or sculpt the figure of an animal. However, already at the end of the Mousterian period, the first attempts were noticeable to deliberately change the shape of the stone, not only in order to make tools out of it.

In the Mousterian deposits, slabs of stone with skillfully carved indentations, the so-called “cup stones,” were discovered. On the slab from La Ferrassie, the cup recesses were located not individually, but in a compact group and, moreover, in such a way that some kind of connection is revealed in their placement.

Of course, it would be wrong to overestimate and exaggerate the degree of development of abstract thinking in Neanderthals. It should be emphasized even more sharply that primitive man was not at all free from false, incorrect ideas about himself and about the world around him, since he took only the first steps from ignorance to knowledge, since every hour, every minute he felt his weakness in the fight against nature and dependence on its elements.

Early burials

Many idealistically-minded philosophers and historians strive to present religion as the highest manifestation of the human spirit, the ideological achievement of humanity, the “crown of its development.” From this point of view, religion could not have arisen in distant primitive times; it should have appeared only in a fully formed and highly developed person, “completing” his achievements in the field of spiritual culture. Other reactionary philosophers and idealist historians are trying, on the contrary, to prove the “eternity” of religion. They argue that already at the very initial stages of his ancient development, man not only had a religion, but also received, as if by “divine revelation,” faith in a single god - the creator of the universe and the source of all goods on earth. In fact, such religious ideas arise only during the long development of human society, in a class society, and the initial religious beliefs that arise among primitive man are extremely primitive. Both of these reactionary, idealistic points of view are completely refuted by the entire course of the primitive history of mankind. They are exposed by facts, archaeological data, revealing the actual time and specific conditions in which the beginnings of primitive religious beliefs arose. In fact, religion arose as a result of the oppression of primitive man by the forces of nature, as a fantastic reflection of this weakness and humiliation. Data on the most ancient burials appearing in Mousterian times provide factual material about the emergence of the beginnings of these primitive religious fantastic beliefs. Researchers have discovered more than 20 cases of burials of Neanderthal bodies. The most remarkable of them are noted in Spi (Belgium, near Namur); in the Boufia cave, near the village of La Chapelle aux Saintes, Yves, La Ferrassie (France), where the remains of 6 skeletons were found; on Mount Carmel, in the caves of Et-Tabun and Es-Skhul (Palestine), where the remains of 12 skeletons were discovered. In the USSR, Mousterian burials were found in the Crimea, in the Kiik-Koba cave, and in Central Asia, in the Teshik-Tash grotto. In all these cases, the bodies were deliberately buried in the ground. The burial place was caves, which were the dwellings of people, but burials outside caves are not excluded. In some caves, burials were carried out more than once. Sometimes the corpses of the dead were placed, perhaps in ready-made recesses, in “sleeping” pits. In other cases, special holes were dug for this purpose, and even with considerable effort. Both the corpses of adult men and women and the corpses of children were buried. In some cases, burials of two skeletons of adults located nearby, as well as the skeletons of a child and a woman are observed (Kiik-Koba cave, in Crimea). A certain position of the bones in the graves is also established: they usually lie with their legs bent, that is, in a slightly crouched position. In some cases, both arms or one of them are bent at the elbow, and the hands are near the face. This pose resembles the position of a sleeping person. Thus, in the middle and at the end of the Mousterian time, to which the listed burials belong, for the first time a certain and completely new attitude towards the dead appeared, expressed in intentional and already quite complex in nature actions - in the burials of corpses. The basis of this attitude was, undoubtedly, concern for a fellow member of one’s collective, arising from the entire life structure of the primitive community, from all the unwritten laws and norms of behavior of that time. This was an indisputable expression of that feeling of inextricable blood ties between relatives, which runs like a red thread through the entire primitive era of human history. But this concern for the deceased member of the primitive community was based here on false ideas about the person himself, about life and death. These, presumably, were the first beginnings of fantastic, fundamentally incorrect ideas, on the basis of which ideas about the “soul” and the “afterlife” that continues after death, which are one of the most important sources, and then an indispensable component of each, subsequently develop. religion. It should be emphasized that before the Mousterian time there are no traces of intentional human burial. In earlier times, which include the skeletal remains of Pithecanthropus, Sinanthropus and ancient people close to the latter, there was no concern for the dead. From this it is clear that there can be no talk of any “primordial religion”; The first traces of the intentional burial of human corpses appear only 500-600 thousand years after the beginning of the emergence of man. Religious beliefs are not “inherent in human nature,” not “inherent in human thinking,” as idealists of various persuasions claim. Religious beliefs arise under certain social conditions, change, and then disappear depending on changes in these conditions. Mousterian time was a natural transitional stage from the most ancient period of human history to a new period, to the time of primitive matriarchal communities. This was a period when there was a process of gradual accumulation of new elements in people’s lives, which then gave its results in a significant and even unexpected at first glance, but quite natural from the point of view of a materialistic understanding of history, rise of culture in the subsequent Upper Paleolithic time.

Sangoi culture

Sangoi culture -- Paleolithic African culture, similar in technological level Mousterian culture Eurasia or transition to the upper Paleolithic. Appeared on the basis Acheulean culture in South Africa 100-500 thousand years ago (the exact age is not determined) and then spread north to Angola, pool Congo River and to the shores of Lake Victoria.

SANGO ( Sangoan), Central African Paleolithic industry...

Aterian culture

Aterian archaeological culture. 90,000 - 30,000 - 21,000 years ago. Northern Sahara and Atlas Mountains region (NW Africa) . ). The few artifacts found are believed to have been created by Homo sapiens but a very early type, in which some external morphological similarity with Neanderthals appears. The remains of only a few skeletons have been found so far. More than a dozen sites are known, whose age ranges from 20 to 90 thousand years. Stone tools were made using the Levallois technique. To strengthen them, a wooden handle was attached, including using a spear and arrows with stone tips. The Aterian culture was one of the first to introduce the bow and arrow. Decorations in the form of mollusk shells, painted with ocher and with holes for stringing, were also found.

30.000 l. n. in Eastern and Central Sahara there was a community of Paleolithic Atera tribes. In these same places, the onion was subsequently invented and brought to Eurasia.

Aterian scraper

Emirian culture-- culture Middle Paleolithic, turning into Upper Paleolithic. Was distributed to Middle East 36-47 thousand years ago. Grew from a local variant of culture Mousterian and evolved into the Ahmarians - a local culture of the Upper Paleolithic

UPPER PALEOLITHIC

Baradostan culture

The Baradostan culture is an early Upper Paleolithic archaeological culture in the Zagros Mountains region on the border of Iran and Iraq. Replaces the local version of the Mousterian culture. According to radiocarbon dating, its age is about 36 thousand years. The relationship of the Baradostan culture with neighboring cultures remains unclear. Considered an early variant of the Aurignacian culture. Was replaced by the Zarzian culture, possibly due to cooling during the last phase of the Ice Age.

Chatelperon culture

Chatelperon culture (fr. Chвtelperronien) - an archaeological culture of the Late Paleolithic in Western Europe, intermediate between Mousterian and Solutre. Early part of the Périgordian culture. In its pure form, this culture is known only in France.

For Chatelperonian The culture is characterized by a special technique for processing plates, namely steep retouching along the edge, flint points (chatelperon type) with a rounded back. Human remains associated with this culture were discovered in the Saint-Cesaire deposit (western France).

Scientifically dated to 35,000-29,000 BC. BC e. Chatelperon dates from the Wurm I/II interstadial.

For Western Europe, the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic is associated with a culture named after its French location, Chatelperon (French. Chвtelperronien). In its pure form, this culture is known only in France, namely in southwestern and central France.

Chatelperon stone tools

Chatelperon, the earliest Upper Paleolithic industry in southwestern and central France, borrows some elements from the previous Mousterian tradition.

A characteristic tool of this culture is the “Chatelperon knife” made of flint with a straight cutting edge and a blunt, bent back.

It is characterized by a special technique for processing plates, namely, steep retouching along the edge, flint points (chatelperon type) with a rounded back.

In the stone industry, with its striking features of the Upper Paleolithic (such as the presence of incisors), the old types of scrapers and points characteristic of the late Mousterian are still preserved. The connection between the Mousterian culture and the Chatelperon is also in the fact that on monuments that date back to the late Mousteron (for example, the Abri-Audi area in France), forms already appear from which the tools typical of the Chatelperon developed (asymmetrical points with an arched edge, which retouched).

Jewelry was also common.

Seletian culture(no data)

Kostenki-Streltsy archaeological culture

The Kostenki-Streltsy archaeological culture is the oldest culture of the Kostenki complex of Paleolithic sites in the Khokholsky district of the Voronezh region (Kostenki XII - IA layer, Kostenki XI - 5th layer). One of the transitional cultures between the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, along with similar cultures of Eastern and Central Europe. Age: 30 - 32 thousand years. The Kostenki-Streltsy culture is characterized by above-ground dwellings up to 35 m long and up to 9 m wide, the production of sculptural images of women, hoes, etc.

Kostenki-Streltsy culture(it is often called Streletskaya for short) is one of the oldest in the Kostenkovo-Borshevsky region (Paleolithic USSR, 1984, pp. 179-181). Its name comes from the settlements of the Middle Don - Kostenki and Strelitsa. Finds related to this culture lie both in the lower humus layer under the volcanic ash, and above it - at the very beginning of the upper humus layer. That is, this culture, according to stratigraphy, is one of the ancient ones, and it dates back to the interglacial period. It dates back more than 32 thousand years ago, and continued to exist during the heyday of the Paleolithic (approximately 24-17 thousand years ago).

What are the stone implements of this ancient Paleolithic culture? Let us remember that the sequence of stone processing by an ancient stonecutter is as follows: 1 - primary processing (splitting the workpiece, giving it its original, desired shape); 2 - secondary processing (giving the final shape to the product through additional chips and retouching). The end result is a specific set of tools needed for some purpose.

Aurignacian culture

The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the early stage of the Late Paleolithic.

Named after excavations in the Aurignac cave in the Haute-Garonne department (France). First identified at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Aurignacian culture in the narrow sense of the word is widespread in France, where it is radiocarbon dated to 33-19 millennium BC. e., replaces the Mousterian culture, coexists with the Périgordian culture and is replaced by the Solutrean culture.

There are different versions of the origin of the Aurignacian culture:

1. from Pre-Aurignac (Middle Eastern version of Moustier)

2. from Mousterian La Quin

Aurignacian culture in the broad sense of the word is represented in a number of countries in Western and Central Europe. The Aurignacian culture is characterized by flint blades with retouching and notches along the edges, scrapers, core-shaped tools, fairly developed bone processing (in particular, bone spearheads with a dissected base), remains of long-term dwellings and relatively developed fine arts.

At this time, the first works of primitive art began to appear, which were schematic outline drawings of animal heads, usually performed on limestone slabs, found in the caves of La Ferrassie in France.

Also interesting are the reliefs carved on limestone slabs found in the Lossel caves in France. One of these plates depicts a hunter throwing a spear, others depict women, while the rest are occupied by images of animals being hunted.

Aurignacian scrapers

Dufour scraper

The people of the Aurignacian culture lived in a cold climate. They hunted mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, and woolly rhinoceros. During this era, permanent winter communal dwellings appeared for the first time. Their existence was proven by excavations carried out by Soviet archaeologists P. P. Efimenko and S. N. Zamyatin in the late 20s and 30s. XX century

Gravettian culture

Gravettian culture ( Gravett, La Gravette, Lagravettskaya, Gravetyanskaya) - archaeological culture of the Late Paleolithic. Scientifically dates back to 28,000 - 21,000. BC e. Named after the cave La Gravette (fr. la Gravette) in the Dordogne department (France).

Gravettian parking The Czech Republic and Slovakia, Austria and France are dated 26-20 millennia BC. Gravettian is characterized by a rich set of tools; various points can be considered specific types, among which asymmetrical points with a side notch and knives with a back stand out. Microliths and composite tools appear. Various bone products: points, awls, spatulas, decorations. Gravettian monuments are characterized by the presence of numerous examples of small plastic art - figurines of women and animals made of tusk and bone, stone or clay.

The Gravettian culture is represented by a large number of monuments, which are divided into two groups, eastern and western, the question of their relationship is debatable.

Gravettian culture (from the Pyrenees to Lake Baikal)

Gravett: a - Gravettian plate with a blunt edge; b - tip...

Epigravettian culture

The Epigravettian culture, or more precisely, the Epigravettian horizon of the Upper Paleolithic, inherits the Gravettian culture in Italy and Eastern Europe and is defined by a specific stone tool industry.

Radiocarbon dating allows us to attribute the final phase of the Epigravettian culture to the Allerød warming. This means that the Epigravettian culture (or group of cultures) existed simultaneously with the final stage of the Solutrean and Magdalenian of western and central Europe, which existed in the period 19-10 thousand years ago.

Some monuments in Moldova belong to the early Epigravettian (20,000-17,000 years ago), others to the late (13,500 - 11,000 years ago). The dwelling at Dalmeri, located at the north-eastern end of the Seven Communes plateau (Trente, Italy), contains traces of the terminal phase of the late Epigravettian. Also, traces of epigravettian were found in the southeast of Sicily, as well as in northern Africa.

Since the discovery of the first Epigravettian monuments at the end of the 19th century by archaeologist E. Riviere - the burials of children in Balzi Rossi (Liguria, Italy), the Epigravettian people have been considered as one of the last hunter-gatherer cultures of the late (Upper) Paleolithic.

In the period 1991-2005, numerous stones painted with ocher, with naturalistic and schematic images, were discovered in various places, which made it possible to expand the understanding of the spiritual practice of the people of the Epigravettian culture.

Solutremyskaya cultmra

Solutremyskaya kultumra is an archaeological culture of the mid-Late Paleolithic. It was distributed throughout France and Northern Spain. It got its name from the Solutre site in France (Saône-et-Loire department). It replaced the Aurignacian and Périgordian cultures and was replaced by the Magdalenian culture. The radiocarbon method dates back to 18-15 thousand years BC. e. Was allocated in the late 60s. XIX in G. Mortilla. The Solutrean culture is characterized by skillfully made flint (so-called Solutrean) tips in the shape of a laurel or willow leaf with a notch, processed on both sides with perfect pressing retouch.

This method of processing flint consisted of the following: using a bone squeezer, thin flakes were chipped from the surface of the tool. This method originated earlier, but reached its peak precisely in the Solutrean era.

It made it possible to make arrow and spear tips as thin as later iron tips of the same size. Some of the tips were intended for spears and darts, some for knives and daggers.

Also found at Solutrean sites were flint scrapers, burins, piercings, points, bone tips, needles with eyes, hooks, wands, works of art, etc. The area of ​​distribution of a typical Solutrean culture is Central and Southern France. But at the same time, an independent center for the spread of a similar culture existed in Eastern and Northern Spain and Portugal.

In Northern France, Belgium and England there are monuments typologically close to the early phase of the Solutrean culture, but more developed industry is rarely found here or is completely absent. In a number of Late Paleolithic sites in Central Europe and the European part of Russia, certain similarities with the Solutrean culture were also discovered. One of the modern theories suggests the penetration of the Solutrean culture into North America, where they created the Clovis culture (the so-called Solutrean hypothesis, proposed in 1998 and suggesting that it was people from Europe who were the first settlers in America). A local variant of the Solutrean culture is the Grimaldi culture.

Badegul culture

Badegul culture, French. Badegoulien-- material culture, or stone industry of the Upper Paleolithic era. Previously designated as "ancient Magdalenian culture". It differs from the Magdalenian culture proper, in the strict sense of the term, from a technological point of view (processing of axes) and typologically (prehistoric scrapers are found in abundance, burins are rare).

The Badegul culture dates back to 19,000 - 17,000 years ago. Artifacts characteristic of it were discovered in the territory from the Franco-Cantabrian region to Switzerland and Germany.

As a result of recent research, regional variants of Badegul culture have been identified:

· Mediterranean version: scrapers, stone knives with retouching and various prehistoric objects;

Cantabrian version: scrapers, awls, stone knives;

· Aquitanian version: consists of two stages:

o ancient stage: gear tools, drills, scrapers, awls;

o late stage: numerous scrapers.

archaeological culture Neanderthal paleolithic

Madeleine culture

Madeleine culture (Madeleine culture, fr. Magdalеnien) -- culture Late Paleolithic; was distributed throughout the area France, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany. Age -- 15 --8 thousand years The culture bearers hunted reindeer, wild horses and other types of large animals that lived in Europe at the end of ice age.

A variety of flint burins, piercers, and scrapers predominate. Bone processing is highly developed.

Characteristic carvings on horn and bone, sculpture of horn, bone and tusk mammoth, engraved and other images on the walls and ceilings of caves. As development progressed, there was a transition to microliths, that is, small tools made of stone. Madeleine hunters lived mainly in caves, as well as in dwellings made of bones and skins.

The Magdalenian culture in a broad sense covers the final stage of the development of the Late Paleolithic culture of the entire European periglacial region from France to Cisurals. The Magdalenian population left behind magnificent cave art and bone objects, including perforated staffs decorated with artistic carvings, three-dimensional figures of people and animals, finely finished points, personal jewelry in the form of perforated sea shells and animal teeth (probably beads). The walls of the caves in which the Magdalenian culture lived, for example, Lascaux caves And Altamira, decorated picturesque paintings .

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The Late Magdalenian cultures of Northwestern Europe, transitional from the Magdalenian to the Mesolithic, include the Creswell culture in England and the Remouchamps culture in Belgium. The Creswell culture is named for a series of caves (Creswell Crags) on the border of Derbshire and Nottinghamshire. The layers of the Late Paleolithic time are close to the Late Magdalenian monuments of Germany and the Netherlands (Arensburg and Federmesser cultures). Bone figurines and an image of a horse's head engraved on bone were found. In the Mesolithic layers of the Krezvel localities, microlithic tools were already found.

The Remouchamp culture (named after the Remouchamp grotto near Liege) contains points with an obliquely truncated blade in the form of knives, incisors with a handle and some bone products. All the inventory is close to that of the Arensburg culture. The main occupation of the population was hunting deer and other animals. There are bones decorated with geometric patterns, sometimes in the form of a star with a rectangle or triangle in the center. The ornament is made by drilling dots. Hunting was the main source of food resources for Magdalenian man, since in the harsh climate it was impossible to count on collecting any fruits other than berries. It has been suggested that the Magdalenian people may have domesticated and kept deer and horses as pets, but there is no evidence of this yet.

Major shifts in the development of productive forces during the Upper Paleolithic era should have entailed changes in the organization of society. The primitive human herd was replaced by a maternal clan community. The assumption of the existence of such a form of social organization is based on indirect archaeological evidence, such as the existence of large communal dwellings (similar to the long houses of the Iroquois), numerous finds of female figurines, and on the following logical reasoning: given the low level of human development at that time, the only real basis for strengthening social ties could be ties of consanguinity.

Given the disorder of sexual intercourse, kinship relationships could only be established between the descendants of the same mother. Women were responsible for caring for children, maintaining the fire, and running the household. Therefore, they constituted the most stable part of the teams of that time. The defining feature of a related group was the custom of exogamy, that is, the prohibition of sexual intercourse within the clan. Probably at the same time a dual organization arose - a combination of two exogamous groups into one intermarital association, the embryo of an endogamous tribe.

The basis of this concept is the assertion that differences in tool making techniques and shapes reflect tribal divisions.

This statement in itself is controversial, but even if we accepted it, many unresolved questions would remain that would prevent us from recognizing the existence of tribes in such a distant past. As for the Upper Paleolithic cultures, they hardly correspond to tribes. Rather, these are some groups of related tribes, the cultural elements of which became similar as a result of diffusion. The tribes, as far as we know them from ethnographic data, could not occupy such significant territories as those in which monuments of even the smallest of the Upper Paleolithic cultures are distributed. Concluding the review of the archeology of Europe in the Paleolithic era, it is necessary to make the following remarks.

At the beginning of the development of Stone Age archeology, when Mortilier’s scheme was created (later somewhat supplemented and corrected), scientists considered the archaeological cultures - Chelle, Acheul, Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutre and Madeleine - as certain stages in the development of technology, directly resulting from one another and marking technical and cultural evolution of humanity. True, even then the idea arose of some kind of contradiction between the logic of the historical process and archaeological facts. In the most ancient period of human history, when one can only assume the existence of separate, scattered, unconnected human groups, they turn out to have similar, almost identical technology. As humanity spreads and contacts develop, more and more local variants of the same culture appear. Most often, this contradiction was explained by the fact that in the initial stages the culture is so primitive that it is impossible to detect any significant differences. However, as archeology developed, more and more new discoveries showed that the Mortilier “cultures” were not universal even for the periglacial zone of Europe. In Western European archeology, more and more different archaeological cultures were introduced into the scientific literature and it became difficult to connect them with each other and consider them in the process of evolution of autochthonous cultures. Then they began to look for a way out in the assumption that these cultures appeared as a result of migrations of population groups from non-European territories. The assumption of migrations could explain, from the point of view of its supporters, the extraordinary leap in cultural development between the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. However, it is not always possible to find a place from which such a group could migrate. It is argued, for example, that Upper Paleolithic technology came to Europe from the east, from areas lying east of the Urals and the Caspian Sea. When asked why we do not know the corresponding source cultures from these areas, supporters of migrations answer: because they have not yet been discovered due to poor knowledge of these areas. This answer is hardly entirely convincing.

Many migration theories, including such a widespread one at one time as the theory about the arrival of carriers of the Aurignacian culture from Western Asia, turned out to be destroyed by new discoveries. But even if the migration of a certain population group is scientifically confirmed, this cannot in any way explain the multiplicity of Upper Paleolithic cultures. Yes, we don’t even know what these cultures ultimately represent. Differences in the shape of tools, observed simultaneously in different territories, may be associated with the traditions of the population groups (tribes?) living there, but may be caused by some local economic, environmental and other conditions. The shape of the tool was determined by its function and the achieved level of stone processing, but also by the material found in the area, the conditions of hunting and production (at the place of long-term or temporary residence), etc. Therefore, to attribute differences in the form of functionally unambiguous tools only to the traditions of this group population is incorrect. Archaeological cultures of the Upper Paleolithic may reflect tribal divisions, but this is not the only possible way to interpret them. Traditionality was characteristic of primitive production, but the absolutization of the idea of ​​traditionality, as well as the idea of ​​​​the sharp isolation of the tribe, contradicts data on the wide spread of similar cultural phenomena, which could only occur as a result of the adoption of alien traditions by certain groups of the population.

The problems of the origin of cultures are very complex and at the current stage of development of archeology are still often insoluble. Therefore, in characterizing individual European Paleolithic cultures, I tried to speak very carefully about their origin and mutual connections.

It is very difficult to get an idea of ​​the size of the population of Western Europe in the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. It is clear that it was very small. Mousterian sites are rare and indicate that the composition of individual population groups did not exceed 30-40 people. In the Upper Paleolithic there is a gradual increase in population with a large jump at the end of the Magdalenian. The sites of the end of the Madeleine are numerous, and, apparently, the increase in population was associated with new means of obtaining food - fishing, perhaps the invention of onions or methods of storing food - preserving meat by smoking. In one of the few demographic works, the author of which tries to calculate the size of the Paleolithic population in the entire ecumene, he honestly has to admit that there is almost no basis for a scientific discussion of such an issue.

Any archaeological culture is characterized by a set of different features. This is a funeral rite, features of material culture (house building, pottery, jewelry, etc.). But in the Upper Paleolithic era, when funeral rites are almost unknown, with rare exceptions, when there is no pottery, and evidence of house-building and jewelry making is sporadic, the most important feature that separates archaeological cultures is the method(s) of stone processing. They, these methods, were not the same, which was associated with different traditions inherited from different ancestors, different hunting conditions (for example, hunting a mammoth or a bird). For the Upper Paleolithic, as for almost the entire period of the Stone Age, the most important indicator of cultural differences was stone, the methods of its processing and the difference in the form of the resulting tools.

Kostenki-Streltsy culture(it is often called Streletskaya for short) is one of the oldest in the Kostenkovo-Borshevsky region (Paleolithic USSR, 1984, pp. 179-181). Its name comes from the settlements of the Middle Don - Kostenki and Strelitsa. Finds related to this culture lie both in the lower humus layer under the volcanic ash, and above it - at the very beginning of the upper humus layer. That is, this culture, according to stratigraphy, is one of the ancient ones, and it dates back to the interglacial period. It dates back more than 32 thousand years ago, and continued to exist during the heyday of the Paleolithic (approximately 24-17 thousand years ago).

What are the stone implements of this ancient Paleolithic culture? Let us remember that the sequence of stone processing by an ancient stonecutter is as follows: 1 - primary processing (splitting the workpiece, giving it its original, desired shape); 2 - secondary processing (giving the final shape to the product through additional chips and retouching). The end result is a specific set of tools needed for some purpose.

Researchers draw attention to the comparative primitiveness of the stone processing technique of the population of the Streltsy culture, which goes back to deep “Mousterian” antiquity (Mousterian), to the Neanderthal. This is evidenced, in particular, by the shape of the cores. It is “imperfect”: there are no cores of “modern form” (in the form of a truncated prism). Instead, there are cores from which the blanks were chipped not with vertical blows or squeezes, but with horizontal ones. The striking pads are uneven and sloping. This processing technique is typical of the Mousterian era, older and more primitive. Secondary stone processing is also more primitive - applying retouching.

The set of tools consists mainly of pointed points, side scrapers, massive bladed tools, scrapers, and leaf-shaped tools. There are also tools characteristic only of this culture - elegant triangular tips with a concave base.

In the later layers of the culture, new tools appeared (for example, piercing tools), rough and massive tools became a thing of the past, and tips with a concave base became more diverse. In other words, culture develops.

The dwelling of the Streltsy culture was also discovered. It was a light ground structure made of wood. Apparently, it was covered with animal skin. Stone and bones of large animals were not used for its construction. This type of housing was widespread in the first period of climate change throughout the Russian Plain.

Paleolithic researchers believe that the origin of the Streltsy culture is associated with the population of the southern regions - the Kuban and the interfluve of the river. Dniester. There are known monuments from the interglacial period, similar tools made of stone and techniques for processing them. This population moved to the northern regions - first to the Middle Don, then to the Oka. There, on the Oka, there is the famous Sungir site with a more developed culture than the Streltsy culture, but having much in common with it in the technique of stone processing and a set of stone tools. Because of this similarity, many people call it the “Streltsy culture,” and archaeologists associate the Sungir site with its origins with the population of the Streltsy culture. There is an assumption about the further advancement of this population to the north, to the banks of the river. Pechora (Kanivets, 1976; Bader, 1978).

How did the people of the Streltsy culture live? There is little data, but most of the bones at the sites belong to the wild horse, which was the main object of hunting. Weapon - a spear or dart with a flint tip. The Sungir people also used spears made from mammoth tusks, the striking force of which was enhanced by flint inserts.

But among the stone implements of the Streltsy culture, small tips were also found, the length of which was 2-2.5 cm. Others have a length from 3 to 6 cm. More than a hundred similar tips were discovered at one of the sites in Kostenki (Gmelinskaya). They completely replicate large spear and dart tips. Are these arrowheads? Paleolithicists A.N. Rogachev, N.D. Praslov, M.V. Anikovich believe that these are arrowheads (Praslov, 2006). The Gmelin site is more than 22 thousand years old. More than 400 arrowheads have been collected from the Solutrean layers of caves in Spain. In terms of their parameters and stalks, they are similar to the arrows of the Bronze Age. N.D. Praslov draws attention to the fact that in the rock paintings there are no large animals hit by arrows, but only medium-sized animals (a bow and arrow is most effective for medium-sized animals). Although the arrows are not depicted as clearly and clearly as we would like, there are no such arrow signs on rhinoceroses and mammoths. No remains of bows were found (these finds are absent or rare for other eras). It is difficult to isolate them in rock paintings due to the schematic nature of the images.

As a result, it is likely that the bow and arrow were invented long before the time “allotted” by scientists - 10 thousand years ago, at the end of the Ice Age. The bow and arrows could have been invented in connection with the need to effectively hunt fast horses, bison, and fur-bearing animals (Praslov, 2006, p. 41).

Kostenkovo-Spitsyno culture. Named after the locality and the surname of the famous Russian archaeologist - A.A. Spitsyn, who opened one of the sites near the village. Borshchevo. The finds of this culture lie in the same layer as the finds of the Streltsy culture. They are believed to have existed at the same time. How does this culture differ from the Streltsy culture?

During the initial processing (creation of cores), people of the Spitsyn culture received a more perfect core in the form of a truncated prism. Plates from such a core were chipped or split off by vertical chipping or spalling. The secondary processing technique is different (applying retouch). But the main thing is that the culture lacks Mousterian forms of tools and stone processing techniques. And in this regard, the culture seems to be more developed than Streltsy.

Why did people use different stone processing techniques at the same time? Some “dragged out” the legacy of the Neanderthals and outlived them for a long time, while others somehow immediately made the leap to more advanced tools and methods of processing them. The reasons for this phenomenon are unclear. According to A.N. Rogachev and M.V. Anikovich, this is due to different paths of transition from the Mousterian era to the late Paleolithic (Paleolithic of the USSR, p. 182). On this path there could be (or were absent), for example, traditions, habits, as well as the origin of people, their way of life. The example of the Spitsyn cult is not an isolated one. The same rapid leap from Moustier was made by the Aurignacian culture in France.

The set of animal bones is varied, and no species are singled out, like the horse in the Streltsy culture: mammoth, reindeer, bison, saiga, arctic fox, hare, horse, wolverine.

Above the volcanic ash in the upper humus (the period of the last warming) there are Paleolithic sites, which also belong to different cultures. The increasingly developing Streltsy culture continues to exist, increasingly freeing itself from the legacy of Mousterian, but new ones have also appeared. One of them is Gorodtsovskaya.

Gorodtsovskaya culture. In this new culture, the traditions of the Mousterian era are preserved. But what is noteworthy: the Mousterian stone processing technique is different among representatives of the Streltsy and Gorodtsov cultures. It is believed that the differences in the Streltsy and Gorodtsov cultures are associated with different traditions of different Mousterian groups (Paleolithic USSR, 1984, p. 183). But there is no need to talk more specifically about this due to the lack of sufficient archaeological information. Gorodtsovtsy were horse hunters and less likely to hunt mammoths. There are many bone tools, and in general the culture looks more developed than the Streltsy of the same time, which was outliving its Mousterian traditions.

But the flourishing of Paleolithic cultures occurred at a later time. Archaeologists call this time the “middle period of the Upper Paleolithic.” The absolute chronology of this period is determined by researchers in different ways. But, in general, it fits within the framework of 24,000-17,000 thousand years before the present day. In addition to the expansion of the range of stone tools and the widespread use of bone, figurines of animals made of bone - mammoths, images of the head of a bear, a cave lion - appeared. It was during this period that long-term dwellings using mammoth bones became widespread. And another phenomenon is the appearance of figurines - figurines depicting women. We will return to them after considering the “housing issue” of people of the Middle Upper Paleolithic.