Karacharovskaya camp. Upper Paleolithic. Karacharovskaya site, Rusanikha site, Sungir site. Art, ornament, symbolism, astronomy

06.11.2019

EAST EDEN

The Sumerians called Eden Dilmun. The root "mun" (mund) is clearly traced in the word Dilmun. This is the name of the aboriginal tribes of northern Hindustan, the Munds, who preceded the Dravidian tribes who mastered South India. Dilmun is the mainland of Sunda (Southeast Asia, most of the islands of Indonesia, part of the Philippines and possibly Japan and Sakhalin).

“And the Lord God planted a paradise in Eden in the east; and put a man there…”

The descendants of Adam were expelled from the First Eden into the harsh and cruel outside world. They went to the country of Shinar, which scientists most often identify with Sumer in southern Iran. The scene of the events that took place after the expulsion of the descendants of Adam from the First Eden is a region called the Levant.

The four rivers mentioned in Genesis 2:10-14 are Kezel-Uizhun (Pishon), Gaikhun/Araks (Gihon), Tigris (Hiddekel) and Euphrates (Perith). It is safe to say that the biblical Garden of Eden (in the Russian version - paradise) was located in the valley of the Aji-Chay River (in ancient times called the Meydan Valley) in that region of northwestern Iran, the region whose capital is Tabriz.

- Levantine Aurignac A. 38.000 - 30.000 BC
- Barado culture. 38.000 - 16.000 BC e. The Zagros Mountains region on the border of Iran and Iraq. It is considered an early version of the Aurignacian culture. Proto-Shanidar tribes of Paleodravids.
The appearance of the Upper Paleolithic industry in the Shanidar (Baradost) cave is dated approximately 32 thousand years ago, and its development can be traced up to 25 thousand years ago. A large series of dates has been obtained for the Baradost layers of the Yafteh Cave (southwestern Iran). The deepest date is more than 40 thousand years ago; the youngest is 21,000 ± 800 years old.
- In the "fertile crescent" zone (Sinai), the common or "Eurasian" language began to break into dialects 38,000 years ago.
OK. 38,000 BC e. Homo Sapiens moved towards Europe and reached the headwaters of the Danube (Germany. Aurignac).
Caves in Swabia, in the upper reaches of the Danube, brought rich archaeological trophies. Scrapers, awls, drills and two flutes made of bones were found there.

UPPER PALEOLITHIC
40-10 thousand years BC

The first people on the territory of the Vladimir region appeared in the era of the Upper Paleolithic, about 30-25 thousand years ago. At this time, following the retreating glacier, primitive man actively developed the central regions of the Russian Plain. The climate was more severe than modern, because. the entire north of Eastern Europe was occupied by a glacier. In the Oka-Klyazma interfluve stretched cold steppes with copses of spruce, pine and birch. The fauna was represented by mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, bison, wild horse, saiga, reindeer, arctic fox, brown bear, wolf, white hare, wild chicken, black grouse and silver gull.

The basis of the Upper Paleolithic man's economy was collective driven hunting for large herd animals and gathering. In the Vladimir region, three settlements of the Upper Paleolithic era are currently known:
Karacharovskaya site near Murom;
Rusanikha parking lot within the boundaries of Vladimir;
Sungir site on the outskirts of Vladimir.

Parking Karacharovskaya

The first people came to the lands of the Lower Oka after the retreat of the glacier, in one of the periods of climate warming, twenty-five to thirty millennia distant from our days. Settlers came from more southern territories, probably from the banks of the Don. The climate was much colder than today, since the glacier was relatively close, occupying the entire north of Europe. The main landscape in the Lower Poochie was grassy steppes with small coniferous-deciduous copses; the map of water streams and reservoirs was very different from the modern one. The fauna of that time was very diverse and more in line with modern tundra and the tundra zone. Reindeer, lemmings, arctic foxes were found here; steppe antelopes - such as saiga; forest dwellers - wolves, hare hares, as well as now extinct mammoths, wild horses and woolly rhinos.

North-eastern part of the city of Murom, near the village. , the left root bank of the Oka river. The size of the monument, as well as its current state, is unknown. The parking lot was explored in 1877-1878. . The collection consists of flint tools, cores, flakes, and faunal remains. The tools were made of brown, yellow, and tobacco boulder flint, mostly on blades, less often on flakes.

Among the tools are angular, lateral and median incisors, scrapers, knives, plates, incl. with retouching, points, etc. Nuclei are predominantly small in size. Also found were large core-like objects made of pebbles, intended for removing blades and flakes. Some tools are treated with double-sided retouching. The site is characterized by the presence of plates with a curved profile. Among the faunal remains are the bones of a mammoth, a woolly rhinoceros, and a reindeer.

The dwellings were above ground, with a wooden frame, which was covered with animal skins. The main material for the manufacture of tools and weapons was flint; tools for working stone and numerous tools for butchering meat, hides, processing wood, bone and leather, as well as rather elegant darts, were made from it. Mammoth bone, horn and tusk were used to make spearheads and darts, household items and jewelry - bracelets, pendants, beads. Small sculptures of animals were carved from bone at a high artistic level. Burials of the inhabitants of the camp, accompanied by things and decorations, were also found on Sungiri.

Parking Rusanikha

On April 30, 1981, in the course of earthworks during the preparation of a site for the construction of a machine-assembly shop on the right high bank of the Rpen, a site of a primitive man of the Paleolithic era, called Rusanikha, was discovered.
The northwestern outskirts of the city of Vladimir, the cape of the left root bank of the river. Rpen at the confluence of the Kuzyachka ravine into its valley, the Rusanikha tract. The dimensions are not determined, the height above the river is more than 50 m. The territory of the monument is built up. Investigated (L.A. Mikhailova, 1981) 56 sq.m. The cultural layer in the form of cloddy loam of gray, sometimes dark gray color with inclusions of coal, calcined bones and ocher, has a thickness of 0.65-0.70 m, lies at a depth of 2.48-3.18 m from the modern surface, can be interpreted as an ancient zone of soil formation.
More than 900 objects have been found, mainly from flint, as well as from slate, quartzite, flask, incl. 163 tools made mainly on flakes, less often on blades. Among the tools, chisel-shaped tools made of massive flakes of flint or shale predominate. A significant number of scrapers with a rounded working edge have been found. Other stone tools include side-scrapers, scrapers, incisors (middle and lateral), piercers, drills, a chipper, and cutting tools. A spearhead made of mammoth tusk and a bone spatula were found.
The faunistic remains are represented by the bones of a mammoth (predominate), a wild horse, and a reindeer.
Remains of bonfires and a hearth pit were found.
According to the conditions of occurrence of the cultural layer, its character, features of stone tools, the monument is very close to the Sungir site located relatively nearby and can be attributed to the same period of the Upper Paleolithic.
Interpreted by L.A. Mikhailova as a temporary camp for mammoth hunters.

In the upper reaches of the river there was an old tract "Rusalka", where back in the 19th century, at the beginning of summer, the favorite holiday of the ancient Slavs Kupala or Rusaliya took place. This holiday is characterized by colorful round dances with the monotonous and dull tune of old songs, and on the night of Ivan Kupala - by lighting fires and jumping over them. If among the pagan Slavs, according to ancient concepts, fire had a cleansing power, then later this rite had a different meaning: “whoever jumps higher over a bathing fire will have higher bread.”
Archaeological observations in this tract made it possible to find on the surface of the earth several fragments of ceramics, characteristic of the city of Vladimir of the XII-XIII centuries, indicating that the Rusalka tract was not a deserted place during this period of time.

Parking lot Sungir

The Sungir site was opened in 1955 during the development of a clay quarry at the Vladimir Dry Brick Pressing Plant. Since that time, its systematic excavations began. They were led by a complex expedition headed by ON Bader. Now more than three thousand square meters of the cultural layer, located at a depth of 2.7-3.5 meters, have been excavated. What scientists found during the excavations (over 50,000 individual items) allows us to restore the life of an ancient person with almost exhaustive completeness.
Today, scientists have evidence that this is a multi-layered archaeological monument, reflecting at least eight millennia (from 20 thousand years to 28 thousand years ago), during which primitive hunters stopped at Sungir. This is one of the northernmost Upper Paleolithic settlements on the Russian Plain. Parking age approx. 29 - 25 thousand years.

The remains of only 8 individuals were found at the Sungir site.

Sungir 1 (Sungir1). 25 - 29 thousand years. Homo sapiens.

A skull has been preserved from the first burial women lying by the stone, a spot of ocher and a few bone beads.
- The second burial, located under the first, belonged to an adult man 50 - 60 years old. Tribal leader. The deceased lay on his back in an extended position. With him, a flint knife, a scraper and a fragment of a bone object were laid.

Sculptural portrait of a man from the Sungir site. Reconstruction by M.M. Gerasimov.

The powerful physique of the Sungir 1 man is surprising. With a height of 180 cm, he was much stronger than a modern person and wider in the shoulders - the length of his collarbone was 190 mm. According to morphological features, these are modern-looking people, similar to Cro-Magnons of Western Europe. According to the somewhat flattened facial skeletal-nasal bones, one can speak of some plaque mongoloid or the origin of these traits.

The chemical analysis of the mineral part of the bone tissue of the remains showed a rather high concentration of copper and cadmium, which indicates the presence in the diet of ancient people of a significant amount of invertebrates, marine arthropods and mollusks. Also, the presence of trace elements indicates a large specific part of plant foods. But where could seafood, vegetables and fruits come from in the polar tundra? It is possible that the first Cro-Magnons came from the south.

The Sungir skull is similar to the male skull No. 101 from the upper grotto in Zhoukoudian village. Skull #101 from current races is similar to Ainu, and from fossils - to the people of the late Paleolithic of Europe. Of the modern populations, Sungir is close to equatorials(Australians, Africans).

On it lay numerous beads made of mammoth tusk.
“If you make an infusion from the leaves of sorrel and immerse the bones, horns or tusk of a mammoth in it, then after six weeks they can be cut like a tree. Taken out of the solution, they harden again after four days.
The placement of the beads, which retained their original position, made it possible to reconstruct the clothes. The costume consisted of a non-open shirt, trousers connected with shoes, and, possibly, a raincoat. On his head was a hat, richly decorated with beads made of tusk and drilled fox fangs. On her arms were thin tusk bracelets and strings of beads. Under the knees and on the ankles, bandages of beads were also traced. On the inside of the legs, sewn beads formed long stripes connecting pants and shoes. In total, more than 3,5 thousand beads were sewn. Such richly dressed dead in the Paleolithic are unknown. The skeleton was heavily covered with ocher.

Next to him were flint wedges, weapons with elaborate decoration, amulets. Right there lay a spear made of mammoth bone, 2.4 meters long and surprisingly completely straight. The silhouette of a saiga carved from stone.

The ritual object was found in the grave near Sungir. This is a large hollow bone, in which the joints are broken off, which is why it has become a cylinder. Its cavity is densely packed with ocher powder. But the most amazing thing is that this is ... a piece of Neanderthal tibia. Paleoanthropologists, supporters of hostile relations between the two branches, interpret this finding as an important argument in their favor. But in those days there were many other reasons for the death of a completely friendly person.

Reconstruction of the clothes of a Sungir man.

Many features of the morphotype bring the Sungirese closer to modern Arctic populations and, in part, to Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) - a taxonomic association of hominins (European and some Asian paleoanthropes) of time from 200 or 130 to 35 thousand years.

Our region is located in the Volga-Oka interfluve. Modern science cannot say exactly when the first people appeared here. They did not yet know how to write, so they did not leave behind any written evidence, but in the places where they lived, the remains of dwellings, primitive tools and weapons, as well as burials were preserved in the ground. These material monuments of the past mankind are studied by a special science - archeology. Anthropologists help archaeologists, who, using the remains of skeletons and skulls of ancient people, can restore their appearance, trace how this person changed.

Back in the 19th century Scientists in the most ancient history of mankind identified a period called the Stone Age, which was conditionally divided into Paleolithic (ancient stone claim), Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), Neolithic (New Stone Age). The Stone Age began about 2 million years ago.

At that time, the climate of the earth was very different from the present, which influenced the way of life of ancient mankind. In the period from about 75 to 10 thousand years ago, a powerful glacier was located to Europe, the ice thickness of which exceeded 1000 m. On the outskirts of the glacier there was a tundra zone with marshy plains and a large number of small lakes; then came the cold steppes and forest-steppes. The animal and plant world was completely different than at present.

Archaeologists have established that already in the era of the late glaciation on the territory of our region there were sites of primitive people - Karacharovo, Rusanikha, Sungir. They are dated to the late, or upper, Paleolithic - approximately 25-30 thousand years ago.

At the end of the 19th century, one of the first Russian archaeologists, Count A.S. Uvarov, explored the site on the banks of the river. Oki about with. Karacharovo (near the city of Murom). There were found bones of a mammoth, a reindeer, a woolly rhinoceros, as well as stone tools. In the XX century on the banks of the river. Rpen, on the northwestern outskirts of Vladimir, another site was discovered - Rusanikha. Mostly animal bones were also found here. Scientists have suggested that it was a small temporary camp of mammoth hunters.

A real sensation was the opening of the Sungir site on the outskirts of Vladimir. Quite by chance, when preparing a foundation pit for a brick factory, bones of large animals were found, lying in places in an even layer 15-20 cm thick. In 1956, the study of the site began, which lasted almost 40 years. For more than 20 years, the excavations were led by Otto Nikolaevich Bader, one of the largest experts in the Stone Age.

Judging by the finds, Sungir was a hunting camp. A large number of bones of mammoth, horse, arctic fox, and reindeer were found here. The Sungir people hunted with the help of spears and darts, and butchered the carcasses with the help of long (about 40 cm) knives made from mammoth tusk. Most often, during excavations, tools for processing animal skins were found - scrapers, piercers, knives, awls. The processed skins were then used to make clothes and shoes. Some of the most durable skins were used in the construction of dwellings. Most likely, these were temporary collapsible structures such as chum or yurts with a wooden frame. In total, traces of four dwellings with hearth pits were found on Sungir.

The most unique finds on Sungir are burials: one is an adult man, the second is a pair, a boy and a girl.

The remains of a man about 55-65 years old were found first. This fact is already unique, since the average life expectancy of a person during the Paleolithic period was supposedly 20-25 years. The skeleton is very well preserved. On it, in seven rows in full length, lay 3.5 thousand beads made of mammoth tusk. With the technique that the Sungirets had (a knife and a flint drill), it took at least 30 minutes to make each bead. Therefore, a person had to work for almost 73 days without a break in order to decorate his clothes in this way. In a period when the main task was to obtain food, a person simply could not afford to spend more than two months in such an unproductive way. Probably, the found burial contained the remains of a non-ordinary member of the tribe.

According to the location of the beads, the researchers restored the clothes of the deceased. It was a blank (without a cut) parka-type shirt, with fur or suede, long pants and leather shoes. On his head was a cap embroidered with fox fangs, on his hands were bone bracelets. The entire burial was densely covered with red ocher (a natural mineral dye) up to 3 cm thick.

The second burial is a pair. It contained the remains of a boy 12-13 years old and a girl 7-9 years old, lying with their heads to each other. Here, too, beads were found - 7.5 thousand, a layer of ocher, bone bracelets. The children's clothing is similar to the clothing from the first burial, but it was supplemented by fur cloaks - capes, which were torn off on the chest with a special bone hairpin; the girl had a bandage embroidered with beads and a hood on her head, and the boy had no waist - a belt decorated with fox fangs.

Even more surprising than the burial rite was the grave goods found in the grave. First of all, these are two spears made of split mammoth tusks (242 and 166 cm). Even modern science cannot give a definitive answer on how these tusks could be straightened. In addition, the grave contained darts, daggers, animal figurines made of bone, and disks with slotted holes. One of them was put on a dart - probably some kind of ceremonial sign, although their definite purpose has not been established.

The most famous was the so-called Sungir horse. This is a small flat figurine in bone, resembling a pregnant horse in silhouette. The contour of the figurine is drawn with even indentations, and a through hole is made on the hind leg. Perhaps the “horse” itself served as an amulet, it was sewn onto clothes or tied by threading a thin vein through the hole.

Another surprise was presented by the study of skulls from burials. A method of restoring the appearance of a person from the preserved bone remains has long been developed, including the restoration of the soft tissues of the face from the skull. This is done in special laboratories by paleoanthropologists (scientists who study the physical structure of ancient people). They concluded that the adult male belonged to a Caucasoid race with individual features of a Mongoloid (the so-called "Eastern Cro-Magnon"); the boy was also Caucasian, but had some Negroid traits, the Negroidity was even more pronounced in the girl. Anthropologists suggest that these are Neanderthaloid features, that is, the features of a Neanderthal man, a Middle Paleolithic man who lived approximately 300 to 35 thousand years ago. Consequently, during this period, in the era of the late Paleolithic in Europe, a modern type of man (Cro-Magnon) coexisted with Neanderthals.

After the ancient Stone Age, our region has never been deserted for a long time. From the period of the Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) there were sites of the VIII-VI millennium BC: Elin Bor (on the banks of the Oka, 25 km from Murom), Mikulino, Petrushino (near the village of Tyurvishchi, Gus-Khrustalny district). A settlement near the village of Panfilovo (Murom region) has survived from the New Stone Age (Neolithic). The Bronze and Early Iron Ages are represented by settlements and burial grounds near the village of Shishovo (now within the city of Kovrov), the village of Borisogleb (Murom region), Pirovy Gorodishchi ( Vyaznikovsky district), etc.

For thousands of years, the ethnic composition of the ancient inhabitants of the region has changed. Archeology does not provide reliable information about this. One thing is certain that in the era of the early Iron Age, our region was inhabited by the ancestors of the Finno-Ugric tribes known in Russian chronicles under the names of Mordvins, Muroma, Merya and all.

The Paleolithic era in the Murom region of the Vladimir region. It is located near the suburb of the same name of the city of Murom on the left bank of the Oka River. The first scientifically studied Upper Paleolithic site in Russia.

The exact dimensions of the monument and its current state are unknown. The parking lot was investigated in - years. A. S. Uvarov. He found flint tools, cores, flakes, faunal remains. Tools are made of boulder flint of brown, yellow, tobacco colors mainly on blades, less often - on flakes. Among the tools are lateral, angular and median incisors, scrapers, knives, blades, including those with retouching, points, etc. Nuclei are predominantly small in size. During the survey of the site, large core-like objects made of pebbles were also found, intended for removing plates and flakes. Some tools are treated with double-sided retouching. The site is characterized by the presence of plates with a curved profile. Among the faunistic remains were found the bones of a mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer. Items found in the parking lot have replenished the collections of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the State Historical Museum.

In addition to the Karacharovo site, the following sites belong to the Gmelin interstadial (23,000-21,000 years ago) in the center of the East European Plain: and 2, layer Kostenok 1 complexes 1-4, Kostenki 13, Kostenki 18, Kostenki layer 1, Eliseevichi 1 and Eliseevichi 2, Oktyabrskoye 2 layer 1, Novgorod-Severskaya, Klyusy, Avdeevskaya complexes 1 and 2.

Literature [ | ]

Archaeological map of Russia: Vladimir region. - Moscow: Institute of Archeology RAS, 1995. - 384 p.

Karacharovo- an archaeological monument, a Paleolithic site in the Murom district of the Vladimir region. It is located near the suburb of the same name of the city of Murom on the left bank of the Oka River. The first scientifically studied Upper Paleolithic site in Russia.

In addition to the Karacharovo site, the following sites belong to the Gmelinsk interstadial (23,000-21,000 years ago) in the center of the Russian Plain: , layer Kostenok 1 complexes 1-4, Kostenki 13, Kostenki 18, Kostenki layer 1, Eliseevichi 1 and Eliseevichi 2, Oktyabrskoye 2 layer 1, Novgorod-Severskaya, Klyusy, Avdeevskaya complexes 1 and 2.

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Literature

Archaeological map of Russia: Vladimir region. - Moscow: Institute of Archeology RAS, 1995. - 384 p.

Notes

An excerpt characterizing Karacharovo (parking)

Sadly shaking his head, Sever smiled affectionately.
– You yourself know the answer to this question, Isidora... But you won’t give up, even if such a cruel truth frightens you? You are a Warrior and you will remain so. Otherwise, you would betray yourself, and the meaning of life would forever be lost to you. We are what we ARE. And no matter how hard we try to change, our core (or our foundation) will still remain the same as our ESSENCE really is. After all, if a person is still "blind" - he still has a hope to see the light someday, right? Or if his brain is still asleep, he may still wake up someday. But if a person is inherently “rotten”, then no matter how good he tries to be, his rotten soul still crawls out one day ... and kills any of his attempts to look better. But if a Person is truly honest and courageous, neither fear of pain nor the most evil threats will break him, since his soul, his ESSENCE, will forever remain as brave and as pure, no matter how mercilessly and cruelly he suffers. But his whole misfortune and weakness lies in the fact that since this Man is truly Pure, he cannot see betrayal and meanness even before it becomes obvious, and when it is not too late to do something ... He cannot foresee, since these low feelings are completely absent in him. Therefore, the brightest and most courageous people, Isidora, will always perish on Earth. And this will continue until EVERY earthly person begins to see clearly and understands that life is not given for nothing, that one must fight for the beautiful, and that the Earth will not become better until he fills it with his goodness and decorates it with his labor, no matter how small or insignificant it may be.

But as I already told you, Isidora, this will have to wait a very long time, because so far a person thinks only about his personal well-being, without even thinking about why he came to Earth, why he was born on it ... For every LIFE , no matter how insignificant it may seem, comes to Earth with a specific purpose. For the most part - to make our common HOUSE better and happier, more powerful and wiser.
“Do you think the common man will ever be interested in the common good?” Indeed, for many people this concept is completely absent. How to teach them, Sever? ..
– This cannot be taught, Isidora. People should have a need for Light, a need for Good. They must want to change themselves. For what is given by force, a person instinctively tries to quickly reject, without even trying to understand anything. But we digress, Isidora. Do you want me to continue the story of Radomir and Magdalena?

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Parking Karacharovskaya

North-eastern part of the city of Murom, near the village. Karacharovo, left root bank of the Oka river. The size of the monument, as well as its current state, is unknown. The parking lot was explored in 1877-1878. A.S. Uvarov. The collection consists of flint tools, cores, flakes, and faunal remains. The tools were made of brown, yellow, and tobacco boulder flint, mostly on blades, less often on flakes.

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Parking Rusanikha

North-western outskirts of the city of Vladimir, the cape of the left root bank of the Rpen river at the confluence of the Kuzyachka ravine into its valley, the Rusanikha tract. The dimensions are not determined, the height above the river is more than 50 m. The territory of the monument is built up. Investigated (L.A. Mikhailova, 1981) 56 sq.m. The cultural layer in the form of cloddy loam of gray, sometimes dark gray color with inclusions of coal, calcined bones and ocher, has a thickness of 0.65-0.70 m, lies at a depth of 2.48-3.18 m from the modern surface, can be interpreted as an ancient zone of soil formation.
More than 900 objects have been found, mainly from flint, as well as from slate, quartzite, flask, incl. 163 tools made mainly on flakes, less often on blades. Among the tools, chisel-shaped tools made of massive flakes of flint or shale predominate. A significant number of scrapers with a rounded working edge have been found. Other stone tools include side-scrapers, scrapers, incisors (middle and lateral), piercers, drills, a chipper, and cutting tools. A spearhead made of mammoth tusk and a bone spatula were found.
The faunistic remains are represented by the bones of a mammoth (predominate), a wild horse, and a reindeer.
Remains of bonfires and a hearth pit were found.
According to the conditions of occurrence of the cultural layer, its character, features of stone tools, the monument is very close to the Sungir site located relatively nearby and can be attributed to the same period of the Upper Paleolithic.
Interpreted by L.A. Mikhailova as a temporary camp for mammoth hunters.

Parking lot Sungir

Today, scientists have evidence that this is a multi-layered archaeological monument, reflecting at least eight millennia (from 20 thousand years to 28 thousand years ago), during which primitive hunters stopped at Sungir. This is one of the northernmost Upper Paleolithic settlements on the Russian Plain. Parking age approx. 29 - 25 thousand years.

The remains of only 8 individuals were found at the Sungir site.

Sungir 1 (Sungir1). 25 - 29 thousand years. Homo sapiens.

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Sculptural portrait of a man from the Sungir site. Reconstruction by M.M. Gerasimov.

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Reconstruction of the clothes of a Sungir man.

Kostenkovsko - Streltsy culture (Kostenki XV). Among the flint tools, of particular interest are triangular points with two-sided processing and with a concave or oval base. These tools mainly served as the basis for attributing Sungir to the Streltsy culture. In other types of tools, no great similarity between these sites was traced. In addition to tips, there are incisors, scrapers, side-scrapers, chisel-shaped tools. The splitting technique (according to O.N. Bader) is primitive. Nuclei are amorphous, not prismatic. Almost all tools are made of boulder flint. According to O.N. Bader and A.N. Rogachev, Sungir most likely refers to the late stage of the Streltsy culture.

Of the Upper Paleolithic neoanthropes, the Sungir has a certain similarity with Oberkassel (height 176.7 cm) and some men of Pshedmost (Pshedmost XIV. Height 176.1 cm).

In many external features, the Sungir burial is very similar to the burial of the same time from the Arena Candide site (Italy, 23,000 BC). Also, the anthropological features of the skull of a teenager from Arena Candide resemble the typological features of the Sungir boy. First of all, noteworthy is the strong alveolar prognathism on both skulls, which is expressed in a significant protrusion of the upper jaw. The contradictory combination of a rather strong protrusion of the nasal bones with a low nose bridge complements the unique appearance of both boys.

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Sculptural portraits of a girl and a boy from the Sungir site. Reconstruction by G.V. Lebedinskaya and T.S. Surnina.

Sungir 2 and Sungir 3 (Sungir 2. 3). 25 - 29 thousand years. Homo sapiens.

Pair burial of a boy in an extended position 12-14 years old and a girl 9-10 years old. Both were buried at the same time, this is evidenced by the objects placed in the grave and, most importantly, mammoth tusk spears, which are longer than human skeletons. At other sites and in the cultural layer of Sungir, such tools or even their fragments were not known. The length of the first spear is 2.42 m, the second one is 1.66 m. In addition to the spears, each of the skeletons had several darts and daggers made of mammoth tusk. Children's clothes were richly decorated with beads, bracelets, rings and other jewelry were on their hands. The boy is wearing a belt with decorations - pendants - 250 teeth of a fox. Bracelets, rings on fingers, etc. Near the girl's skeleton there is a miniature spear made of straightened mammoth tusk and lion's claws with holes. Wands, darts and flint points. Children are dressed in furs. The girl has them decorated with bone beads - 5200 beads. A bone needle with a hole and two "dart straighteners" were found.

The finds of Sungir more clearly than other Paleolithic sites testify to the existence in the 30th millennium BC. religions: "animism, belief in an afterlife, totemism, magic, ancestor worship, worship of the sun and moon, lunar calendar and arithmetic calculation."

Sungir 5

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Sculptural reconstruction made on the skull of a man (Sungir 5) // Lebedinskaya G. V. The appearance of distant ancestors: Album of sculptural and graphic images. - M.: Nauka, 2006. - S. 59.

Art, ornament, symbolism, astronomy

Rare works of primitive art are found figurines of animals - a mammoth and a saiga horse.
In the burial of a girl and a boy, three ritual discs with a diameter of several centimeters, made of mammoth tusk, were found. The discs have four or eight slots running from the periphery to the central hole and located opposite each other. One disc contains ten asymmetrical slots with respect to the center. Bone discs were found on the girl's head and body.
Mammoth tusk discs contain a geometric ornament, about which V.I. Larichev, in particular, reports: “Art objects, combined with significant records of calendar and astronomical content, are highly information-rich sources for studying the intellectual and spiritual spheres of life of the aboriginal population of the north of Eurasia. They appear at the early stage of the Upper Paleolithic (34 - 24 thousand years ago - the Syi and Malta cultures of Siberia; the settlement of Sungir - in the north of European Russia), remain remarkable products of artistic creativity of the early and late Middle Ages and are preserved until ethnographic modernity.

Items similar to the Sungir disks are found in all periods of ancient and modern history, mainly in relation to the habitat of the Slavs. Disks and circles, geometrically divided into equal 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 sectors, are currently typical Slavic symbols. For example, a 4-sector disk symbolizes the god Khors - an indication of four key astronomical events: the spring equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox and winter solstice. 6-sector disk - Perun's wheel. 12-sector disk - a symbol of the god Kolyada (calendar).
“Such persistent adherence to the same informational traditions is simply explained - in such objects of art, fundamental, not to be forgotten information about the temporal and spatial ideas of the creators of cultures of the pre-literate history of mankind was imprinted. What is often perceived by archaeologists as examples of artistic creativity or cult-ritual, symbolic (votive) style of objects, is, in reality, a semblance of canonized, sacred nature of "compositions", in which, through images and signs, the most essential and hidden was fixed ( sacred) from everything known in Nature and man, in the relationship between people and the surrounding world (temporary rhythms of economic and cult-ritual actions; systems of natural science and religious ideas).

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Slotted discs. mammoth tusk

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Slotted disc from the excavations of the Paleolithic site of Sungir. The disk is 25 thousand years old.

Size: d-5.5 cm, thickness - 0.3 cm.
Excavations in 1969 at the Paleolithic site of Sungir (Dobroselskaya) near the city of Vladimir. Was in the northern burial, on one of the bone darts. Author of the find: O.N. Bader.
Slotted disc from mammoth tusk. It has one central round hole d-0.8 cm and 8 radial holes 1.3 x 0.7 cm in size, elongated and tapering towards the center.
IS HE. Bader suggests that colored straps or fox tails were attached to the slots of these discs, worn on spears or darts, and these darts served as a kind of ceremonial emblems or had some special ceremonial significance.
The disc was found in a paired burial of teenagers at the Sungir site. Along with other similar disks, zoomorphic figurines, bone beads, bracelets, rings, etc., it was part of the grave goods.

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Works of primitive art.

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Figurine of a horse (saiga) from the excavations of the Paleolithic site of Sungir. The figurine is 25 thousand years old.

Material, technique: mammoth tusk, carving, grinding, drilling.
Size: H-5.6 cm, thickness - from 4 to 1 mm.
Found during archaeological excavations in 1957 at the Paleolithic site Sungir (Dobroselskaya) near the city of Vladimir. Author of the find: O.N. Bader.
A flat zoomorphic figurine decorated with a dotted ornament and painted with ocher. The surface of the figurine is carefully polished. On the hind leg there is a through hole, d-2-2.5 mm, made by double-sided drilling. The animal is shown schematically, in profile, each pair of legs is depicted as a wedge-shaped protrusion.
It was used as an amulet pendant, as evidenced by the strong polished surface. The front part of the head is sharpened almost like a blade, which suggests some kind of production function of the object.
Widely known as a symbol of the Sungir site.

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"Wand" from the excavations of the Paleolithic site of Sungir. 25 thousand years.

Material, technique: mammoth tusk; carving, grinding, drilling.
Size: H-18.5 cm, width: max - 4.8 cm, min - 1 cm, thickness - 1.1 cm.
Excavations in 1969 at the Paleolithic site of Sungir (Dobroselskaya) near the city of Vladimir. It was located in the northern burial, on the left side, in the abdomen of a girl. Author of the find: O.N. Bader.
"Wand" made of mammoth tusk, having a quadrangular head (5 x 4.5 cm), in the center of which there is a round hole d-2.3 cm. . The "Wand" most likely had a ritual purpose. IS HE. Bader believes it is "a kind of belt buckle".
On the front side of the product, along the circumference of the hole on the head, along both sides of the head and up to the middle of the handle, there are shallowly drilled round dots.
The “Wand” was found in a paired burial of teenagers at the Sungir site. Entered, along with other "rods", zoomorphic figurines. »

Tools of labor (flint)

Religion

People were buried with observance of the most complicated funeral rites. The discovered rich and diverse material provides unique data on the way of life, religious beliefs and rituals of our ancestors. The finds of Sungir more clearly than other Paleolithic sites testify to the existence in the 30th millennium BC. religions: "animism, belief in an afterlife, totemism, magic, ancestor worship, worship of the sun and moon, lunar calendar and arithmetic calculation."

The number of decorations accompanying the deceased is extremely increasing. For each buried 25 - 28 thousand years ago, there are an average of 4 - 5 thousand beads, pendants, amulets and other jewelry, carefully and skillfully made from animal teeth, mammoth tusks and soft rocks.

The paired burial of adolescents has a mirror structure. In the cultural layer of another Upper Paleolithic settlement - Gagarino (Upper Don, Voronezh region) - an unfinished figurine made of mammoth tusk was found, which depicts two human figures in a similar pose - touching their heads. The double image is associated with the Proto-Slavic fertility cults, namely, with the myths about twins - the Slavic twin gods Kupalo and Kupalnitsa (brother and sister; the Kupalo holiday is celebrated on the night of June 21-22). This burial ritual is associated with fertility cult.

Karacharovskaya camp. Upper Paleolithic. Karacharovskaya site, Rusanikha site, Sungir site. Art, ornament, symbolism, astronomy

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