During the Ice Age, the climate of Siberia was cold and dry. The lack of moisture prevented the accumulation of thick snow and ice layers. Therefore, the glaciers here did not have such huge sizes as in Europe. On the outskirts of the glacier, vast tundra-steppes stretched for hundreds of kilometers, turning south into the forest-steppe. During the interglacial period, the climate warmed considerably and became humid. Glaciers melted, tundra moved north. The dominant position in the vegetation cover was occupied by dark coniferous and broad-leaved forests. Numerous herds of herbivorous animals grazed in the boundless Siberian expanses: mammoths, woolly rhinos, reindeer, bison, wild horses. In such natural conditions, the development of Siberia by primitive man began. But nature is not just a background against which ancient history Siberian tribes, but the necessary material basis for their existence, from which a person drew all the necessary life resources - food, clothing, housing, warmth, light.

It would be surprising if in this country, which nature so generously endowed with animals, a person did not appear long ago.

The settlement of Siberia by man was a long and very complex process, it had to come from various areas Asia and Europe, where the evolution of man and his culture has long been taking place.

One route ran from Central Asia along the Pamir and Tien Shan mountain ranges. In Central Asia, favorable conditions for the life of the most ancient people developed early - it was here, in the Caspian lowland, at the foot of the Kopet-Dag and the Iranian plateau, in the basin of the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya, groups of Neanderthals have long been widespread.

The second route ran from the south, from the Mongolian steppes. Behind them was East and Southeast Asia - the birthplace of Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus. From Mongolia, the Gobi and the Mongolian Altai, the road opened to the Tibetan Plateau, to the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, behind which lay Northern India. It is not surprising, therefore, that on the monuments of the culture of the most ancient, Upper Paleolithic, inhabitants of Siberia, known to us at the present time, a connection with the east and south of Asia can be traced. No less definite about the connection with the southern regions of Asia, specifically with Central Asia, and through it with the Middle East and the Mediterranean, other elements of the Late Paleolithic culture of Siberia, especially in the Altai and Yenisei, also testify.

By the beginning of the Quaternary European glaciation, conditions were favorable for the penetration of Paleolithic man into Siberia and from the west, from the regions of the Western Urals and the Russian Plain.

It follows that the settlement of Siberia by Paleolithic people did not come from one center and not in one direction, but at least from three centers, in three directions: from Central and Southeast Asia, from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The time of the initial settlement of the southern regions of Siberia, according to the latest data, is determined by the early Paleolithic (160-130 thousand years BC).

It was a Neanderthal man - Homo neandertalensis. The basis of his economy was hunting, which became a reliable and main source of livelihood. They hunted mainly mammoths, rhinos, horses, deer. The relative imperfection of hunting weapons was largely compensated by both collective forms of hunting and the abundance of fauna. Along with hunting, gathering was widespread. Vegetable food occupied a significant place in the diet of ancient people. Conducting a collective hunting-gathering economy, living together in cave shelters required from paleoanthropes a sufficiently developed social organization, the existence of a natural division of labor by sex and age, certain norms for the distribution of food products, and orderly sexual intercourse.

The most interesting Late Paleolithic sites in Siberia are the sites of Malta and Buret in the Angara region. These are long-term settlements connected by the unity of culture with solid semi-dugout dwellings built using the bones of large animals, wood and stone slabs. hallmark The Malta-Buret culture is a highly developed Paleolithic art: female figurines carved from mammoth ivory and bone with emphasized signs of gender (some of them are depicted dressed in fur clothing such as overalls), figurines of flying and swimming birds, various ornamented decorations.

No less interesting traces of an ancient man were found in Altai in the Ust-Kanskaya cave and at the site in Gorno-Altaisk, the oldest known site in Siberia today.

New historical era- the Neolithic (New Stone Age) began in Siberia 7-6 thousand years ago. In most parts of Siberia, forests rich in animals and birds are widespread. The deep rivers abounded with fish. The climate was much warmer and milder than today. Siberian nature in the era of the New Stone Age favored the life of primitive hunters and fishermen. It was at this time that a person is mastering the most remote corners of North Asia.

The Neolithic era was marked by the progress of hunting and fishing. An effective hunting weapon - a bow and arrows - became widespread. Productive net fishing in many areas became the leading branch of the economy, which made it possible to switch to a relatively settled way of life. The population of the most remote Siberian regions masters new methods of stone processing: grinding, drilling, sawing.

One of the main tools is a polished stone ax for the development of forest areas, and pottery appears. It is these economic and technological achievements that constitute the historical content of the Siberian Neolithic.

The chronological framework of the Neolithic era is different for individual regions of Siberia. Starting 7-6 thousand years ago, the Neolithic in the III-II millennium BC. e. almost everywhere it is replaced by the era of early metal, but in Chukotka and Kamchatka it continues until the 1st millennium BC. e.

For three millennia of the Neolithic era, man completely mastered the entire territory of North Asia. Neolithic settlements have been found even on the Arctic coast. The variety of natural conditions from the Urals to Chukotka largely predetermined the formation of various cultural and economic complexes that corresponded to the specific landscape and climatic conditions of such regions as Western, Eastern and North-Eastern Siberia, the Far East. Within the framework of these peculiar historical and ethnographic regions, archaeologists distinguish several cultures: the Eastern Urals - in the forest Trans-Urals and adjacent regions of Western Siberia, the Middle Irtysh - in the middle reaches of the Irtysh, and the Upper Ob - in the forest-steppe Ob region.

The presence in Western Siberia of long-term settlements with semi-dugouts testifies to the sedentary nature of the Neolithic population. A large number of hunting tools and prey processing speaks of its significant role in the local economy. The main object of hunting was the elk, and this was reflected in fine arts. The image of an elk is embodied both in the small plastic art of the Trans-Urals and in the stone engravings of the Tomsk pisanitsy. Apparently, these images were based on primitive hunting magic.

In the second half of the III millennium BC. e. V southern regions Siberia, the first metal products appear, marking the end of the Stone Age. The first metal from which people learned to make tools was copper. The period of distribution of tools made of copper and its alloys ( various kinds bronze) received in the archaeological periodization the name of the era of early metal.

The article uses materials from the site irkipedia.ru and protown.ru

The oldest and longest era in human history is the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age). In time, it coincides with such a geological period in the history of the Earth as the Pleistocene. The beginning of the Paleolithic is very difficult to identify, because. it is associated with a long process of separating a person from the natural world (anthropogenesis) - a phenomenon whose causes have not yet been unambiguously explained in science. The process of anthropogenesis began a very long time ago (about three million years ago). Over a huge period of time in appearance, mental and instrumental activity, human behavior, his public organization there have been drastic changes.

Settlement of the West Siberian Plain. In general, it was uneven: individual territories (Gorny Altai, the Kuznetsk Basin) were already inhabited in the Lower Paleolithic. The closer to the modern geological epoch (Holocene), which began about 10 thousand years ago. n., the greater the climate and natural conditions The West Siberian Plain resembled modern ones. Many animals rushed here, including, of course, mammoth and bison - one of the main commercial species of that time. Following them, to the north, to new areas for themselves, a man also moved. Thus, in the center of the West Siberian Plain, in comparison with its immediate surroundings (for example, with Gorny Altai), man appeared relatively late - at the end of the Paleolithic era. This was already a man of the modern anthropological type, with a complex and developed complex of material culture, various labor skills, and surprising researchers with its depth and richness of spiritual life. The main reason for the relatively late settlement of the West Siberian Plain lies in the geological features of this region. Here, there was almost no quality stone raw material suitable for the manufacture of tools. All the main types of tools at that time were made of flint or jasper, obsidian, or siliceous slate, close to it in quality. People used those small reserves of stone that they brought with them from the surrounding territories (either from the Urals or from Northern Kazakhstan), or quartz pebbles, from which small tools could also be made. The absence of raw materials was especially strongly felt on the territory of the Ob-Irtysh interfluve.

How valuable stone tools were for people can be judged by the following fact: a broken tool was not thrown away, but a new, but smaller tool was made from the wreckage.

For a long time, a point of view was widespread in the archaeological literature, based on the assumptions of some geologists, that main reason relatively late human development of the West Siberian region was its flooding by a huge ancient lake-sea, formed as a result of the damming of the ice shell in the north of the flow of West Siberian rivers. Studies of geologists and archaeologists in recent decades at various Paleolithic sites of the West Siberian Plain (with accurate fixation of the location context and radiocarbon dating) have led to the conclusion that such a huge lake-sea simply did not exist (otherwise some sites would have to be located at a depth of more than 100 m) . However, the question of the existence of an ancient lake-sea that covered the West Siberian Plain in the Upper Paleolithic remains debatable.

Let us dwell on the fauna of Western Siberia of the Paleolithic era. The totality of animal species that surrounded the Upper Paleolithic hunters is called a faunistic complex. The most typical representatives of the Upper Paleolithic faunistic complex of the West Siberian Plain were mammoth, reindeer, bear, bison and woolly rhinoceros. All these animals were commercial species for ancient hunters who used their meat for food, and skins and bones for other purposes. Of course, the most impressive sight of this complex were mammoths. Judging by the remains found at some sites (Volchya Griva, Shestakovo), the proportion of mammoth bones exceeds 90% of all animal bones. About mammoths modern science a lot is already known. These data were obtained not only from the analysis of thousands of scattered bones and many dozens of more or less intact mammoth skeletons, but also from the study of whole carcasses that have been found more than once in the permafrost layer in northern Siberia. The carcasses of these animals are sometimes so well preserved in the permafrost that local dogs are happy to eat their meat frozen in a natural “refrigerator”. The only problem is that the mammoth carcass thawed in the distant tundra should be discovered in time (before it is decomposed and eaten by wild animals) and taken to the laboratory for study.

Good luck accompanied Russian scientists several times. So, in 1910, the remains of one of these mammoths were brought by the expedition of the Academy of Sciences from the north of the Yakutsk region. They have been carefully studied by paleontologists. A thick layer of subcutaneous fat and thick wool protected the mammoth from the polar cold. His stomach was full of remnants of sedge, caustic buttercup and other types of polar grasses and small shrubs.

Mammoths are characterized by a massive head, a steep hump over the front shoulder blades and huge tusks (i.e. incisors), often with spirally curved tops. The length of the tusk sometimes reached four meters, and the weight of a pair of tusks was about 300 kg. The body of the mammoth was completely covered with thick wool of black-brown or reddish-brown color, especially lush on the sides. Thick and long red hair hung from the shoulders and chest. A skin taken from an animal would take up approximately 30 m2. The weight of mammoth bones (without tusks) was 1.5 tons, and the weight of the carcass reached 5 tons. Mammoths were excellently adapted to the conditions of the Arctic nature of that time. In the spaces adjoining the solid ice sheet, which in their landscape characteristics resembled the modern tundra, they found abundant food (grasses and shrubs). According to experts, a mammoth consumed up to 100 kg of plant food per day.

Paleolithic sites of the West Siberian Plain. To date, more than thirty Paleolithic sites are known in this territory. This is much less than in the territories adjacent to the plain.

Most of the sites belong to the Late Paleolithic. Based on the radiocarbon dates available today, the Late Paleolithic localities of the West Siberian Plain can be divided into three conditional groups.

Before all - in 1896 - the Tomsk site was opened on the territory of the city of Tomsk. It was accidentally discovered by the zoologist N.F. Kashchenko thanks to the finds of large mammoth bones. N.F. Kashchenko drew attention to the presence of coals and traces of fire in the soil. He realized that the site of an ancient man had been discovered, and began excavating it, which he carried out so carefully that they are still considered exemplary. Excavation plans were drawn up, the depth of the finds was recorded, all samples of interest to the researcher were taken for analysis and preserved. The age of the site was determined from the coals -18.3 ± 1 thousand years. N.F. Kashchenko collected 200 small flint tools and bones of one mammoth on an area of ​​40 m2. The researcher came to the following conclusions: 1) the parking was short-term (several days); 2) one mammoth was killed, part of which was eaten on the spot; 3) the hunters left, taking with them separate parts of the carcass; 4) the main part of the mammoth remained uncut (it lay on its left side).

The Shikaevka II site is located in the Kurgan region on the shore of a lake in the basin of the river. Tobol. Its radiocarbon date is 18,050 ± 95 years ago. Two almost complete mammoth skeletons were found here, as well as the bones of a wolf, a saiga and a reindeer. 35 tools made of jasper and intended for cutting were found at the site. Everything indicates that the parking lot was temporary. There are two interpretations of this monument. According to one of them, mammoths were found dead and frozen, and people removed their skins with tools and left. According to the second interpretation, the mammoths were killed; skins and part of the meat were removed from them.

The Mogochino I site was discovered in the Tomsk region. It was covered with layers up to 8 m thick. Bones of a mammoth, horse, reindeer, woolly rhinoceros and other animals were found here. During the excavations, more than 1.3 thousand stone items (cores, incisors, scrapers, etc.) were found. Researchers believe that this is a place of short-term parking. Its age, determined by stone products, is 16-17 thousand years. Perhaps the site is older, since the radiocarbon date for the mammoth bone is 20150 ± 240 years ago.

One of the most fully studied to date is the Shestakovo site. It is located in the southeastern part of the West Siberian Plain, on the right bank of the river. Kii (a tributary of the Chulym River). The total area of ​​the excavation was 680 m2. Numerous remains of the mammoth fauna and finds of the Upper Paleolithic period (various tools, cores, chips) are associated with the lower part of the section. Apparently, a person lived in this place for a long time. There are a significant number of dates for various cultural horizons of the site, from 25,660 ± 200 years ago to up to 18040 ± 175 years ago The Lugovskoye locality is an accumulation of remains of Pleistocene mammals. It is located near the Lugovsky, 30 km west of the city of Khanty-Mansiysk. Here, on the mane, which crosses the stream, more than 5 thousand bones of mammoths, woolly rhinos, horses, bison, reindeer and wolves were found. Mammoth bones predominate quantitatively (more than 98%). Together with the bones, 300 stone items were found. The age of the location is 10-30 thousand years.

The Wolf's Mane monument is located in the Kargatsky district of the Novosibirsk region. It was discovered in 1957 by local residents and studied by paleontologists and geologists. Archaeological excavations were carried out in 1967 and 1968. under the direction of A.P. Okladnikov. In 1975, the monument was examined by V.I. Molodin, and since 1991 - V.N. Zenin. The monument is of different times: from 17,800 ± 100 to 11,090 ± 120 years. During excavations, large accumulations of animal bones were found. They belonged to about fifty mammoths and one wild horse; single bones of a bison and a wolf were found. Some of the bones have traces of human activity, many fragments could serve as tools.

In the first year of the excavations, flint tools were not found, so A.P. Okladnikov even spoke of a “bone Paleolithic” specific to this area. In the second year of research, two small flint flakes were found among the bones. This indicated that the population knew flint, but flint tools, apparently, were in great short supply and were highly valued. Now the collection consists of 37 stone items, half of which are tools. A.P. Okladnikov believed that here archaeologists are dealing with a large settlement of Paleolithic man. Further excavations of the monument are hampered by the fact that a modern village is located above it.

At the settlement of Chernoozerye II, excavations were carried out in 1968-1971. V.F. Gening and V.T. Petrin. The monument is located on the banks of the Irtysh in the Sargat district of the Omsk region. The cultural layer of the site is divided by sterile layers into three horizons, which indicates the repeated cessation and resumption of life in the settlement. During the study, stone tools were found, the remains of dwellings with large rounded hearths were found. One rectangular dwelling had an area of ​​10 m. In its center was an oval pit-hearth. In total, 11 hearths were unearthed on the site, many of which were heated with bones. Tools made of quartz pebbles were found. Stone tools of all horizons are extremely close to each other and are represented by scrapers and blades. Particularly stand out are the sites on which the tools were made. Found fragments of bones of various animals (elk, bull, horse, fox, hare) and fish. Mammoth bones were not found here. The settlement, according to geologist S.M. Zeitlin, dates back to 10.8 - 12 thousand years ago. This site also has a radiocarbon date of 14,500 ± 500 years.

The settlement of Chernoozerye II yielded exceptionally interesting finds. Objects of art were found here - so far the only ones for the Paleolithic of Western Siberia. These are the remains of two bone diadems with a polished front surface. They are drilled through holes for attachment to the headgear. The edges of the diadems are ornamented with a zigzag line. The dagger is a magnificent example of bone carving art. On its faces there are grooves for flint liners. In the central part, a longitudinal line is drawn, made of holes and three rhombuses closely adjacent to each other.

Of exceptional interest is the monument Vengerovo-5 in the Novosibirsk region on the banks of the river. Tartas. Research here was carried out under the guidance of V. I. Molodin. During excavations of a later ground burial, a pit about 2 m deep was discovered. It was filled with bones and skulls of bison, which lay interspersed with stone tools. Fish bones and scales were found at the very bottom. The filling of the pit was separated by sterile layers. Obviously, the pit was used intermittently. IN AND. Molodin suggested that the pit had no economic purpose and, most likely, is the remains of an ancient sanctuary. The monument is synchronous with the Chernoozerye II and Volchya Griva sites.

Cultural and economic characteristics of the Paleolithic of the West Siberian Plain.

Received in last years The materials suggest that the settlement of the West Siberian Plain began from the southern and southeastern regions 100-120 thousand years ago, and possibly even earlier. It came from Altai, Kazakhstan and, probably, from Central Asia. The Paleolithic period 10-11 thousand years ago ended.

The youngest site of this era is Chernoozerye II. It can be considered transitional to the Mesolithic period.

The Upper Paleolithic period is the time of human penetration into the central and southwestern part of the West Siberian Plain. People engaged in hunting came here after the animals that had moved from the areas of the mountain frame. These animals were mammoth, bison, wild horse, etc. Obviously, initially people came here for a short time. It was difficult to live permanently in Western Siberia due to the lack of good-quality stone raw materials for the manufacture of tools, and it was still impossible to make expeditions for it from permanent habitats. Therefore, the hunters chose a convenient site for themselves and repeatedly settled for a certain period, building dwellings with hearths here. An example of this is the Chernoozerie II monument, cultural layer which was interrupted by sterile layers. It is possible that they had to leave because of the spring floods. That is why all Paleolithic sites found are divided into two groups: 1) short-term sites, where people lived for only a few days; 2) places where people periodically engaged in economic activities, sometimes completely leaving the parking lot, and then returning.

The population was engaged in hunting, mainly for large animals. But, judging by the bone remains, they also ate hares, saigas, etc. At the end of the Upper Paleolithic, people were also engaged in fishing (fish bones and scales appeared among the remains). Undoubtedly, ancient population Western Siberia could also be engaged in gathering, but there is no archaeological evidence for this yet.
On the territory of Russia, Upper Paleolithic burials have been discovered at a number of sites, but they are still unknown on the territory of the West Siberian Plain. The absence of burials does not give us the opportunity to judge the anthropological features of the population of Western Siberia in the Paleolithic era.

MESOLITHIC

There is no unambiguous relation to the use of the term Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age) in archeology. Some scholars consider it unjustified to single out this stage in the development of the ancient cultures of Siberia and the Far East, therefore, in their periodizations, the final stage of the Late Paleolithic is immediately followed by the Neolithic. Other researchers (L.P. Khlobystan) believe that the Pleistocene (Paleolithic) cultures replaced the Holocene, the so-called. epipaleolithic cultures. The Epipaleolithic is no longer the Paleolithic, but what immediately followed it, retaining the features of Paleolithic cultures.

Without going into a discussion on this matter, let us explain that, in singling out the Mesolithic as a separate period in the archeology of the West Siberian Plain, we relied on a complex of features, including features of the archeological proper (for example, the nature of the stone industry). Under the Mesolithic of the West Siberian Plain, we understand the phase of human development and the forms of its socioeconomic and environmental relations. This phase was limited, on the one hand, by the change geological epochs(Pleistocene to Holocene), when the landscape and climatic environment of man changed dramatically, which led to a qualitative change in the forms of adaptation to new conditions, and on the other hand, the appearance of ceramics and polished stone tools, already characteristic of the Neolithic era.

Early Holocene - a great time fundamental discoveries in the history of mankind. The population of many regions of the Earth has switched to a settled way of life. Along with the further improvement of stone processing techniques, bows and arrows were massively distributed. In the Near and Middle East, as well as in certain regions of Central Asia, during this period, the first human experiments in the domestication (domestication) of many plant and animal species were carried out. In Siberia, this was not yet possible due to too harsh conditions, so only a dog was domesticated here. There were tools for mass fishing - nets. Sledges and boats with oars spread widely.

So, in Western Siberia, the Paleolithic era in the X - VIII millennium BC. changed the Mesolithic. The absolute dates given here are rather arbitrary, since the formation of new traditions was associated with global climate changes, which led to a radical change in landscapes and the forms of their development by man. These climatic changes took place in the vast expanses of Western Siberia, firstly, gradually, and secondly, unevenly.

However, the Ice Age is over and climatic conditions became similar to modern ones. Mammoths and other representatives of the "mammoth fauna" disappeared.

Several Mesolithic monuments are known on the territory of the West Siberian Plain. They were found on the Yamal Peninsula, in the Ishim-Tobolsk region, in the Baraba forest-steppe, on the Middle Irtysh and in the Kuznetsk basin. These monuments are brought together by the fact that the nature of stone tools has changed. Relatively large forms were replaced by miniature tools. The smallest knife-like plates served as inserts in bone and stone foundations. It can be assumed that for the forest-steppe of Western Siberia, with its developed technique of combined tools, such a turn of events facilitated the adaptation of man to new conditions. However, the lack of stone raw materials remained very acute.

During the Mesolithic era began new stage economic development of the West Siberian Plain. Man made extensive use of bows and arrows, with which he hunted fast-moving animals. Deer and elk became its main prey. The importance of fishing has increased. A new technique for making tools, the liner, became widespread. All these elements of culture were laid down at the very end of the Paleolithic, but became widespread precisely in the Mesolithic.

A new wave of settlement of the West Siberian Plain came from the south, from Kazakhstan and from the Urals.

Man has moved far to the north. The features of the settlement of the region are clearly visible when compared with the neighboring Trans-Urals. In the Trans-Urals, which was poorly populated in the Paleolithic era, a large number of Mesolithic sites have been discovered. A significant number of stone tools made from local material were found here. Few sites have been found on the territory of the West Siberian Plain that can be attributed to the Mesolithic era. Parking lots are located unevenly: closer to the Trans-Urals there are much more of them. Thus, the main flow of the population from the south was directed to the Urals and much less towards Western Siberia.

Parking lots sometimes began to be located in groups on the terraces of rivers and lakes. The number of settlements in the group could be significant. An example is the Yuriinsky lakes, located in the Tyumen region on the border with the Trans-Urals. More than 30 settlements were found here at a close distance from each other.

On Yamal, L.P. Khlobystin explored the locality of Korchagi 16 (the right bank of the Ob River downstream from Salekhard). A complex of tools was found here, including several cores, a large side-scraper and side-scrapers. Near this accumulation, a carbonaceous interlayer was found, which, along the section, lies above the deposits containing Mesolithic finds (i.e., it can be either synchronous with them or younger). The absolute age of coal taken from this interlayer is 7260 (± 80) years ago.

A group of sites was found in the taiga zone - on the river. Conde. Semi-dugouts and ground dwellings have been excavated here. One of them is two-chamber, with a corridor and a hearth. The cultural layer of the settlements was thick and contained several thousand small stone tools.

In the Irtysh region, the Chernoozerye VIa site is known, located near the Paleolithic site of the same name. The parking lot was long. The Mesolithic microlithic tools found here were made from high quality raw materials. Here, 779 items (mostly inserts) were found, most of which were made from North Kazakhstan jasper. In the Middle Irtysh region, several more localities with finds of the Mesolithic appearance (microlithic) are known. These are mainly collections from eroded lake terraces, but a site with a cultural layer was also found - Big Ashchi-Kul II.

In the Kuznetsk Basin, during the study of the Bolshoy Berchikul I site, V.V. Bobrov singled out a complex of tools and cores among the material of different times, the closest analogues of which are known from the materials of the Mesolithic sites of the Middle Trans-Urals. The late ("survival") Mesolithic in the Tomsk-Narym Ob region, the forest-steppe of the Irtysh region and the Kulunda steppe is represented by such sites as Bolshoy Ashchi-Kul I, Shcherbakulskoye, and others. Along with them, polished items were found that were not widespread in the "classical" Mesolithic, but were widely known in the Neolithic era.

conclusions

The development of the territory of the West Siberian Plain by modern man began in the era of the Middle Paleolithic. However, most of the Paleolithic sites in the region known today date from the Upper Paleolithic. The sites testify to the short-term residence of people and are divided into two groups: places where people engaged in hunting stayed for several days, and settlements where a person was engaged in economic activities, but periodically left them and then returned.

In the Mesolithic era, the West Siberian Plain was populated from the south. At the same time, the territory of the Trans-Urals turned out to be more densely populated, which was due to the presence of good stone raw materials. On the territory of the West Siberian Plain, the western part turned out to be the most populated by people.

Gening V.F., Petrin V.T. Late Paleolithic epoch in the south of Western Siberia. - Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1985.
Derevyanno A.P., Markin S.V., Vshchiksya G.A. Paleolithic studies: introduction and basics. - Novosibirsk: I [auka, 19U4.
Zenin V.I. The main stages of the development of the West Siberian Plain by Paleolithic man // Archeology, Ethnography and Anthropology of Eurasia. - Novosibirsk: Publishing house of IAET SO RAI. 2002. - No. 4 (12). -WITH. 22-44.
Okladchikov A.P., Molodin V.I. Paleolithic of Baraba // Paleolithic of Siberia. - Novosibirsk: Nauka, 1978.-S, 9-19.
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Mesolithic USSR. - M .: Nauka, 1989. S. 136 - 143.

1851 Was born Alexey Parfyonovich Sapunov- historian, archaeologist and local historian, professor, one of the initiators of the creation of the Vitebsk Scientific Archival Commission, the Vitebsk branch of the Moscow Archaeological Institute, the Vitebsk Church Archaeological Museum.

Days of death

1882 Died Viktor Konstantinovich Saveliev- Russian archaeologist and numismatist, who collected a significant collection of coins.

Paleolithic era

The Paleolithic (Old Stone Age) got its name from the Greek words "paleo" - ancient and "lithos" - stone. This is the first and longest period in the history of mankind, which began about two million years ago.

Human settlement of Siberia. The process of settling Siberia by early Paleo-humans was very long and complex. It was carried out from the regions of Central, Central and East Asia adjacent to Siberia and, possibly, through Southern Urals from Eastern Europe.

The finds made by archaeologists give us the opportunity to judge what tools the ancient man used. These were crude, primitive, chopping tools, almost unworked, made from flakes of large stones by padding. At the same time, the ancient man already knew how to make fire by friction, drilling, carving Rozin V.M. Culturology. 2nd ed., revised. and additional - M.: Gardariki, 2003 - 189 p.

The mastery of stone and fire allowed a person to switch to the use of bone and wood, to acquire some independence and settled way of life. Ancient man used natural shelters as a dwelling: grottoes, rocky canopies, gorges. And in the parking lots, where there were no such shelters, huts and canopies were probably built from tree branches.

The site of Elniki II (near the Sylva River), which is about 250-350 thousand years old, testifies to the penetration of the first people into the southern and middle Urals. culture siberia people

So far, no sites of the Paleolithic period have been found on the territory of the Tyumen region. It can be assumed: either they were not found, or the person came here much later. But on the example of the location of archaeological sites in Kazakhstan, Central Asia and Eastern Siberia we can recreate the picture of settlement primitive man in the east of our country.

Tools of labor of the ancient man. If earlier a person used his first tools of labor simply by grabbing them with his hand, then later these tools were attached to wooden handles. At present, archaeologists use a special method of studying the tools of labor of ancient people, called traceology. It lies in the fact that scientists, by the wear of the working surface of the tool, conclude what it was intended for. Belik A.A. Culturology. Anthropological theories cultures. - M.: Russian state. humanit. un-t., 2009 - 145 p.

Middle Paleolithic. At the same time, in addition to stone products, people began to widely use such materials as bone, wood, making from them: awls, arrowheads, points. People no longer go far from their places of residence, but develop nearby territories. Archaeologists have discovered cultural layers reaching a depth of up to 4 meters at the places of residence of a person of that time. This indicates a long stay of people in these places. During this period, the advancement of man to the middle and northern Urals begins.

The first burials of people also belong to the Middle Paleolithic era. The fact that the dead were buried near housing speaks of the birth of the first animistic ideas. (Animism - from the Latin anima - soul, a pre-scientific view of primitive peoples, according to which every thing has a soul. Animism underlies religious beliefs).

Late Paleolithic. The Neanderthal in the late Paleolithic era turns into a modern physical type of man, almost no different from us.

The Late Paleolithic era lasted from 40 to 10 thousand years before new era. This is the time of the formation of the major human races.

Man improves the forms of hunting: in addition to the old collective penned form, individual ones also appear, this is evidenced by the throwing tools used by them: darts, harpoons, spears. House building is being improved, long-term dwellings are appearing, deepened into the ground.

Rock paintings. Ideological ideas become more complicated - the first rock paintings in caves appear. These are images of animals: mammoth, horse, bull, camel; female figures, abstract drawings.

Forms appear in the Late Paleolithic primitive religion: animism, totemism and magic.

The problem of the settlement of Siberia in the primitive era

The process of settling Siberia was lengthy. Fossil people failed to gain a foothold in Siberia. At first half (southern part) of Siberia was settled. Approximately 12 thousand years ago, the inhabitants of Siberia moved to America (which is proven by genetics). Only a few thousand years ago people reached the coast of the Arctic Ocean, mastered the zone of the polar desert.

In Siberia, the first traces of man are found by the end of the Pithecanthropus era (in the Acheulean) 200-250 thousand years ago in the southern Amur region (the village of Filimoshki, Kumary). Pithecanthropus was already on his feet, had fire. Height 180cm, Vbrain - 1000cm3. The body of Pithecanthropus was already human, and the head was still animal. It was a hunter. Tools of labor - a club, a spear (a stick with an end burned at the stake), an ax (roughly upholstered pebbles), throwing stones.

200-150 thousand years ago, the natural and climatic conditions changed dramatically, the era of the Great Glaciation began (the glacier reached the middle of the Dnieper and Don). All natural and climatic zones were shifted to the south. The polar zone occupied a large space. In the south of our country there was a temperate climate. The Great Glacier occupied only 1/3 of the territory of Siberia (the lower reaches of the Ob, Yenisei and Lena). If pithecanthropes survived, then they evolved, or a new ancestral form of man appeared independently - the Neanderthal. Height 150, V brain - 1300-1500 cm3. Wide, strong. He knew how to build a dwelling, he had clothes, he learned how to make fire. He improved the percussion technique of working with stone. The set of guns has expanded significantly. Only for sewing clothes you already need a lot of tools (awl, scraper, etc.). He was a great hunter (hunted mammoths, cave bears, etc.). On the territory of Siberia, traces of the Neanderthal are found in the Amur region, in the Altai, Sayan Mountains (appeared later, 70-60 thousand years ago). The Neanderthal was in Siberia 20-25 thousand years. The Neanderthal did not gain a foothold in this territory, possibly due to competition with humans. modern type, as well as due to the lack of progress, excessive aggressiveness (continuous wars were waged), cannibalism.

30 thousand years ago - the appearance of modern people in Siberia.

general characteristics stone age in siberia

The Stone Age is an era in the history of mankind when stone was used as a material for the manufacture of tools. The Stone Age is divided according to the technique of working with stone into the Paleolithic (impact), Mesolithic (retouching, microliths) and Neolithic (grinding).

Until the 20th century the point of view prevailed that there was no Stone Age in Siberia. Even in the middle of the 19th century. Ivan Cherkassky found items made of stone and bone in Yakutsk. At this time, in Krasnoyarsk, Ivan Savenov found items made of stone and bone on Mount Athos. But European scientists did not believe this evidence. In the 20s. 20th century an ancient human site was discovered near Irkutsk, the villages of Malta and the village of Uret (20-25 thousand years ago). Since that time, no one could deny the Stone Age of Siberia. But the Stone Age of Siberia had its own characteristics:

The first people in Siberia appeared relatively late (about 250 thousand years ago, Pithecanthropes on the Amur)

Starting from the Mesolithic, there was a lag in the technique of processing tools

Siberians made the first great geographical discovery- discovery of America (about 12 thousand years ago)

In the Neolithic, a wide variety of cultural and economic areas

The Stone Age of Siberia in the tundra lasted a very long time (in some places until the 18th century).

Paleolithic. Represented by finds near the village of Malta. Found a complex of winter and summer dwellings. Winter dwellings were semi-dugouts (the largest d = 12m.), Deepened into the ground by 1.5m. Walls made of mammoth tusks and ribs. The base of the roof is reindeer antlers. From above they were covered with skins, and the skins were covered with turf. An opening in the roof served as an entrance, an exit, as well as a chimney. A rich burial of an infant with 2 rows of teeth was found under the hearth. Apparently, the Maltese were afraid of this baby, buried him with honors and left. Found 25 female figurines. In contrast to the full, obese figurines of the Neolithic, the Maltese were thin. One figurine has a face of the Mongoloid type.

Mesolithic (lasted until 6-5 thousand BC). The great glaciation ends, the glacier leaves, leaving the permafrost. Man settled the territory of Siberia up to the middle course of the great rivers. Gone are the stable (for a thousand years) sites. A wandering hunter leading a nomadic life comes to the fore. Therefore, there are no rich finds. They find hunting camps (traces of a fire, animal bones, rare finds of broken or lost tools). Percussion technique is preserved, there is no retouching. There is a bow and arrows, there is a dog. Fishing is most likely absent, because. there is no need for it (many migratory animals). It was believed that the Siberian Mesolithic was a regression compared to the Maltese Paleolithic. But by the end of the 20th century came to the conclusion that in addition to material culture, there is also a spiritual one, about which we know nothing.

In the Mesolithic, the main races finally formed. Siberia and adjacent areas from the south are the Mongoloid zone, from the Urals to the Volga - mestizo types, further to the west - Caucasoids.

Neolithic (5-4 thousand BC). Neolithic revolution - a change in the technique of working with stone (drilling, grinding). The invention of pottery, weaving, boats, skis, sledges. The beginning of hoe farming, cattle breeding. This is a collective portrait.

Man inhabits the entire territory of Siberia. In the Siberian Neolithic there was a Mesolithic technique of working with stone. At the end of the Neolithic, a man tamed a deer in 2 places - eastern Finland and north of the Sayans. They started riding dogs. A wide variety of cultural and economic areas is being formed:

West Siberian lowland (Ob and Irtysh basin): river fishing and hunting, in some cases fishing is a priority

East Siberian Plateau (taiga): mostly hunting (elk, deer, bear), little fish caught

Steppes of Siberia: in the Stone Age, people did not live in the steppes, they lived only where the territory was crossed by rivers. Only with the development of a horse and a cow is the steppe mastered

Tundra: few tribes lived, preserving the Mesolithic way of life of wandering hunters (Yukaghirs)

Polar desert: sea St. John's wort (seal, walrus, white whales - polar dolphins, narwhals, whales)

Shores of the Bering Sea: tribes of St. John's wolves (seals, sea otters - sea otters)

Coast of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk (warmer). Complex economy: fishing of anadromous fish (salmon: pink salmon, chum salmon, sea lion), hunting for land and sea animals, sea fishing (deep-sea mackerel), as well as gathering (regular and sea - seaweed, mollusks, crabs)

Shores of the Sea of ​​Japan, the mouth of the Amur: fishing and gathering

THE NATURE OF SIBERIA IN THE ICE AGE AND WAYS OF POPULATION BY HUMANS

The most ancient history of man takes place against the backdrop of major changes in nature, and the whole life of our most ancient ancestors was connected in one way or another with these changes; it is, as it were, "inscribed" in their framework. The time when the formation of man on earth takes place is called the anthropogen.

Anthropogene is divided into three stages. The first stage, the most ancient, the Eopleistocene (the dawn of the Pleistocene), lasted from the beginning of the Anthropogen to a strong cooling, which caused the development of the first ice sheet, known in Siberia as the maximum, or Samarovsk. The second stage, the Pleistocene, covers the time of glaciations and the interglacials separating them. The third stage, the Holocene, still continuing in our time, is associated with the formation of the modern physical and geographical situation in the post-glacial period. The initial stages of the past of the Siberian tribes, as far as we can trace them from the currently known archaeological sites of the Paleolithic era, proceeded against the backdrop of grandiose events. ice age, Pleistocene (see table). A few words must therefore be said about the Ice Age. By the time of the first ice sheet in Siberia, as researchers of glaciers and glaciologists believe, about half of present-day Europe turned out to be covered with a continuous cover, a massive “shield”. This ice sheet extended from british isles to the Urals and occupied an area of ​​about 5 million m 2. Its thickness reached 2 km.

Next to the European ice sheet lay the second one, the Taimyr one, up to 800 m thick, extending over 4 million m2. The dead ice desert, which at that time spread over hundreds and thousands of square kilometers where the rich and densely populated countries of Europe are now located, was more terrible than the most terrible hot deserts of our time - Asian and African.

This is how Greenland looks now, about which one of its researchers writes: “Greenland is the polar Sahara, in comparison with which the African Sahara is completely obscured. In this frosty desert there is not the slightest sign of animal or plant life, no rock fragments, no grain of sand. A traveler who, like me, wanders here for weeks, sees, besides himself and his companions, only the endless expanse of the snowy plain, the endless dome of the blue cold sky and the colder sun.

However, along the outskirts of the great glacier, the peculiar life of the glacial regions was in full swing. At the very edge of the ice, the devil began

extreme tundra, a country of swamps and endless lakes, shining like stars in the sky, among mosses and rare copses, consisting of low stunted bushes of polar willow, dwarf birch, and further to the east - Dahurian larch. Then came the same endless steppes. And, finally, in the far south, in the steppes and deserts of Central and Central Asia, where heaps of sand dunes now rise, pluvial periods, times of increased humidity and an incomparably milder climate than now, corresponded to ice ages. Here, everywhere, more often than now, it rained, numerous rivers flowed, and in the lowlands there were chains of lakes, of which only miserable remnants, salty reservoirs or dry drainless depressions have now survived.

Waterfowl and herds of hoofed animals found abundant food in the forest-tundra and tundra of the near-glacial region. Already along the very edge of the ice, musk oxen wandered in groups, the whole life of which passed on the ice massif. Departing from nastiness, summer time Thousands of herds of reindeer were walking towards the icy cliffs, from which the saving cold flowed. A real hunting paradise, a real eldorado for the primitive hunter, extended further to the south, from the edge of the glacier, where a peculiar, never-repeated "mammoth" faunistic complex took shape. In the first place in this "surprisingly sustained", according to zoologists, complex of animals that existed from Northern China to Spain, from the Laptev Sea to Mongolia, there were two giant extinct animals - a mammoth and a rhinoceros.

Of modern elephants, the mammoth was closest to the Indian elephant, but had a more clumsy body, a massive head, a steep hump above the front shoulder blades, and huge, often spirally bent tops up and inward tusks, i.e. incisors. The body of the mammoth was completely covered with dense hair of black-brown or reddish-brown color, especially lush on the sides, at the bottom of the body, where it looked like a continuous fringe of long hair. Ancient Siberian elephants - mammoths were excellently adapted to the conditions of the Arctic nature of that time. Thick wool protected them from frost. 1 In flood meadows they found abundant food in the form of juicy green grass; According to V. I. Gromov, one mammoth consumed up to 100 kg of plant food per day. In winter, as zoologists believe, they could get food from under the snow, raking it with tusks like a giant shovel. A contemporary of the mammoth and "his eternal companion" was a hairy or woolly rhinoceros. On its nose, in the form of a monstrous saber, a curved flat horn about a meter long rose. The second horn, smaller, sat on the forehead. Armed with this weapon, the hairy rhinoceros was truly fearsome because of its violent temper. There is still debate about what the third member of this fossil community of animals looked like. He was first called the "cave lion", but this name is not accurate enough, since he did not live in caves at all. This animal, apparently, did not have the striped coloring characteristic of the tiger, since it depends on adaptation to life in the reeds. and he lived in open steppe spaces. Such a form of mimicry would even be harmful, since it would reveal the proximity of predatory

1 V. E. Garutt, Fossil elephants of Siberia. "The Anthropogenic Period in the Arctic and Subarctic (Proceedings of the Scientific Research Institute of Geology of the Arctic)", v. 143, M., 1965. - Siberian mammoths are dated by radiocarbon analysis: Berezovsky-31 750 ± 2500 and 44 000 ± 3500 (second date); Taimyr - 11 450 ± 250; Sanga-Yuryakhsky - 29 500 ± 3000, 44 000 ± 3500; Bykovsky ("Adams mammoth") - 34450 ± 2500, 35800 ± 1200. It follows that the existence of early mammoths within 29-40 thousand years falls on the Karginsky interglacial and the end of the Zyryansky glaciation. The late mammoth, Taimyr, lived at the end of the Pleistocene, during the interstadial period within the Sartan glaciation, synchronous with Alleredu in western Europe and Tu-Kriku in America.

nick to his victims. Nevertheless, this huge extinct cat of the Ice Age must have combined in its structure the signs of a lion and a tiger, and at the same time all the qualities of these predators that made it a true scourge of all living things: the fury and strength of a lion, the dexterity, cunning and bloodthirstiness of a tiger . It was the true king of animals of that time, the lord of the extinct animal world of the ice age.

Along with mammoths and rhinoceroses in the steppes and tundras, not only reindeer herds peacefully grazed, but also herds of wild horses and wild

bulls. Together with them, in a bizarre mixture, animals of the deep Arctic and Central Asian deserts, mountainous regions and steppe spaces met: arctic fox and saiga antelope, bighorn sheep and red deer deer. At the same time, the farther from the glacier, the stronger the effect of the landscape conditions that developed in the zone of dry steppes, semi-deserts and deserts of Inner Asia. Behind Baikal, the fauna of the Upper Pleistocene was distinguished, for example, by the abundance of such animals as the saiga antelope, wild asses-kulans, or dzhigetai. Apparently, the rhinoceros lived here longer.

It would be surprising if in this country, which nature so generously endowed with animals, a person did not appear long ago. But how long ago and how widely people settled in Siberia is still unknown: the necessary factual data are still not enough for this. One thing is clear:

The evolution of Siberia by man was a long and very complex process, it had to come from various regions of Asia and Europe, where the evolution of man and his culture had already taken place for a long time. The most ancient ancestors of man, those ancient anthropomorphic monkeys to which our genealogy goes back, could not live in countries where forests grew with leaves falling for the winter, that is, in Siberia, Central and Central Asia. The process of distribution of the most ancient people and their development of new regions with a harsh climate also obviously required a significant amount of time, measured if not hundreds, then tens of thousands of years. It had to have as a prerequisite the active adaptation of man to the new conditions of existence.

But once begun, the settlement of ancient people to the north and east of Asia could no longer stop and had to take place with unstoppable force. The promotion of primitive hunters, of course, was based on a direct vital necessity: the very mode of production pushed them onto the path of bold searches. Remaining hunters and gatherers, they needed vast areas of land for their existence, and therefore population growth inevitably pushed its excess out of densely populated areas into areas with a more severe climate, but rich in game. This process was accelerated by the way of life and hunting conditions, which created a special psychology of wandering hunting tribes.

There were many obstacles in the way of the settled Paleolithic people. But even at the height of the Ice Age, there were ways along which ancient people could settle from old, long-settled regions into the depths of Siberian spaces.

The first such route ran from Central Asia along the Pamir and Tien Shan mountain ranges. Favorable conditions for the life of the most ancient people developed early in Central Asia. Therefore, it was here, in the Caspian lowland, at the foot of the Kopet-Dag and the Iranian plateau, in the basin of the Amu-Darya and Syr-Darya, that groups of Neanderthals, who used the characteristic Mousterian-Leval-Loisse methods of splitting flint, have long been widespread.

A wide road to the north of Asia was also open from the south, from the Mongolian steppes. Behind them was East and Southeast Asia - the birthplace of Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus. From Mongolia, the Gobi and the Mongolian Altai, the road opened to the Tibetan Plateau, to the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, behind which lay Northern India, the country of one of ancient cultures man - a mysterious soan with his rough pebbles - choppers. It is not surprising, therefore, that on the cultural monuments of the most ancient, Upper Paleolithic, inhabitants of Siberia, known to us at the present time, lies from beginning to end the imprint of ties with the east and south of Asia. These are, first of all, split and edged pebble-choppers, found from Chita and Ulan-Ude in the east to Gornoaltaisk in the west. Other elements of the Late Paleolithic culture of Siberia, especially in the Altai and Yenisei, also testify to the connection with the southern regions of Asia, specifically with Central Asia, and through it with the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

Even in the latest Paleolithic settlements of Altai, there are, for example, cores of Levallois forms and long plates corresponding to them, similar to those found in Kairak-Kum on the river. Syr Darya near Leninabad and in the Khodjikent cave near Tashkent. Very early, in any case, by the beginning of the Quaternary European glaciation, conditions were favorable for the penetration of Paleolithic man into Siberia and from the west, from the regions of the Western Urals and the Russian Plain. This is evidenced by the remarkable discoveries of Paleolithic painting in the Kapova cave near Ufa,

on the one hand, finds in Malta and in Buret, near Irkutsk, on the Angara - on the other.

It follows that the settlement of Siberia by Paleolithic people did not come from one center and not in one direction, but at least from three centers, in three directions: from Central and Southeast Asia, from Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

When exactly the first people appeared in Siberia is still unknown. Unlike neighboring Central Asia, Mongolia and China, no indisputable traces of the presence of a man of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic, or, in the language of Quaternary geology, the Lower and Middle Pleistocene, have yet been found in Siberia. Only four localities can now be noted that deserve attention in this respect. The first such location is the Malyi Kot pad in the valley of the river. Kuda, where a tooth of a trogontherian elephant, the predecessor of a mammoth, was found, and one rough stone product in the form of split pebbles, processed along the edge with chips, i.e. a typical chopper. However, there was no cultural layer in the true sense of the word, and the animal bones and the chopper were found not in the original occurrence, but in the ejection from the pit. The second is the Ust-Kanskaya cave in Altai. Here, along with the remains of the screw-horned antelope, points and disk-shaped cores of the Mousterian type were found. However, it is premature to date the finds in the Ust-Kanskaya cave to the Mousterian time, since things of the Mousterian forms "live" in the Stone Age of Siberia for a very long time, on the Yenisei - until the beginning of the Neolithic. The markhorned antelope also existed here in places in the Upper Pleistocene. Two other locations are interesting in terms of the nature of stone products and the conditions of their occurrence: one is in the city of Gornoaltaisk, on the river. Ulalinka, another - to the east of Altai, in the valley of the river. Zei, at the village Filimoshki. In Gornoaltaisk, on a steep ravine washed out by the Ulalinka river, a remarkable section of Quaternary deposits was discovered, at the top of which there was a layer with Upper Paleolithic tools, and even deeper lies a thickness of washed moraine pebbles. With this last layer

stones are connected, processed by man, but so unusual, so archaic in appearance, that tens of millennia clearly stretch between them and the tools of the upper cultural layer. These tools of the lower layer of the Ulalinsky section are oval flat pebbles of yellow quartzite, roughly chipped along one edge. In terms of the shape of the working edge, they resemble large oval side-scrapers common for the Paleolithic of Siberia, but differ from them in their emphasized primitiveness, expressed by the primitiveness of the manufacturing technique and form. The ancient man used the original pebbles in them in a ready, almost untransformed form. The only thing in which he showed himself and his creative will was a chipped blade, the bulge of the outline of which corresponds natural form pebbles. But this upholstery is fundamentally different from that which is characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic side-scrapers of the Siberian Paleolithic. It has a peculiar stepped appearance, and over the line of the blade hangs a cornice of raw stone from above: the processing of pebbles was clearly carried out by a paw as powerful as an inexperienced hand. With all the indisputable originality of such a form, we do not know anywhere else such primitive pebble scrapers. These strange things, in terms of the stinginess of the upholstery and the general primitiveness of the form, look like brothers of the most ancient tools - choppers from the Punjab and "pebble tools" of Africa. The more interesting is the geological setting in which they were found: under a thick layer of loess-like deposits, in a layer of washed and redeposited moraine material of some ancient glacier. As a rule, the oldest human tools are found redeposited in the secondary occurrence in other countries as well. If this ancient Gorno-Altai moraine can be dated to the epoch of maximum glaciation, then the products of the Ulalinsky man found in the moraine pebbles should be attributed to the time preceding the Mousterian, and perhaps the Acheulian culture, i.e., to the Lower Paleolithic. It can be assumed, in this way, that in Gornoaltaisk there are the oldest traces of a man known at present in Siberia, which in one way or another go in their source to those happy countries of the globe where our ancestor passed his true childhood, took the first steps from the beast to a person.

The last find of the same, and perhaps even more primitive artifacts of ancient man was registered at the opposite end of Siberia, in the Far East, in the Amur basin. The place where these finds were made is located where, perhaps, one would least expect the discovery of traces of activity. ancient man: in a harsh and inhospitable part of the Zeya valley at present, not far from the Bekdegeul char, famous in these places, on the top of which glacial cirques and abrasion ledges have been preserved. Unusual for the Siberian Paleolithic and the geological conditions under which were found

these products. As well as stone products on the river. Ulalinka, they ended up in a layer of ancient pebbles, possibly left over from a glacial moraine washed away by some ancient stream. The pebble bed rested directly on the bedrock of the Jurassic, and above it lay a thick layer of loose deposits.

All this clearly indicates the deep age of the finds from the lower pebble horizon. They are made up of three categories. The first includes pebbles processed with the utmost economy of effort in their design. They have only one lateral recess, formed by one or at most two blows of a chipping stone. The blows were made only on one side of the pebble and without any attempt to prepare the striking platform, directly on the smooth pebble surface of the stone. The pebbles of the second group show traces of more diligent and purposeful work, with the expenditure of great effort on the design of tools. They have not one, but two notches, between which a kind of massive point in the form of a beak or spout sometimes protrudes. These things, therefore, approximate in form to a kind of crude point or hand axe, incomparably coarser than the coarsest double-ended axes of the Schell type in Africa, South Asia, and Europe. The third group of processed stones from Filimoshki are similarly original pebble cores. These are simply pebbles, from which flakes and fragments broke off one after another with vertical impacts. The blows were usually applied from two opposite ends of the stone until the further flaking of the flakes became difficult or even impossible. Pebble cores of this kind are also incomparably coarser and more primitive than the most primitive Lower Paleolithic cores known in Africa, Asia and Europe.

But the more interesting is that the mysterious stone products from the valley of the river. Zei resemble in their shape and method of processing the pebble tools of Africa, in which many researchers see the most ancient human tools, preceding the axes and the Lower Paleolithic products accompanying them. Even closer to the stone artifacts found on Zeya are objects from the Vienna region and other places in Central Europe, which A. Rust and other researchers found in deposits of the Lower Quaternary time, which also contained the famous Heidelberg jaw, which belonged to a creature that stood at the level of Pithecanthropus, if not less. Among them were both pebbles with one lateral recess, and tools with two recesses and a spout between them.

In a number of cases, such things turned out to be in moraine deposits of the northern glaciation, including in the main moraine of the Wurm glacier. A. Rust explains this by the fact that they fell into the Würm moraine in the process of destruction by the Würm glacier of more ancient deposits of the time when a man of the Lower Paleolithic lived in Europe, a Heidelberger who lived 200-300 thousand years earlier than the oldest man in East Asia, Sinanthropus .

Unfortunately, we still do not have geological data at our disposal that would allow us to more accurately determine the age of the finds from the pebbles of the village. Filimoshka, but it is very likely that they actually belong to such a distant time, to that initial era of our history, when the formation of man and society took place, when man took his first steps towards overcoming dependence on nature and separating from the world animals.

Interesting as the finds noted above are, the fact remains that all other reliably dated remains human activity in Siberia, associated with fossil fauna and certain geomorphological conditions - with river deposits and ancient river terraces, are relatively young, Upper Paleolithic in age.

The earliest Upper Paleolithic settlements in Siberia belong entirely to a much later time - to the Upper Pleistocene - the second half of the Ice Age, to the era of the fourth, or Wurm, glaciation according to the Western European geological scheme. At this time, the whole appearance of Siberia, its landscapes and nature changed radically. The icy rice barrier has long since melted and the waters of the inland sea have subsided into the oceans. Along the channels laid by them, the Ob, Yenisei and Angara flowed to the north; successive ledges of cutting, river terraces were formed on their banks. The remains of the culture of Paleolithic man are connected with the river terraces of the Siberian rivers: the remains of his hunting camps, camps or camps. 2 Paleolithic settlements are unevenly distributed: clusters or a kind of "nests". The most numerous sites are on the Angara between Irkutsk and Balagansk: there are Malta, Buret, Military Hospital, Ushkanka, Resettlement Center, Verkholenskaya Gora, Badai, Cheremushnik, Fedyaevo, Krasny Yar. Paleolithic settlements are equally abundant on the Yenisei, where they are concentrated in two groups in the Krasnoyarsk region and in the south, in the Minusinsk basin. The most famous group of Yenisei sites is located in Krasnoyarsk, on Mount Afontova. The third large area of ​​distribution of the Paleolithic in Siberia is located in Altai, in the basin of the river. Katun: Joints, Fominskaya, Bektemirovskaya, Harvest, Ust-Seminskaya sites, Ust-Kanskaya cave; the fourth - on the Lena, between the villages of Biryulsky and Marchachan; the fifth - beyond Baikal, in the basin of the river. Selenga, from the lower reaches of this river and to the border with the Mongolian People's Republic, including on the tributaries of the Selenga, Chikoy and Uda. 3

MALTA AND STORM

On the Angara, the earliest in terms of their geological age are the settlements of Malta (near the village of the same name, on the left bank of the Belaya River) and Buret (on the right bank of the Angara River, near the village of Nizhnyaya Buret), located in the immediate vicinity of each other - they are separated by only 7-8 km in a straight line. These settlements are connected not only by neighborhood, but also by a truly twin unity of culture. The commonality of the culture of the inhabitants of these settlements is expressed in all its aspects, starting with the arrangement and layout of dwellings and ending with the style of art products, artistic worldview and ideology. 4

Just like the Upper Paleolithic hunters of the entire periglacial zone of Europe and Asia, the ancient inhabitants of the Angara lived in a kind of semi-sedentary way of life, completely different from the usual ideas.

2 V. I. Gromov. Paleontological and archaeological substantiation of the stratigraphy of continental deposits of the Quaternary period on the territory of the USSR (mammals, Paleolithic). "Proceedings of the Institute of Geology", Geological Series, vol. 64, No. 17, 1948, pp. 295-296.

3 N. A. Beregovaya. Paleolithic locations of the USSR. “Materials and research on archeology SSSL, No. 81, M.-L., 1960; G. P. Sosnovsky. Paleolithic sites of North Asia. "Proceedings of the II International Conference of the Association for the Study of the Quaternary Period of Europe", vol. 5, L.-M., 1934, pp. 246-306.

4 M. M. Gerasimov. 1) Malta is a Paleolithic site. Irkutsk, 1931; 2) Excavations of a Paleolithic site in the village of Malta. Preliminary report on the work of 1928-1932. Paleolithic of the USSR. Materials on the history of prenatal society”, M.-L., 1935; A. P. Okladnikov. New data on the Paleolithic past of the Baikal region (to research in Buryatia 1936-1939). " Brief messages Institute for the History of Material Culture, no. 5, 1940, pp. 59-62.

about the wandering restless life of the "wild hunters" of the Stone Age. They built entire villages for the winter time, consisting of a number of durable dwellings designed for long-term use. In Buret, for example, the remains of four such dwellings were found.

In Malta and Bureti, ancient dwellings were located next to each other along the river bank, in the first case, along the river. Belaya, in the second - along the Angara. In principle, the arrangement of dwellings was the same. The most characteristic and at the same time unexpected feature of this Paleolithic architecture is the widespread and constant use of animal bones as a building material, primarily mammoth and rhinoceros, as well as reindeer antlers. This was how, for example, one of the dwellings of Bureti was arranged, preserved under a layer of loess-like loam better and more complete than all the others. It had a base deepened into the ground and undoubtedly dug out specially for this, rectangular in plan.

ing. Outward led a narrow corridor overlooking the river. Along the edges of the recess, mammoth femurs were originally placed in a strict order and symmetrically, dug into the ground with their lower ends and firmly fixed at the bottom for stability with limestone slabs. These were a kind of “pillars” of an ancient dwelling, or spores for them, that constructive basis on which its walls and roof rested. There were about twelve such "pillars" in the dwelling. Including one of these "pillars"-stops served as a tusk, and the other - the skull of a mammoth.

Together with the “pillars”, the remains of the frame, on which the roof of the Paleolithic dwelling rested, also survived. Inside the house, on its very floor, there were many reindeer antlers, no doubt specially collected and sorted. In a number of cases, the horns lay, crossing each other at a right angle, with certain gaps between the rods and their processes, forming, as it were, a grid. It follows from this that the roof of the Paleolithic dwelling in Buret must have had a base in the form of an openwork net of deer antlers, crossed and mutually woven with each other not only by the winding, but also by their intertwining processes.

The reason why the inhabitants of ancient Buret built their houses not only from wood, but also from bones, why they used mammoth bones to build such parts of the dwelling, for which wood is used in our time, is apparently due to the peculiar climatic and landscape conditions of that time. . Around Bureti stretched,

one must think that it was a treeless region, there were steppes and tundras. Out of necessity, for the construction of houses, it was necessary to use the material that hunting so generously supplied - the main source of existence for Paleolithic people - mammoth bones and reindeer antlers.

The Arctic tribes of northeast Asia, who lived along the shores of the Bering Strait and were mainly engaged in hunting sea animals - whales, walruses and seals, did about the same recently. Eskimos and coastal settled Chukchi, who lived on the treeless coast of Chukotka, back in the 19th-20th centuries. built their winter dwellings in such a way that, in addition to the fin tree thrown out by the sea, the decisive place in their construction belonged to the ribs of the whale, whale vertebrae, and especially large whale jaws or even skulls. Their dwellings were called so - "Valkar", that is, literally "a house from the jaws of a whale." And these houses themselves were surprisingly similar not only in design, but, obviously, in form with the dwellings of the Paleolithic inhabitants of Buret. They also had at their core a more or less deep pit dug in the ground. A narrow tunnel-like exit led from the dwelling towards the sea. The roof of the Eskimo winter dwelling slightly protruded above the ground in the form of a vague domed hill or mound, above which, in winter time clouds of snow rolled by. 5 The remains of a dwelling of a different kind, above ground, perfectly preserved in Malta, were investigated by M. M. Gerasimov. It was marked by a ring of massive limestone slabs, its diameter was equal to 4.5 m. Some of the slabs of the dwelling's enclosure stood on the edge at the time of the excavations, just like 25,000 years ago. In the floor of the dwelling, almost strictly in the center, a hearth depression was dug in the form of a bowl, the bottom of which was lined with thin limestone tiles. On one side of the hearth lay fragments of split jade, knife-like plates, bone points, thin shavings of mammoth tusk - the remains of the work of a Paleolithic sculptor, and above, above the layer without finds, were images of a loon and a swan. On the other side of the hearth, mammoth tusk beads, calcite pendants, “buttons” ornamented with carved zigzags, needles, awls, scrapers and knives have been preserved. Above a thin layer without finds there lay an ordinary female figurine. Peculiar dwellings were also found in Malta, one side of which, bordered by tiles with animal bones, was dug into the thickness of the terrace deposits, and the other went to the river. 6

Unlike the Eskimo houses, the dwellings of Malta and Bureti were heated and lit with non-fat lamps. Inside the dwellings of Malta and Bureti, often in their very middle, fires burned, from which the remains of hearths, small accumulations of ash and small charcoal were preserved. The hearth was the center of the dwelling; the whole life of its inhabitants was concentrated around it. Food was cooked on the fires of the hearths. Stone tools and weapons from bone and horn were made around them, as well as amazing works of art, including not only simple decorations, but also things that amaze with the skill and realistic truth of the images created by the artists of the Ice Age.

Among the art objects in Malta and Bureti there are unique sculptures of women dressed in fur. These sculptures represent another and, perhaps, the most expressive stroke of that unusual picture of the life of primitive Arctic hunters on the banks of the Angara, which is told by the ruins of their dwellings. On the sculptures we see the oldest image of sewn clothes in the world.

5 A. P. Okladnikov. Paleolithic dwellings in Buret (according to excavations in 1936-1940). "Brief Communications of the Institute of the History of Material Culture" vol. 10, 1941, pp. 16-31.

6 M. M. Gerasimov. Paleolithic site Malta (excavations 1956-957). "Soviet ethnography", 1958, No. 3.

The “dressed” figurines from the Angara valley are the only ones of their kind among all other female images of the Upper Paleolithic period; in Europe, they have only separate elements of clothing in the form of baldrics, bracelets and belts. On the Siberian figurines, sewn clothes such as fur overalls are visible, with wool outside, tightly fitting the body from head to toe. This costume is shown most clearly on a statuette found in 1936 in Buret. The fur from which the costume was sewn is indicated here by semicircular pits and notches, located in a certain rhythmic order, in regular rows from top to bottom along the surface of the entire figure. These pits are absent only on the face, the only part of the body that remained naked. The fur is sharply separated from the convex face of the figurine by deep narrow grooves forming convex edges - ridges. With this technique, the master conveyed the thick fluffy border of the hood. Wide and flat at the back, it tapers and tapers towards the top.

Comparing the costume on the statuette from Buret with the clothes of modern peoples, it is not difficult to find a close resemblance in them. Arctic sea animal and reindeer hunters, as well as tundra reindeer herders, still wear such blind clothing such as overalls. The fur hood is an indispensable accessory of the modern Arctic costume. Two of the same as in Bureti, "dressed" figurines, only more schematically interpreted, ended up in Malta. 7 The deaf fur clothes depicted on the “dressed” figurines, together with the dwellings deepened into the ground, were due to the climatic features of the ice age. Without it, human life in the tundra is impossible. In winter, when piercing and cold winds blew across the open steppes and tundra stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Atlantic, the Paleolithic people, like the modern Arctic peoples, had to wrap themselves in clothes made of fur. Tightly fitting the body, such clothes at the same time do not constrain movements and keep warm inside. She leaves only her face and hands exposed. Everything else is safely hidden under a fluffy fur cover. If “dressed” female figurines show a Paleolithic man outside the house, in an ocean of snow, in a cold wind piercing to the bones, face to face with snow storms and snowstorms, then naked figurines show his life from the other, home side - inside a Paleolithic dwelling in an artificial created world: behind a dense wall of bones, earth and, probably, skins. European travelers were often unpleasantly struck and shocked by the custom of the Chukchi, Koryaks and Eskimos to sit inside their dwellings without any clothes, completely naked, and in best case with only one small apron, or "belt of modesty." It is enough, however, to imagine the inside of a Chukchi or Eskimo dugout in winter to understand the expediency and necessity of such a custom. The cramped dwelling, devoid of ventilation, is densely filled with people, the air is saturated with the fumes of their bodies and the smoke of a fat lamp. Sweat continuously flows over the body of the inhabitants of the dwelling. It is impossible to sit here in clothes made of skins, not only because of the heat, but also because it is worth a person to leave the house later, as dressed on him,

7 A. P. Okladnikov. 1) Paleolithic figurine from Buret. (Excavations in 1936). “Materials and research on archeology SSSL, No. 2, 1941; 2) Paleolithic and Neolithic of the USSR. L., 1941, pp. 104-109; V. I. Gromov. ABOUT appearance cave lion in connection with some archaeological finds. "Problems of the History of Precapitalist Societies", No. 1-2, 1935, pp. 166-167.

bend and warm the body. In this form, the masters of the Paleolithic time usually depicted their women: with only one narrow belt, which played the role of decoration rather than clothing, or completely naked, but with a luxurious, carefully maintained hairstyle, which was apparently slightly inferior to modern examples of this kind. . The hair of women from Malta and Bureti either falls on their shoulders in a solid massive pile, or is laid in horizontal rows parallel to each other; in other cases they lie in zigzag ledges. Based on the rich materials of Malta and Bureti, it is possible to restore not only the general features of the economy, technology and life, but also much more, including the main features of the spiritual culture and worldview of the inhabitants of Siberia at that time.

Already the first Paleolithic settlement, discovered in 1871 in Irkutsk, near the Military Hospital, amazed scientists with artistic products, unexpected for the Ice Age and the time of rough, unpolished, but only chipped stone tools of Paleolithic man. Especially unexpected were these amazing finds in the depths of distant and harsh Siberia, far from all recognized centers of artistic development. In the snows of Siberia, it was most difficult to expect such an early and, for those distant times, high development of artistic creativity, in this case, sculpture and ornament. Nevertheless, A. S. Uvarov, the author of the first and classical in the 19th century. consolidated work on the Stone Age of Russia, definitely noted the outstanding significance of these finds for the history of aesthetic ideas and the initial art of mankind. He wrote then about the Irkutsk finds: “As we saw, only drilled animal teeth were found in the Mammoth cave, and in the Irkutsk find, in addition to eight drilled deer fangs, there are also other objects made of mammoth bone. Immediately, they are not content with one oblong bead made of plaster or a bone from an ankle bird, but they prepare special beads in the form of columns covered with stripes, balls with stripes, and special decorations, just as carefully finished. Not only were drills made in these objects, but even their surface was smoothed out with such diligence that, according to I. D. Chersky, they resemble turning work. Moreover, the stripes decorating these objects, although not entirely successful, are arranged in symmetrical and parallel groups of the same number of stripes. Thus, ornaments, which at first consisted of simple perforated teeth, quickly develop into real patterns in a symmetrical order and generally acquire regular, as it were, chiseled shapes. Such a rapid development, and in particular such a waste of time on the careful manufacture of luxury items that are superfluous in the harsh life of a person of the Paleolithic era, is highly curious as a manifestation of a special spiritual need. 9 By the time of the discovery of Malta and Bureti, the collection of artistically worked bone from the settlement near the Military Hospital no longer existed: it, along with all the other finds of 1871, perished in the fire of the Irkutsk fire of 1879. This contributed to the fact that it was forgotten for a long time and firmly. But all the more impressive in the world of researchers of the Paleolithic and Paleolithic art were new finds in Malta, this amazing treasury of primitive art, which occupies one of the first places in the world in terms of the richness and variety of examples of artistic bone carving and small sculpture of the Stone Age. Behind the Maltese finds, the finds in Buret soon became known, imbued with the same artistic worldview and executed in the same spirit. 10

8 A. S. Uvarov. Archeology of Russia. Stone period, vol. I. M., 1881, p. 243.

9 Ibid., p. 244.

In order to fully appreciate the impression made on scientists by the newly discovered artistic treasures of the Ice Age people in the depths of Siberia, it is enough to say that Malta and Buret gave 20 female statuettes - almost half of the "world stock" of these products of Paleolithic sculptors. Now it became clear that in Siberia of that time, on the banks of the Angara and Baikal, there was a powerful center of the original artistic culture. This culture was on the same level as the simultaneous centers of Paleolithic art in Western Europe. The impression of the new finds, and at the same time their resemblance to European ones, was so strong that the question arose again about the origin of Paleolithic art, and with it the very “reasonable person” from the depths of Asia.

The art of the Paleolithic population of Siberia, judging by its samples found in Malta and Bureti, was basically realistic, filled with echoes real life. The richness with which it is presented in archaeological finds also has its grounds in the conditions of the real life of people of that time. Just like the Eskimos, settled Chukchi and Koryaks of the recent past, the ancient inhabitants of Malta and Bureti, who lived in the conditions of the Arctic nature, obviously had enough leisure time in winter to spend it on artistic carving. In winter, when a blizzard raged all around and mountains of snow lay, this work could serve them as entertainment and relaxation. In addition, they had at their disposal an abundance of first-class material for carving: mammoth tusks and animal bones, as well as soft stone, which itself “asked” into the hands of masters. Apparently, this is precisely why plastic art has developed so magnificently here, anthropomorphic images are so numerous - female statuettes and images of animals and birds.

The female figurines of Malta and Bureti are among the well-known "Paleolithic Venuses" of Western and Eastern Europe. They represent the most eastern cycle of these images, characterized on the whole by an amazing general unity of style and form. Everywhere, starting from Italy and Southern France and ending with the Angara, in these figurines made of deer antler, mammoth tusk and less often stone, the same stable and constant, almost canonical in its completeness, image of a naked woman is conveyed, depicted most often in the same pose - standing upright with arms folded across the chest. The naked female body is almost always depicted truthfully and accurately, sometimes with somewhat exaggerated details that characterize a mature mother woman, with lush, massive hips, a large pendulous belly and an emphasized sign of her sex.

Paleolithic female figurines from Malta and Buret are divided into two large groups. The first of them includes statuettes of elongated proportions, with a narrow and long body, "thin", "asthenic constitution", the second - statuettes of massive proportions, with a short body, with deliberately exaggerated lower back and hips, "picnic constitution". Particularly interesting in a number of "picnic" figurines is the exaggerated rendering of the forms of the ischial part, as well as the characteristic curve of the female body in the lower back. When looking at such figurines from the side, it seems that women are in a semi-sitting position. In some of them, moreover, the ischial part is raised unusually high, almost twice as high as the normal proportions of the human body require.

10. A. Abramova. Paleolithic art of Siberia. Irkutsk, 1960.

It is possible that the two groups of figurines - "thick" and "thin" - do not correspond to two constitutional types of female figures, but to two age groups, that is, they convey the types of women of mature and young age. This division of female figurines according to age or constitution is in line with the main realistic trend of Paleolithic art. It expresses the desire of the ancient masters for the most accurate transfer of the characteristic features of the depicted nature. The same main orientation of the Paleolithic art of Siberia towards the most lively and accurate realistic transfer of the forms of the human body found a particularly strong expression in the manner of depicting that part of the body where the individuality and psyche of a person most strongly affects the individuality and psyche of a person - the face. While faceless figurines predominate in Europe, in Malta and Bureti the faces of all figurines are modeled in three-dimensional, plastic form. The already mentioned “dressed” figurine from Buret, found in 1936, stands out with a special vitality in the transfer of the face. Its oblong and oval head is narrowed upwards. The forehead is small and convex, the cheeks and cheekbones are outlined quite definitely, they protrude forward. The chin is rounded, gently modeled. The mouth is not marked, but it is “guessed”, and its absence is not striking. A somewhat blurred, softly outlined nose is sharply demarcated by a ledge from below. The eyes are narrow and slanted, rendered in the form of almond-shaped depressions. The impression from them is such that they immediately bring to mind the facial features of a certain race - the Mongolian.

In a different manner, much rougher and simpler, in sharp, distinct contours, a face is rendered on one of the figurines found in Malta. But the same racial traits are visible in it. The face is flat and broad, with a wide and flat nose. In its type, it resembles the Mongoloid, wide and bony faces on Buryat and Tungus carved wooden sculptures made in the 19th century.

With the same care and thoroughness, the masters of the Paleolithic era, who made figurines, convey women's headdresses and hairstyles, as well as clothes.

On the floor of dwellings in Malta and Bureti, including those directly near the hearths, along with female figurines, there were figures of flying waterfowl - ducks or loons carved from mammoth ivory. These figures amaze with the stereotypical uniformity of form, a kind of established, canonically unchanging manner in which they are made. These are exactly the same, standard images: they all have a short and massive body, a clearly modeled small head on a long, tensely stretched forward neck, the wings are always small and rounded. The whole appearance of the figurines shows that the birds are depicted in motion, in a swift flight.

There are three more bird figurines in the collection of things from Malta, which are not like all the others. The first two figures depict waterfowl - a duck and a goose. The duck is shown as if floating on the water. The goose stands on one leg, slightly stretching its head forward and tilting it down. The third figurine of a bird depicts most likely a snow partridge, an inhabitant of the tundra and forest tundra. She has a wide flattened body, a large typical chicken head with a sharp beak. Wings and plumage are conventionally indicated - characteristically by the Maltese technique - by rows of semi-lunar pits.

On two plaques made of mammoth tusk, found in Malta and apparently served as amulets-amulets (one of them was found in a burial on the skeleton of a baby), there are engraved images of snakes. On one of these plaques, snake figures are shown especially clearly, although not without exaggeration: they have undulating bodies and large exaggerated stylized heads, similar to the heads of cobras in a threatening position. But it is clear that these are not cobras, but only a peculiar stylization technique that emphasizes the most characteristic thing in this disgusting and dangerous animal, its poisonous head. A remarkable feature of this composition is that the process of transition from the real figure of a snake to a “pure” ornament - a spiral is visible here. If on one side of the plaque the bodies of snakes are shown in the form of wavy lines, then on the other side the snakes do not have heads and are twisted into spiral balls. The true adornment of the Maltese collection is the image of this beast finely engraved on a mammoth tusk plate. In the drawing, somewhat simplified, but still plausible, the peculiar appearance of a fossil shaggy elephant is conveyed. The ancient artist depicted here all the most essential and characteristic of a mammoth: a heavy body, the bulk of which falls on the front part, a large cone-shaped head, separated by a saddle-shaped depression from a steep hump above the front shoulder blades, and falling in the back part, as if chopped off the line of the back.

The next large area of ​​artistic creativity of the ancient Maltese and their contemporaries in Buret is jewelry and ornamentation. Jewelry in general occupied an important place in the life of Paleolithic people, they received a lot of attention and time. On the heads of Paleolithic people, in addition to lush hairstyles and hats, there were head hoops similar to the royal diadems of the ancient world. Such a diadem was found on the forehead of a baby buried under the floor of one of the Maltese dwellings.

Around the neck of the same baby hung a once rich necklace of patterned beads carved from mammoth tusk. The necklace ended like a precious pendant with a figurine in the form of an artfully stylized flying bird. At the same settlements in the Angara valley, simpler decorations were also found: discs with holes, beads - threads made of bone, decorations made from animal teeth. Of the teeth of animals, the most popular were the fangs of the deer, which clearly attracted people of the Stone Age with their brilliant white color, and the fangs of predators, which, one must think, were associated with certain magical ideas.

Among the materials that a person used to make jewelry and for the extraction of which he spent a lot of effort, there were various colored stones. In Malta and Buret, white calcite, which still retains its luster and transparency, was used to make button beads in the form of bars with a groove in the middle for tying. For the same purpose, a noble serpentine was used. A real workshop has survived in Bureti,

where this pleasant in color and viscous gem stone was processed. The workshop even found a miniature disk with a hole in the middle made of an even rarer and more valuable stone - green Sayan jade. This is the first, oldest sample of a valuable mineral in the world, used by man as an ornament.

In terms of fine workmanship and richness of ornamentation, Paleolithic bracelets rank above all. These are genuine masterpieces of bone-carving art, all the more amazing because they were made with simple stone tools without a lathe, without metal drills and chisels. Such bracelets were also found in Siberia, in Malta.

The ornamentation of the Paleolithic inhabitants of Siberia, as in Europe, was mainly of a rectilinear-geometric character. These are mostly straight short strips-notches, pits, sometimes semi-lunar depressions. With the help of such simple means, the most ordinary things like needles, awls or headpins were turned into real works of high art. They were often decorated with subtle artistic taste and elegance. So, some of them have a sculptural head, in the form of a hat, while others have a stem that looks like a spiral.

Clothing, one must think, was not only complemented by beads and bracelets, but undoubtedly in itself to a large extent represented a work of art. The costume of the people of the Paleolithic era, apparently in the same way as that of modern Arctic tribes, was decorated with applique from pieces of various furs; fur bundles probably hung from it - tails and a fancy fringe.

A special, although completely disappeared area of ​​ornamentation was a tattoo, with which an ancient man covered a naked body. The fact that the tattoo really existed can be guessed from the patterns on some Paleolithic figurines, which evoke the tattoo of various peoples of the recent past.

The works of art of Paleolithic man thus reflect the complex and Big world aesthetic concepts, and at the same time a lot of ideas that made up his worldview, ideas that we can only partially represent, with a greater or lesser degree of plausibility. The main means for this are, of course, comparative ethnographic data, analogies of their lives among the backward tribes of our time, primarily those that live in similar natural and geographical conditions, for example, Arctic reindeer herders and hunters of reindeer or the Siberian beast: Eskimos, sedentary Chukchi and Koryaks, Aleuts.

The reconstruction of the worldview of the peoples of ancient times based on ethnographic materials cannot be absolutely accurate, since modern mankind has not found a single people living at the level of development of the Paleolithic man. But still, such a reconstruction is the only way to imagine the features of the life and culture of the people of primitive society.

In the religious beliefs of the Arctic peoples until the 19th century. much has survived that helps to understand the worldview of the Paleolithic man.

In the Eskimo settlements, there were often female figures carved from wood and bone, striking in their resemblance to the Paleolithic. On about. Punuk was discovered, for example, a walrus tusk figurine, which, like the Paleolithic figurines, realistically conveys the appearance of a naked elderly woman with magnificent body shapes. Her massive breasts fall heavily down. The hands rest on the stomach in the same position in which they were depicted in the Paleolithic. If

this statuette was found in some famous settlement of the Paleolithic time, no one would be surprised: it is so firmly included in all its signs in the circle of female statuettes of the Upper Paleolithic. In addition, the way of life, as well as the art of the Eskimos, are so close to the way of life of the Paleolithic inhabitants of Europe and North Asia that a hundred years ago a theory arose about the origin of the Eskimos and their culture from the Madeleine tribes of France. It is all the more interesting to know what significance such figurines have for the Eskimos, what ideas are associated with them and what is their meaning.

According to the studies of ethnographers, it is known that the human figures of the Eskimos often depicted specific people who were in a long absence. They were credited with the properties and abilities of these people, as well as the magical power to attract animals to the hunter. Eskimo women, during a long absence of their husband, made a figurine depicting him, which they then fed, dressed and undressed, put to bed and took care of her in every possible way, as if they were a living being. The sculptural image, the doll, seemed to replace the person himself.

Anthropomorphic images were also made in the event of a person's death. In order to instill the soul of the deceased in them, recesses were made in such figures, where his hair was put, which, according to the ideas of the Eskimos, was the receptacle of the soul. Often the images of the dead were also dolls played by Eskimo girls. These dolls were called by the names of those dead, whose souls they especially wanted to honor or keep close to them. The doll was, as it were, a receptacle for the soul and a representative of the deceased among living relatives. Dolls were not only toys, they also had the meaning of amulets that passed from mother to daughter as a guarantee of her fertility. The soul of the deceased relative, enclosed in the doll, according to the concepts of the Eskimos, passed into the body of a woman and then was reborn to a new life. She was thus considered both the soul of a deceased relative and the soul of the unborn child.

It is characteristic that, like the Paleolithic figurines, the Eskimo dolls overwhelmingly depicted females, but the soul enclosed in the doll did not have to return to the world of the living in the form of a woman. According to the ideas of the Eskimos, a woman could sometimes be reborn as a man, and a man as a woman.

Eskimo ideas associated with "dolls" depicting women are very archaic. There are still no real idols here, not even a genuine cult and veneration of the dead. Therefore, it can be confidently assumed that the Paleolithic female figurines in the eyes of the people of that time had the same meaning and meaning as the female sculptures of the Eskimos - they were also images of dead women that served as a magical means, a fetish for procreation.

The fact that the ideas that brought to life the Paleolithic images of women were based on the idea of ​​a female progenitor associated with the cult of fertility and the maternal principle can also be judged by the general appearance of these figures. For the most part, they convey the same type of mother who has given birth to many women with full mature forms, with a swollen large belly and breasts hanging heavily on it. The idea of ​​childbearing, motherhood is expressed here with such force that the image of a woman created by a Paleolithic artist can be fully called a "vessel of fertility." This idea, this image is conveyed with the utmost brevity in the so-called "medallions", that is, pieces of marl, on which a primitive, but completely clear sign of the feminine principle, the organ of fertility, is carved. Such "medallions" are found both in Kostenki I and in some Paleolithic settlements in France. There is no morbid eroticism in them, no "deluvial pornography", they clearly express a direct expression of the ancient cult of fertility, concern for procreation, for the growth and prosperity of the primitive community.

At the same time, the primordial cult of the woman-mother was inextricably linked with the hunting cult. These cults intertwined and penetrated each other. As the observations of ethnographers show, primitive hunters believed in a kind of magical "division of labor" between men who kill animals and women who, by their sorcery, "attract" animals under the blows of the hunters' spears.

Legends and myths that survived among hunting tribes in the 19th century tell about what was the basis of magical power, which, according to primitive hunters, attracted animals to their death. According to these myths, animals and people could have sexual intercourse with each other, and that is why women attracted male animals to themselves, and men could attract females. On the same basis, more complex ideas about the woman-beast, the mistress and mother of animals were developed. Entering into contact with her, the hunter was rewarded with hunting happiness - good luck and the opportunity to kill the beast.

On the same basis, totemic myths are formed about the marriage of a woman and an animal, as a result of which a demigod hero is born, and with him the ancestor of the clan. From these myths, in turn, the world folklore story develops about the innocently persecuted divine heroes-fugitives. The demigod-animal, born first, then becomes an anthropomorphic suffering deity.

However, it would be wrong to limit the ideas of the Paleolithic people about a woman and the feminine principle only to these ideas. The same Eskimos had an ancient cult of the elements of nature and deities, personifying the most important, from their point of view, forces of nature in the images of powerful female spirits - "mistresses". The sea element, with which the well-being of the Eskimos, who lived by hunting walruses and seals, was mainly associated, was personified in the image of an ugly old walrus woman - Sedna, the mistress of the sea and all its inhabitants. The life and death of every Eskimo tribe depended on the will of Sedna. The land was just as sovereignly disposed of by Pinga, the mistress of deer and all four-legged inhabitants of the land. The air was dominated by Halla and Assiyak - the rulers of wind, thunder and lightning. eleven

By analogy with this, one can think that the entire outer world surrounding the primitive man and his material wealth, all the sources of his existence were also in the power of mythical female creatures created by his own fantasy.

As for the images of animals of the Paleolithic era, there is no doubt that they are somehow connected in their origin with the magical actions of primitive hunters. To kill the beast and eat it was the main concern and dream of a Paleolithic man, who was almost always hungry, since rare moments of abundance of food alternated with long days, weeks, and sometimes months of a hungry life.

Magical rites, however, were by no means limited to the sole purpose of bewitching, attracting the beast and killing it. No matter how helpless and naive the Paleolithic man was, he, like us, thought not only about today, but also about tomorrow, tried to look ahead, into the future.

11 V. G. Tan-Bogoraz. The social structure of the American Eskimos. “Proceedings of the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, vol. 4, M.-L., 1936, p. 249.

A peculiar expression of this concern is the material traces of the cult of fertility. On the rocks near the village Shishkin in the upper reaches of the river. Lena survived drawings of animals made in red ocher with signs of ancient times. These are clearly the earliest of more than a thousand drawings on the Shishkinsky rocks. On one of them you can see the figure of a wild bull - a bison, on the other two - the figures of wild horses. One of the horse figures impresses with its huge size - its length reaches almost

2 m. This giant drawing depicts a stallion excited by passion. Under the belly, the sign of the feminine is very clearly depicted and, at the same time, next to the reproductive organ of the stallion. From this it is clear that already in the Upper Paleolithic a cult of fertility arose, primarily of animals, which was also reflected in the monuments of ancient art. 12

In 1932, fourteen small holes were also discovered in Malta, covered by the cultural layer of the settlement. They contained the bones of the arctic fox, which were in an anatomically correct position, sometimes - whole skeletons. There were four such whole skeletons, and they had no legs. Obviously, the Maltese man removed the skins from the foxes, and then buried their carcasses in specially dug

12 A. P. Okladnikov, V. D. Zaporozhskaya. Lena writings. Rock paintings near the village. Shishkin. M.-L., 1959, pp. 86-90.

pits, sometimes together with bones of other animals, flint plates and tools. This rite of the ancient Maltese recalls the widespread custom among the hunting tribes of Siberia to bury the bones of hunted animals so that they would then “resurrect” and again become the prey of hunters. Such ideas were formed, apparently, already in the Paleolithic time. 13

To complete the picture, it should be borne in mind that images of animals could be associated not only with magical beliefs and rituals, but also with a rich cycle of totemic legends, which are based on ideas about the relationship of human communities with animals, about animal ancestors and ancestors. Such myths about animal ancestors, friendly relations between animals and people, the so-called "animal epic", transfer to the animal world the relations that developed in the tribal community, and are their fantastic reflection.

A separate theme in the art of the Paleolithic is the images of birds and animals, which can hardly be attributed to the cycle of ideas arising from ancient hunting magic. In the modern shamanism of all Siberian peoples without exception, both of them are inextricably linked with ideas about the two worlds of the universe - about heaven and hell. They are powerful supernatural beings, sometimes beneficent, sometimes hostile to man, spirits - assistants and mediators in man's relations with other worlds. So it was, one must think, in the distant Paleolithic past, when the origins of those beliefs were formed, from which Siberian shamanism and shamanistic ideology grew - shamanic myths and cult.

Malta also turned out to be the only Paleolithic burial of a child in Siberia so far. Judging by the description of the conditions in which it was found, an undisturbed cultural layer lay over the burial, which was the filling of an ancient dwelling. Together with stone products over the grave of the Maltese baby lay the remains of the construction of the roof of the dwelling - the antlers of the reindeer. The grave pit, oval in plan, was lined with limestone slabs at the head. Another, the largest, slab of stone lay flat over the skeleton. In general, this structure resembled a stone box or a dolmen table. The child's corpse lay under the cover of a slab on its back, with arms extended along the body and legs slightly bent at the knees. The baby's body was covered with red ocher, traces of which are visible on the bones, and the skull rested on a layer of crushed burnt bloodstone - red ocher. The head of the skeleton was oriented to the northeast, as were many of the later Neolithic skeletons in the Angara valley. Near the skull lay pieces of a hoop diadem carved from a mammoth tusk. On the neck - magnificent, even on modern concepts, necklace, on the lower back - a plaque with an ornament in the form of carved zigzags - "snakes". On the chest - a bird in a pose of flight. On the right hand at the shoulder was wearing a bracelet made of mammoth tusk. An Aurignac-type knife with side notches was laid nearby. At the baby's feet lay a large, excellently crafted spearhead, and with it small stone items: a piercer, a plate, and a point.

The Maltese burial, as well as the Upper Paleolithic burials of the West contemporaneous to it, paints a picture of already well-defined, established animistic ideas and the cult of the dead. At that time, undoubtedly, the idea of ​​a fundamental difference between life and death, between earthly existence and afterlife. The dead were supposed to lead in the other world, afterlife, world

13 M. M. Gerasimov. Excavations of a Paleolithic site in the village of Malta. Preliminary report on the work of 1928-1932, pp. 93-100.

the same life as on earth: to hunt wild animals, build houses, make tools from stone and bone. In order to give them vitality, leaving the body, as hunters often observed, along with blood, the relatives of the dead sprinkled their bodies with paint - bloody, replacing the blood of living people in the world of the dead. It is remarkable that the baby received weapons and other things used by adults for traveling to the afterlife. Obviously, there was a belief that he had to grow up in the country of his ancestors and become an adult there.

It is also interesting that the child buried in Malta was distinguished by a pronounced pathological feature - in addition to the usual one, he also had a second row of teeth. As you know, freaks among backward peoples enjoy special reverence. Their birth is associated with the activity of spirits, and they themselves are seen as carriers of a mysterious "otherworldly" power. Perhaps that is why the Maltese extraordinary baby was buried so luxuriously and, in addition, in the dwelling itself, the patron spirit of which he was supposed to become after death.

The art of the most ancient inhabitants of Siberia, as we have seen, was inextricably linked with primitive magic and the beliefs of Paleolithic man with its images and plots. But it would be a gross mistake to derive the essence and specificity of this art from magic or primitive religion, to identify them completely and entirely.

Whereas religious fantasy was a barren flower on the eternal and mighty tree of knowledge, artistic fantasy was a creative force, nourished by the juices of the real world, a living branch of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is the main internal contradiction of primitive art, the source of its strength, and at the same time its weakness, due to the historical conditions of that distant time, when man passed only the first stages of his development outside the animal world and in the realm of new, not biological, but social laws.

Of course, in assessing the true significance of ancient art in the history of thinking and culture of mankind, the decisive word belongs not to the negative, but to the positive principle, not to magical goals and religious ideas, but to the aesthetic content and purely artistic achievements of our distant ancestors.

The art of the Paleolithic inhabitants of Malta and Bureti occupies a prominent place in the history of world art: they, these people of the Ice Age, created indisputable and major artistic values ​​of world significance on the banks of the Angara. The art school created by them rightfully occupies a place among the foremost centers of the primary art of mankind.

The last thing to be said here is the age and place among the Other Paleolithic cultures of Eurasia, as well as the origin of that amazing culture of the Old Stone Age, traces of which survived in Bureti and Malta on the banks of the Angara.

According to V. I. Gromov, who studied in detail the geological conditions of the occurrence of the remains of the main cultural layer of Malta, they lie on a 15-18-meter terrace of the river. Belaya at the base of a thin deluvial plume of a 50-meter terrace and are apparently associated with buried soil, which separates these deluvial formations into two horizons. Man appeared here, in his opinion, at the moment when the formation of alluvium on the base of the 15-meter terrace was completed and the soil cover began to form on elevated areas. In the fauna of Malta, in the first place are the remains of the reindeer, then the arctic fox, rhinoceros. There are also bones of bighorn sheep, bison, wolverine, mammoth, cave lion, wolf, horse. From birds there are goose and seagull. Geomorphological.

observations show that a person lived then on the banks of the Angara, since the ancient mouth of the river. Belaya was located to the west and the Angara flowed along the slope of the 50-meter terrace almost from west to east. According to the geological conditions, Malta, according to V. I. Gromov, is somewhat older than the oldest of the sites of the Afont group on the Yenisei - Afontova II. The buried soil, noted by him in Malta, is compared by some geologists with the Karginsky interglacial, and the last, according to the latest data based on radiocarbon analysis of pieces of wood from the Karginsky deposits near Igarka, is dated no later than 24,500 years ago. From this it is concluded that the Karginsky time in Siberia corresponds to the Paudorf interstadial in Europe, and the subsequent Sartan glaciation coincides with the Wurm.

If so, then we can conclude that Malta coincides in time with the Late Aurignacian and Perigordian sites in Western Europe.

In this regard, the archaeological materials of the Maltese Paleolithic settlement also require revision. P. P. Efimenko at one time drew attention to the “western expression” appearance of the stone inventory of Malta and, in particular, to the coincidence in it with stone products from the Mezin Paleolithic site, which he attributed to the Early Madeleine time. These are, first of all, puncture points, known in two versions - with one beak-shaped curved point and with two points at the same end of the lamellar flake. The Madeleine age of the Maltese complex seemed to be evidenced by the highly developed art and the presence of such bone objects as the "chief's baton" found in Buret. At the same time, from the very beginning, certain Aurignacian, in terms of Western European scale, signs and forms were noted in the inventory of Malta. These include high core-shaped scrapers, sometimes quite large, as well as plates with side notches, one of these plates, especially carefully processed, large in size, was found in the burial of a Maltese baby. The cores of Malta are very archaic - often disc-shaped and approaching them. Among the numerous lamellar points from Malta, there are those that most closely resemble those of the châtelperron type: they have one edge almost straight, unretouched, while the opposite edge is arched, convex and decorated with fine continuous retouching.

To Aurignac and Perigordien, modern ideas, as is known, also applies to most of the Upper Paleolithic female figurines of the classical type.

Consequently, there are a number of grounds that make it possible to bring Malta closer to the Aurignacian monuments of the West. This fact upholds and reinforces the long-held idea that the culture of the ancient inhabitants of Malta, and hence Bureti, is genetically related to the Paleolithic of Europe. This connection is found not only in the stone inventory, but also in all other areas of life and culture. The Upper Paleolithic inhabitants of Europe up to France and Czechoslovakia led the same hunting lifestyle, built the same houses as in Malta and Bureti, in the construction of which, from our point of view, an unusual place was occupied by the bones of fossil giant animals. They had an equally rich art of bone carving, and the sculptural images of a woman and an animal also played a paramount role in this art. Such a similarity could be explained by the natural influence of the same natural environment at the end of the Ice Age and the same way of life and economy that grew up under these conditions. It is no coincidence that the Eskimos of the 17th-19th centuries had so much in common. with Paleolithic

by the Greek tribes of Europe and Siberia, not only in the construction technique and the nature of their semi-underground dwellings, but also in the developed bone carving and, obviously, even in beliefs. Eskimo female figurines, for example, are almost an exact copy of the "Paleolithic Venuses." But it is hardly possible to explain the similarity of Siberian and European stone products both in forms and in manufacturing techniques by convergence. For all its particular originality, the rich art of the Upper Paleolithic of Siberia is also a direct offshoot of the peculiar artistic culture of the Paleolithic hunters of Europe, not only in terms of plots, but also in its small specific details. Such is, first of all, the characteristic interpretation and posture of female images. As for some significant differences, they cannot be denied. But they are not so important. It is only necessary to remember that the art of the Mezin Paleolithic "school" is completely different from that in Kostenki I, and on the Angara, the carvers of Malta and Bureti thought in the opposite way to the artists of the settlement near the Military Hospital. All these differences are of an ethnographic, as we would now say, order, while the general similarity overlaps all these particular features.

It is, therefore, quite acceptable to assume that the oldest inhabitants of Siberia penetrated the shores of Lake Baikal from Eastern Europe at the height of the ice age about 24-25 thousand years ago, bringing here their culture of Arctic hunters of the Upper Paleolithic.

At the same time, in the culture of the Paleolithic tribes on the banks of the Angara, a lot of original, non-European things are also naturally found. The first such Asian element is large, massive and heavy tools made from whole river pebbles, split in half or simply hewn from one edge with a series of strong transverse impacts. Keeping always, as in hand chopped shell type, a pebble crust at the end opposite to the blade, these things resemble a cut, which is why they are often called choppers, that is, cuts. Such tools at very early stages of the history of Paleolithic man appear in southern Asia, including the Sinanthropus. They are long kept in Asia and in subsequent times. Their real flowering is observed in the Upper Paleolithic of Mongolia, in the Orkhon and Tola basins.

It follows from this that the Upper Paleolithic hunters of the West did not go to Baikal through an absolutely empty space. They undoubtedly met other tribes in the east, with a different culture, and mutually assimilated each other. This is the only way to explain such a mixture of cultures. Malta and Buret - these two wonderful twin monuments of the Siberian Paleolithic, on the materials of which such an expressive and full-blooded, one-of-a-kind picture of the life of the most ancient inhabitants of Siberia is revealed - remain isolated for the time being. Nowhere else in Siberia has a third such settlement been found. The course of subsequent events in Siberia therefore remains very poorly elucidated and full of mysteries, but the more interesting are those few monuments that, one way or another, can take their place in the general chronological ladder of the Paleolithic of North Asia after Malta and Buretya.