National historiography of archaeological research of the Stone Age of Crimea on the pages of the Bulletin of the Commission for the Study of the Quaternary Period (1930-2010s)

The purpose of the article is a historiographic review of archaeological research of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic of the Crimean Peninsula, published on the pages of the Bulletin of the Commission for the Study of the Quaternary Period for the period from the creation of the journal (1929) to the modern stage. In order to achieve the goal, it was envisaged to solve the tasks: to separate articles on primitive archaeology of Crimea from the whole array of scientific publications on collections, their subsequent chronological and nomination systematization; analytical characteristics of publications written on Crimean materials and related to the theme of the Stone Age; identification of general and specific in research and concretization of their importance for domestic archaeological science. The methodology of the study was based on the integrated application of scientific principles: historicism, objectivity, comparative-historical approach, retroreflection. The problematic field of research included the following components: establishing continuity in the history of study of the Stone Age of the Crimean Peninsula, formulating priority problems of primitive archaeology of the region. The source base for the study was the work of scientists on the history of the Stone Age of Crimea, published on the pages of the Bulletin. During the study, the authors found that out of 77 issues of the Bulletin for the period from 1929 to 2019 only 20 numbers, chronologically falling during the period of the region’s stay in Ukraine (1992 - 2014), objectively do not contain materials on primitive archaeology of Crimea. At the same time, the nomination groups of research of the Stone Age of Crimea represented almost all topical directions of modern primitive archaeology: general methodological and methodological issues; publishing data on known and new archaeological cultures of Crimea; works on the open and explored monuments of the primitive history of the peninsula; historical reviews and memoirs. Moreover, in the constantly changing socio-political and scientific-organizational conditions of the XX - the beginning of the XXI centuries, all publications remained characterized by an objective approach to the consideration of the problem, combined with a dynamic transition from the accumulative stage to the stage of material systematization and synthesis. Thus, the systematic and constant presence of "Crimean primitive topics" on the pages of the academic publication allows to trace and summarize the ideas about the complex ways of forming research on the Paleolithic, the Mesolithic and Neolithic Peninsula states; the stability of interest in the issues of primitive history of the region, containing important reference monuments of the Stone Age of Eastern Europe, the South of Russia and the Azov-Black Sea coast; to outline the prospects for a comprehensive study by the scientific community of the problems of anthropogenesis and sociogenesis of the oldest population of our country. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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