The Mesolithic Period in the interfluve of the Don and the Volga: geography, sites, cultures

The work is devoted to the systematization of the existing Mesolithic antiquities in the area between the Don and the Volga. The source basis, chronology, periodization and geography of the Mesolithic cultures of the region are considered. The study area includes several micro-region sites. In addition to the sites of the left bank of the Don and the right bank of the Volga, the sites of the Oka-Don watershed (the Tsna basin), the Sursk-Mokshan interfluve, the Pokhoperye and the northwest Caspian Sea region and the Sal-Manych steppes are allocated. The Zimovnikovskaya culture is represented by a complex of the lower layer of the Plautino 2 and Urakov Bugor sites. The lithic industry was based on the use of flakes and plates obtained by "percussive" techniques. Secondary processing consisted in cragged and steep flaking, cut shear. The tools were incisors, scrapers, hunting weapons shaped as high and medium-high trapezoids, straight-axial and transversal edges. The formation of the culture could begin at the end of the Pleistocene during the migration of the population of the Ust-Kama culture to the south. The Kamenskaya culture of the Late Mesolithic in the forest-steppe interfluve of the Don and the Volga region includes materials of Plautino 2 (Late Mesolithic layer), Chetverikovо, Za-ton 1 and others. The splitting technique was based on the utilization of conical, cylindrical and block lithic cores; it was used to obtain plates by pressing or splitting through an intermediary material and by soft and hard hammers. The main core preform in the lithic industry was flake. The tools were represented by cutters, scrapers, adzes made of quartzite or shale, and sharpened tools made of siltstone, edges and medium-high trapezoids. Analogies of the lithic industry are found in the forest-steppe of the Prikhoperye, the Primokshanye and the Upper Posurye. A.N. Sorokin included the Middle and Lower Primokshanye in the area of the Purgasovskaya culture. The genesis of the culture is associated with the traditions of the Veretye culture, the territory includes the areas of the Pri-mokshanye. The lithic industry is characterized by parallel-prism technique of splitting cores, high microlithic type of industry. It is represented by cutters at the edges of preforms, end scrapers and inserts, beveled and oblique edges in the absence of post-Sviderian points and plates with blunt edges. The chronology of the culture is the time from the beginning of the Boreal to the Atlanticum; its genesis was associated with the Mesolithic of the Vyatka-Kama interfluve. The Late Mesolithic of the northwest Caspian Sea region is represented by the materials of the "Harbin" sites that have analogies in the northeast Caspian Sea region (Istayskaya culture). The sites are characterized by the microlithoid nature of the industry, the predominance of end scrapers, blunt-edge plates, geometric microliths, plates with blunt ends, cutters on broken preforms. As a result, the facts of a significant expansion of the range of the Zimovnikovskaya Early Mesolithic culture are recorded. In later periods, a cross-zonal migration of population from other cultures of the forest, forest-steppe and steppe zones occurred. It is noted that, in addition to hunting, the nature of migration was determined by the possibility of collecting and fishing, but to trace them, based on current archaeological evidence, is very difficult.

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