Neolithic

Based on 92 radiocarbon dates (some unpublished) obtained from 30 sites subjected to dendrochronological calibration, previous chronologies of the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of Yakutia are revised and a new “calendar chronology” proposed. During the Bronze Age, two newly described cultures existed in addition to the Ust-Mil culture: Ulakhan Segelennyakh and Sugunnakh, the latter being a derivative of Ymyiakhtakh. In the 2nd millennium BC, the Ulakhan Segelennyakh culture became distributed throughout southern, southwestern, and southeastern Yakutia. The distinctive feature of this culture is perceived as being its ceramics which are decorated with punched nodes, stamp, and impressed designs. According to radiocarbon dating, the Sugunnakh culture existed in the transpolar regions of Yakutia from the 1st millennium BC at least until the first centuries AD. All the three Bronze Age cultures of Yakutia evidently originated from the Late Neolithic Ymyiakhtakh culture.

Abstract :
Pottery is the result of several operations that translate specific choices made by the potter. The use of a vegetal temper is observed for the Neolithic period in the north of France and Belgium, although it is not always possible to distinguish between accidental or deliberate additions. Macroscopic observation of plant material stored in ceramics enables us to identify common mosses, such as Neckera crispa, and more rarely seeds of wild flowers such as poppies. A corpus of 331 thin sections of pottery, from 26 Norman sites covering the beginning of the Neolithic period, was constituted in order to determine which plant species were used as additives for the recipients and to specify when these made their appearance (146 thin sections from the Early Neolithic and 185 thin sections from the Middle Neolithic). A plant recognition process using a polarizing petrographic microscope was developed to identify imprints observed in thin sections of pottery. Clay briquettes tempered with different plant species were fired to form an experimental thin sections database. A polarizing microscope was then used to observe moss, poppy, flax, and seed prints within these briquettes, in order to establish criteria for identifying and differentiating species. The morphological characteristics resulting from the experimental protocol were compared to vegetal additives in thin sections from Neolithic pottery. We were able to identify very fine prints produced by the mosses used in our reference samples, but were unable distinguish genera and species. Pottery tempered with mosses often presents globular forms, either voids or containing charred material, the cell tissues of which can sometimes be distinguished. These tissues, probably parenchymal cells, show strong similarities with stems of present day mosses. Some tempers present longitudinal sections with leaf additives and sometimes even with sectioned leaves. These enable us to specify moss identification to the genus or even species levels. The polarizing microscope observations have also enabled us to identify the presence of fragments of wood in a thin section. A total of 92 vases sampled contain within their fabric fine imprints bearing witness to the use of mosses. In Lower Normandy, proven use of this temper is identified mostly for the Middle Neolithic period, first on Cerny culture settlements and then more particularly on Chassean funerary and habitat sites. The use of this plant temper is not limited to a particular form or to a particular group of clay soil.

Clark, P and Rady, J 2008 ‘The Prehistoric Period’, in P Bennett, P Clark, A Hicks and I Riddler, At the Great Crossroads: Prehistoric, Roman, and medieval discoveries on the Isle of Thanet 1994–95, Canterbury Archaeological Trust Occasional Paper, 4, Canterbury: Canterbury Archaeological Trust, 9–100

Kinship patterns as a doorway to apprehend the symbolic and social structure of Göbekli Tepe communities (2, 2012). Cédric Bodet – associate researcher, IFEA-Istanbul. Summary After discarding, on historical and structural grounds, the idea that Neolithic sumptuary buildings could represent temples, it is assumed that the pillars of Göbekli Tepe relate to a system of belief illustrated by a mythology featuring interacting mythical beings. Like a mirror, the form taken by this symbolical interrelation must reflect something of that society's own form of internal social relations. Numerous ethnological studies, like the work of Lévi-Strauss, have shown that among primitive societies 2 , the exchange of women is the most crucial subject of social interaction. These matrimonial rules exist under a great number of forms, but there is one universal principle determining them all and it must have characterized the social organization of Euphratean Neolithic societies as well: a group r...

In the Jebala region, NW of Morocco, the making of recipients of dung from cows or/and clay (tonna and tabtoba) was common in the past. These recipients were used for stocking cereals and their dry products, for feeding the livestock, or for transporting the céréals to the rotative mill. The élaboration of these objects, which dissapeared 20 or 30 years ago, represented a general technical knowledge which was carried out by all the women in the région, in order to satisfy their domestic needs.

The Neolithic site Bondarikha ІІ was explored 70 years ago by D. Ya. Telegin. The materials of the site were not processed utilizing modern methods. The authors of the paper re-examined and analyzed the site’s materials using current methodologies. The Bondarikha II site is set along a natural boundary on what is now the south-eastern outskirts of the modern city of Izium, Kharkiv region. The location of the site is a section of an over-flooded terrace that stretches along the left bank of the River Siversky Donets, and a section of an older river bed named the Willow Pit. In the north, sections of the terrace were crossed by an unnamed stream, and its southern boundary defined by floodplains. The lowlands nearest the terrace are primarily comprised of wetlands. It is quite clear that the Willow Pit was once an active river and seasonally may have transformed into a lake during times of flooding. The site is located approximately 7 m above the current floodplain. The general site po...

The authors publish the findings of the digs on Mellya-Tamak VI temporary settlement belonging to the Chiyalik archaeological culture – one of the most comprehensively studied settlements in this complex of sites. Besides proper Chiyalik materials, some artefacts of Mesolithic-Neolithic, Early Iron Age (Pyany Bor culture) and Early Middle Ages (Kushnarenkovo culture) have been identified here. The Chiyalik stage is represented by debris of a summer camp, with its surface structures, hearths, stones from wall cladding and household pits. The life time of the Chiyalik settlement on the Mellya-Tamak dune can be dated within the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries, as suggested by the authors based on some finds of glass beads with overlaid linear-undulate paste threads and the ceramic complex. As a result of years of research, the authors conclude that the Chiyalik sites were left by the Uralic Ugrians, who were part of the Golden Horde population and were undergoing the process of Islamization and Turkization.

Публикуются результаты раскопок Меллятамакского VI селища чияликской археологической культуры, одного из наиболее полно исследованных поселений этого круга памятников. Кроме собственно чияликских материалов, здесь выявлены артефакты эпохи мезолита-неолита, раннего железного века (пьяноборская культура) и раннего средневековья (кушнаренковская культура). Чияликский этап представлен остатками поселения-летника, к которому относятся наземные сооружения, очаги, камни обкладки стен и хозяйственные ямы. Время существования чияликского поселения на Мелля-Тамакской дюне по находкам стеклянных бус с орнаментом в виде накладных линейно-волнистых пастовых нитей и керамическому комплексу определено авторами в рамках XIII–XIV вв. По результатам многолетних исследований можно заключить, что памятники чияликской культуры оставлены уральскими уграми, входящими в состав населения Золотой Орды и находящимися в этот период в процессе исламизации и тюркизации.

Preliminary results from further survey and a series of test pit excavations at the flint scatter site of Ras Ushayriq (QHNER 141) during the 2010 season has led to a re-assessment of the nature and chronology of the site.  Over 1500 lithics were collected including implements of the Arabian Bifacial Tradition (ABT) in the form of barbed and tanged arrowheads, a ‘knife’, and possible bifacial performs.  The site has also yielded an axe which exhibits evidence of hafting and a particularly high number of scraper tools.  A hearth has also been uncovered containing lithics, pottery, and fragments of animal and fish bone.  Furthermore, over fifty pieces of Ubaid pottery were discovered, and most significantly five worked fragments of obsidian.

The diversity of technologies combined with the wide variety of different raw material types present suggests successive re-occupation of the site using both local and imported materials.  Evidence of interaction between Arabia and Mesopotamia in the form of Ubaid pottery suggests a date of between 6000-3500BC, placing the main occupation of the site within the Neolithic and the early Holocene.  The recovery of five worked obsidian pieces represents the largest assemblage of obsidian discovered in Qatar to date and implies that the trade in this commodity is perhaps more significant than previously surmised.

In 2016 during the inventory and transportation of the archaeological finds from temporary archaeological storage at Pheophania to the present-day storagefacility of the Institute of Archaeology, the materials
of the excavations of the expeditions of 1980 and 1985 were selected and processed. The excavations and surveys were conducted by expeditions under the leadership of O. G. Shaposhnikova and D. Ya. Telehin on the territory of the Starobilsk district of the Luhansk region.
The surveys in 1980 were conducted at only two locations located close to each other — the settlements of Aidar-Bila and Pidhorivka.
Aydar-Bila. Because the location plan is missing (it is also missing from the 1986 report), it was not possible to locate the settlement on the map. However, it can be assumed that the multilayered settlement of
Aydar-Bila is located in the eastern part of the village Pidhorivka of the Starobilsk district of the Lugansk region, on the low floodplain terrace of the right bank of the river Bila (the right tributary of the Aydar river).
At the location of the settlement, the width of the valley of both rivers is 2.23 km. In 1986, additional research was conducted and the site was named Hyrlo Biloyi. In fact, this name is more common and widely used in the scientific literature. The settlement is multilayered, as indicated by the code on the finds. The largest number of finds is associated with layer 4. Given the vertical distribution of the finds, it can be assumed that there are at least three episodes of occupation in the history of the settlement, two of which, given the peculiarities of the finds, occurred in the Neolithic Period and one in the Late Bronze Age. Pidhorivka. The multilayered settlement of Pidhorivka is located on the off-shore terrace of the right bank of the Aydar River, at the point where the coast recedes to the west, thus forming a sufficiently wide floodplain, on which the depressions of the old-aged lakes are noticeable. In total, about 10 different settlements were found within the specified floodplain, 5
of which are known from the research of S. O. Loktushev in 1939. In 1963, the Pidhorivka settlement was investigated by V. M. Gladilin, however, no report or publication on the results of the research appeared, as correctly pointed out by Y. G. Gurin in 1998. It is only
known that the expedition V. M. Gladilin cleaned up the coastline of the Aydar River, where the Neolithic materials were discovered. Some findings revealed by the expedition led by V. M. Gladilin appear in the
monograph V. M. Danilenko as an example of the material culture of the Azov culture he identified. In 1980, the expedition of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR under the direction of O. G. Shaposhnikova laid out
an excavation area on the Pidhorivka settlement. The results of these studies are unknown (missing report, field documentation, and findings). In the same year, an expedition led by D. Y. Telegin excavated a trench
with a total area of 5 m2. Later (in 1984), the site was explored by an expedition under the general guidance of K. I. Krasilnikov and Y. G. Gurin.
The total number of findings revealed as a result of the research by O. G. Shaposhnikova reached 295 units. The material analysis demonstrates the settlement is multi-layered. The upper horizons with the Middle
and Late Bronze Age materials being the latest. In the conditional horizon of 0.8/0.9 m, a rather informative fragment of the Late Copper Age vessel was found, and at the same time, it is accompanied by a flint complex, which has the appearance of the Early Copper Age or Neolithic. The artifacts found in the conditional horizons of 0.9/1.0—1.1/1.2 m appear to be relatively «pure» in that the cultural and chronological terms clearly define their affiliation with the Early Neolithic Period and allow them to be associated with the Lower Don culture/Nizhnedonska culture of the Mariupol Cultural and Historical Area. At the same time, the presence of earlier artifacts, such as a conical single-platform core and multiple-truncated burin, makes one more cautious to interpret the complexes. Both the core and the burin look more logical in the flint complexes of the lower horizons of the site. In this sense, it is important to pay attention to the description of the stratigraphic section of the excavation area 2 of the settlement Pidhorivka, presented by Y. G. Gurin in a monograph about the Early Copper age sites of the Siversky Donets Basin. It states that, at a depth of 1.7/2.0 m and below, the layer of floodplain alluvium contains «Mesolithic materials». Y. G. Gurin did
not publish the materials themselves that he claimed were from the Mesolithic era. In 2006, O. F. Gorelik issued a publication dedicated to the interpretation of the materials of the lower layer of Pidhorivka. In this
work, he linked the affiliation of the flint complex with the early stage of Donetsk culture, and considered the site one of the centers of the Mesolithic industries with the yanishlavitsa type of projectile points. This conclusion is based on the similarity of the materials of the lower layer of Pidhoryvka with the flint complex of the site Shevchenko hamlet, one of the features of which is the presence of a yanislavitsa type of projectile point. In 1999, the materials of the site Zelena Hornitsa 5 were
published, which is located on the second floodplain terrace of the lake on the left bank of the Siversky Donets River. In the material culture of this site, even if there are multiple elements, they in no way affect the overall situation. The complex of projectile points of the site consists of trapezes, a yanislavitsa type, points with truncated edges, and so on. The presence of the collapse of the stucco vessel along with these flint products gave rise to criticism of the idea of O. F. Gorelik about the
The mesolithic character of complexes with a yanislavitsa type of projectile points. Later V. O. Manko, in a moreь detailed form, questioned the theory of O. F. Gorelik. To the present day, we can state that there has been some stagnation in this issue. The surveys in 1985 were conducted at the valley of Aidar river from v. Lyman to v. Losovivka. In this area, sites lots have been found, which in chronological terms date back to the Paleolithic—Medieval times. For this reason, we believe that the introduction into scientific circulation of even a small amount of archaeological materials allows the creation of a more complete
picture of the processes that took place in the basin of the middle stream of the Siversky Donets River during the Neolithic—Copper Age.

Неолитические святилища Кокшаровский холм и Чертова Гора: общее и особенное. В статье проанализированы черты сходства и различия святилищ Кокшаровский холм и Чертова Гора, оставленных родственными, но не идентичными в археолого-культурном плане группами неолитического населения, с которыми связано развитие кошкинско-боборыкинских и козловско-полуденских орнаментальных традиций в Зауралье и Западной Сибири. Показано, что для создания святилищ были выбраны высокие мысовые выступы, хорошо заметные в окружающем пространстве. На Кокшаровском холме сакральную значимость площадки мыса подчеркивают два рва, вырытые, чтобы отделить культовое пространство от жилой зоны поселения. Важным маркером сакрального пространства святилищ являются возведенные на площадке мыса культовые постройки из деревянных жердей или плах, которые различаются по размерам и конструктивным деталям, но проявляют функциональное сходство. На Кокшаровском холме рядом с некоторыми из этих сооружений имеются объекты гораздо меньших размеров (менее 1 × 1 м) типа деревянного короба, сундука, а на Чертовой Горе – берестяные емкости, напоминающие коробки, туеса. Выявлена специфика каменного инвентаря каждого святилища. Рассматриваются параллели в культовой атрибутике: на обоих памятниках в объектах или рядом с ними обнаружены целые или в развалах сосуды, представлены стержни с насечками, кремневые наконечники стрел и пр., в т.ч. изготовленные специально в ритуальных целях, некоторые преднамеренно сломанные. Показано, что вещевые при-клады сопровождались кровавыми жертвоприношениями. В качестве них выступали дикие животные, птицы и рыбы. На Чертовой Горе отмечены и растительные приношения в виде зерен конопли.

The existence of a knapped stone industry using several volcanic and metamorphic rocks during the Late Neolithic south of the Upper Rhine plain (first half of the 4th millennium), in particular in Basse Alsace (Michelsberg and Munzingen cultures), has long been emphasized. Particular production was made of artefacts in pale hyperacidic rhyolite found in deposits in the valley of the Nideckbach affluent of the River Bruche in Bas-Rhin. Currently, 47 chronologically certain Neolithic pieces in pale rhyolite have been found on the sites of six settlements in Basse Alsace. Use of this material increased from the mid-to late Michelsberg/Munzingen transition, then fell off at the time of the Munzingen B and C. Production revolved around the extraction of splinters that are clearly longer than they are wide. The supports produced are relatively standardized and display the same simplified and technically sophisticated operating modes. The pieces created seem to have been strongly conditioned by the morphology of the fragments and constraints imposed by the knappability of the rhyolite. Whatever their morphology, the fragments were mostly turned into scrapers. The thinnest may have been sought for their cutting edge. The exploitation of volcanic and metamorphic rocks, associated with a more frequent use of local Muschelkalk flint, may have been the result of a strong reduction in the importation of good quality flint in this region at the start of the Late Neolithic.

One of the most important megalithic groups in Western Europe in terms of number and characteristics is the group of over 200 monuments of various types in Sardinia. It now seems to be confirmed that the rise of the megalithic phenomenon was during the culture of San Michele of Ozieri (Late Neolithic, 4000-3300 B.C.E.). The Sardinian dolmen graves, however, had a maximum distribution during the Chalcolithic, as evidenced by most of the finds from excavations. The phenomenon also shows a close relationship beyond Sardinia and especially with the monuments of Catalonia, Pyrenees, non-coastal departments of French-midi, Corsica and Puglia. About 90 dolmen graves of various types have been investigated, namely the simple type, “corridor” type, “allée couverte” type, and others of uncertain attribution, located in central-western Sardinia, and particularly in a significant area of ca. 3500 km2 coinciding with the historical regions of Marghine-Planargia, Middle Valley of Tirso and Montif...

Recent fieldwork in the main excavation area at Göbekli Tepe has focused on the excavation of deep soundingsto reach the natural bedrock in preparation for the construction of a shelter, urgently required for the protection of the exposed Neolithic architecture. Eleven deep soundings have been excavated to the bedrock. At several locations, considerable amounts of carbonized botanical material were discovered, so far unique for excavations at Göbekli. A series of more than 150 samples has been produced either on site or by flotation of the relevant soil units. To test the quality of the material for radiocarbon dating, five samples from the area of the large enclosures from Layer III were submitted for AMS-radiocarbon dating. These new data, together with a further age made on collagen from an animal tooth, are presented and discussed in context with previously available absolute chronological evidence.

The research on cemeteries with unchambered tombs of the Funnel Beaker Culture has a long tradition in south-eastern Poland. Within the course of the twentieth century, these necropolises were recorded in the areas of Sandomierz, Lublin and Western Małopolska lands. In recent years, they have also been identified in the Rzeszów Foothills. Due to field and cabinet works, carried out by various scientific centres for many years, it was possible to gather a lot of information about this phenomenon in this Trichterbecherkomplex zone. It relates mainly to the morphology of tombs and graves and their spatial relationships. Relatively much is known about the age and sex structure of individuals buried there and accompanying artefacts. A novelty in recent times is a significant increase in data in terms of radiocarbon dates. They are some of the most crucial and desired sorts of information, explaining the time of functioning of such necropolises. This fact is particularly intriguing as for e.g. the attempt to determine time relations with over similar forms present in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian zone and the places of local settlement systems.

I recently had the opportunity to review Alex Gibson’s thought provoking volume, 'Enclosing the Neolithic: Recent studies in Britain and Europe'. That review, to which the reader is directed for further commentary, identified as a weakness the uneven spread of regional case studies, and in particular the omission of studies from the West Country, Wales and North West England, which are so important in understanding the Irish Sea Zone. The aim of this paper is to address this with regard to the material from the North West of England, and in particular Cumbria. This paper is therefore meant to be read in conjunction with Gibson’s edited volume.

Throughout the late Pleistocene and early Holocene the landscape of Qatar was transformed by global climate changes, cycles of sea level rise and fluctuations in rainfall. The Peninsula is formed from Eocene limestone which was subsequently shaped by geomorphological processes, leaving a gently undulating landscape featuring rock outcrops and sediment bowls. As a result of late Pleistocene and early Holocene sea level rise, the Arabian Gulf now surrounds the western, northern and eastern sides of the landmass, but for most of prehistory Qatar was part of a landlocked, hyper-arid region. Given these changes it is therefore important to consider both the changing external conditions that influenced human behaviour in prehistory and the varying taphonomic pathways that were favourable for site preservation. These are fundamental tenets of landscape archaeology, placing past human activities within the wider context of a landscape that is the product of climatic fluctuation and geomorphological change.