Producing Economy on the Middle Don in the Neolithic – Eneolithic: current state of the problem
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24852/2587-6112.2025.6.22.32Keywords:
archaeology, Neolithic, Eneolithic, Middle Don, site, stratigraphy, ceramics, animal bones, cattle breedingAbstract
The process of transition of the population from appropriating to producing economy is one of the fundamental problems of primitive archaeology. These issues are least developed for territories distant from the primary centers of domestication of animals and plants. One of these regions is the Middle Don region. Despite the fact that monuments with materials of the time of interest have been purposefully studied since the 1960s, until recently, there was no reliable data from settlement and burial complexes of the Middle Don region, which would allow to answer one of the main questions of the archaeology of the Neolithic-Eneolithic of the region - the time of origination of productive forms of economy in the region. As a rule, the problem lies in two main aspects: the absence of settlements with reliable stratigraphy, or poor preservation of organic materials in the cultural layers of settlements. After the excavation of Cherkasskaya-3 multilayered stratified Neolithic – Eneolithic site in 2012, data was obtained, which highlights the time of the appearance of cattle breeding signs in the Middle Don region. In the lower layer of the site (first quarter of the 6th millennium BC – first quarter of the 5th millennium BC) with ceramics of the Mariupol Cultural and Historical Area, no bones of small ruminants and cattle were found. In the middle layer (second – third quarter of the 5th millennium BC), bones of small ruminants were found among the materials of the early Sredny Stog culture. In the upper layer (fourth quarter of the 5th millennium BC – first quarter of the 4th millennium BC) of the late Sredny Stog (Dereivka) culture, cattle bones occurred.
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