Archaeology of the Indo-European Fatherland
A. G. Vinogradov
S. V. Zharnikova

Illustrator Алексей Германович Виноградов

Translator Алексей Германович Виноградов

© A. G. Vinogradov, 2025

© S. V. Zharnikova, 2025

© Алексей Германович Виноградов, illustrations, 2025

© Алексей Германович Виноградов, translation, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0065-3102-4

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Introduction

Russia is a country of eternal change and is completely not conservative, and a country beyond conservative customs, where historical times live, and do not part with rituals and ideas. The Russians are not a young people, but the old ones – like the Chinese. They are very old, ancient, conservatively preserved all the oldest and do not refuse it. In their language, their superstition, their disposition, etc., you can study the most ancient times.

Victor von Hyun. 1870.

The book of outstanding researchers S. V. Zharnikova and A. G. Vinogradov «Archeology of the Indo-European Fatherland» is devoted to the study of the ancestral home of the Indo-European peoples and is dedicated to the archeology of the ancestral home of the Indo-European. The origin of their rites and traditions. The book was written in 1989—90 but could not be published in Russia. Over the past time, additional materials have appeared that confirm the opinion of the authors. The book includes an archaeological atlas of the Indo-European fatherland.

In the modern world, the urgency of the problems of the ethnic history of the peoples of various regions of our planet is obvious. The growth of ethnic self-awareness, which has been observed everywhere in recent decades, is accompanied by an increase in interest in the historical past of peoples, in the transformations that each of them experienced during its many thousand-year-old formation. It became a spiritual need for a representative of a modern urbanized society to find the roots of his ethnic existence, to understand the diverse processes that led to the formation of that ethnocultural environment through which he perceives the world around him.

Since the origin and historical existence of the overwhelming majority of the peoples of our planet was associated with numerous migrations, shifts to new territories, causing changes in a number of cultural factors, both among the alien people and the indigenous population, today, studying the ethnic history and culture of people, we, of course, study them in the process of historical transformations and mutual influences of many tribes and peoples, to one extent or another took part in their formation.

Regional ethnohistorical research in our time is becoming especially acute, since it is knowledge of the history of one’s own people that helps a modern person to free himself from the narrowness of the nationalist view of the world, to understand the role and significance of the contribution to the common treasury of human culture of all peoples, to realize that humanity is one. Of course, it is impossible to solve the most difficult issues of ethnic history today without involving data from the most diverse fields of science.

It is necessary to combine the efforts of ethnographers, historians, archaeologists, linguists, folklorists, anthropologists, art historians, as well as paleobotanists, paleozoologists, paleoclimatologists and geomorphologists, since the development and formation of peoples took place in certain climatic zones, in certain landscapes, with a certain flora and fauna, and this must be taken into account. Only if the questions posed by ethnic history will be given mutually supportive answers by all of the above branches of science, we can, with a certain amount of confidence, believe that we are close to a true understanding of a particular stage of the historical process.

Therefore, at present, the search for an answer to any of the questions of the ethnic history of peoples cannot be considered legitimate without involving data from related sciences. This book answers this question.

It was written in 1989—90. And since then could not be published in Russia.

Although over the past time additional materials have appeared that confirm the opinion of the authors, nevertheless, we decided not to make changes, and publish it in the form in which it was written 30 years ago.

Paleolithic

Among the many unresolved problems of the many thousand-year history of the peoples of Eurasia, one of the most interesting is the problem of the ancient history of the European North of our country of that distant time, in which we must look for the origins and roots of a peculiar and unique North Russian folk culture.

«The tale of the North is deep and captivating,» wrote Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich. «The northern winds are cheerful and cheerful. The northern lakes are thoughtful. The northern rivers are silvery. The darkened forests are wise. The green hills are experienced. The gray stones in the circles are full of miracles. We are all looking for the beautiful Ancient Rus.»

N. K. Roerich. Kissing Dawns

«The people do not remember that he would ever invent his mythology, his language, his laws, customs and rituals. All these national foundations have already deeply entered into his moral being, like life itself, which it has lived through for many prehistoric centuries, as past «on which the real order of things and the whole future development of life firmly rests. Therefore, all moral ideas for the people of the primitive age constitute its sacred tradition, great native antiquity, holy covenant of ancestors to descendants,» – these words of the outstanding Russian folklorist of the 19th century V. I. Buslaev, uttered by him at a ceremony in Moscow University in 1889, have not lost their relevance in our days.

Turning today to the infinite depths of folk memory, captured in legends and tales, traditions and conspiracies, in songs and rituals, in traditional art, we voluntarily or involuntarily plunge into the darkness of centuries and millennia, we are leaving at a distant time when all these cultural norms are still only nascent.

The prototypes of the characters depicted in the legends and the motives associated with them are formed already in the myth of the totemic ancestor, whose formation dates back to the Middle Paleolithic period, i.e. 100—50 thousand BC.

What time was it and what is it remarkable for the territory of the north of Eastern Europe?

O. Bader writes that during the «Mikulinsky» or «rice-Wurm» interglacial period characterized by a relatively warm climate, the first meeting of people with the Arctic Ocean in northeastern Europe probably took place. «All the locations of the Middle Paleolithic Mousterian implements stretched along the Western Urals, along the banks of the ancient Pra-Kama River (now Volga) from Volgograd to the mouths of Chusova, Obvi and Vishera, outlined the path that the ancients traveled, settling in Eastern Europe».

This conclusion seems quite logical in the light of the latest paleogeographic data, indicating that in the Mikulinsk interglacial (130—70 thousand BC) in the European north of our country there was no tundra at all, up to 65° N Spruce and birch forests spread with the participation of hornbeam and other broad-leaved species, up to 60° N. came mixed broad-leaved forests of hornbeam, linden, oak and spruce. To the far north along the western tip of the Northern and Subpolar Urals at that distant time a wide strip of birch and coniferous forests with the participation of oak and elm extended. The average winter temperatures in northern Europe were then significantly higher than modern ones: in Scandinavia by 7°, and in the northeast of the Russian Plain by 7—8° and even 11°.

Paleogeographers, soil scientists, paleoclimatologists came to the conclusion that «130—70 thousand years ago the conditions typical for the western Atlantic regions of Europe were distributed to Eastern Europe. The differences in the climate of Western Europe today and the Mikulinsk interglacial, in contrast from Eastern Europe, were small.»

And even more than that, in the Mediterranean-Black Sea strip at some points in winter temperatures were 1—2° lower than in our time. «The warm Arctic of the Mikulinsk interglacial, when January temperatures were 4—8° C higher than modern, suggests that the flow of warm waters of the Gulf Stream at that time was much more powerful than now (with a higher temperature),» – the authors of the atlas – monographs «Paleography of Europe for the last hundred thousand years.»

They note that for the White Sea region (within the eastern part of the North European archipelago), interglacial forests were characterized by pine forests, then mixed birch forests with spruce and broad-leaved species, and at the end of the interglacial period, birch forests prevailed. During the Mikulinsk interglacial period, up to approximately 60° N, and up to 57° N in the basin of the upper reaches of the Northern Dvina and Vyatka, birch and spruce forests were widespread with a greater or lesser participation of oak, hornbeam, and elm.

Vegetation of the Mikulinsk interglacial

Therefore, there is nothing unrealistic in the development by the ancient human collectives of the north of Eastern Europe already in Mousterian time.

Archaeologists believe that people lived on the Pechora River (the Krutaya Gora site) 70 millennia ago.

Moreover, «primitive archeology now has massive and indisputable materials proving a long history of agriculture, which began at least from the end of the Middle Paleolithic era,» i.e. archaeologists determine the time of the birth of primitive agriculture, which is three or four tens of millennia away from us. For its occurrence in the rate of gathering, the necessary condition was the presence of mixed grasses and grass steppes. And those were not only in the traditional zone —

in the south of the Russian Plain, but also in the north, where for the time it was 45210 +1430 BP pine-birch forests with grassy meadow cover in the Vychegda and Pechora rivers basin. 44 the millennium BC is the time of new, compared with the very warm Mikulinsk interglacial, climatic conditions – the Mologo-Shekshninsk interglacial.

Grain mills

Ice sheet cliff

About 70 thousand years ago, the Mikulinsk or Rice-Wurm interglacial, which lasted about 60 thousand years, ended. The next ice age began, which was called Valdai in Eastern Europe.

Valdai glaciation – the name is very conditional, because this entire period is divided into two unequal parts: 70—24 thousand years ago – the iceless Valdai and 24—9.4 thousand years ago – the glacial Valdai. During the Ice-free Valdai, a slower increase in cooling alternated with periods of warming.

One of such warmings, very long, was the Mologo-Sheksna interglacial period, which continued with short cooling periods from 50 thousand to 24 thousand to the present day, and the time from 32 to 24 thousand years ago was the warmest. So, broad-leaved forests spread to the Don, the so-called Kostenko-Streletsk Paleolithic culture develops here, part of the population of which during the Milk-Sheksna interglacial period moved along the Russian plain to the Oka basin. A number of archaeologists suggest that the tribes of Streletsk culture at this time inhabit the banks of the Pechery.

Researchers note that: «In the northeast of Europe, which includes the vast expanses of the Volga and Ural regions, outstanding monuments of the early Paleolithic period have been found in recent years, and there has already been a turning point in the direction of intensifying work to study them. Some areas of the Russian Plain (north-west) in the Sheksninsk time may not have been populated. It should be emphasized that from the south to the north of the Russian Plain, at the time of the formation and development of the Upper Paleolithic, not nomadic nomadic hunters moved, but tribes leading a settled lifestyle, building long-term dwellings of various types, conducting complex household chores based on hunting and gathering. Hunting herds of horses and reindeer required the improvement of throwing weapons and, probably, led at such an early time to the invention of bows and arrows. In the same period, a spiritual culture develops and develops.»

Archaeological sites of the Paleolithic spiritual culture have been preserved in places of prolonged residence of people. Apparently, in the near future on the territory of the Russian Plain and, in particular, the Russian North, first-class monuments dating to the time of the Mologo-Sheksna Interstadial, the warmest time of the Valdai glacier, will be opened. In Poland and Germany, all the monuments of the ancient Stone Age are concentrated south of the 52nd parallel in the basin of the upper Vistula and in the Silesian Mountains. In Eastern Europe, they are distributed unevenly. In the western part, such monuments can be traced only to 52 parallel. In the central part of the Russian Plain, Mousterian monuments are known up to 54 parallels, and the Upper Paleolithic Buzovaya site (in the middle reaches of the Pechora River) is located north of 64° N, about 175 km.

from the Arctic Circle. Her age is 25450+380 years ago, the Sungir site on the Klyazma River is just north of 56° N. – her age is 25500 +200 years ago. In addition, by the 24th millennium BC such sites of the northeast of the Russian Plain include the Bear Cave in the upper reaches of the Pechora River, Ostrovskaya Station, Smirnovskaya and Buranovskaya Caves. In the northwest, monuments of this time are unknown.

Bear Cave

Cultural traditions prevailing among the population of the northern part of the Russian Plain of that distant time, very well represented by the graves of the Sungir site near the city of Vladimir, dating to the end of the Molozhsko-Sheksninsk time. Here, observing a long-established ritual, people who lived in the 24th millennium BC, before burying their dead, sprinkled the bottom of the grave with hot coals, cleansing it, possibly with the remnants of trizny. Then chalk or another white substance, similar to lime, was strewn to the bottom, and already over a white layer, densely sprinkled with red ocher. White and red – the symbols of purity and blood, snow and fire were already at that distant time, escorting a person to another world. The deceased were put into the grave in richly decorated clothes, with numerous stone and bone tools and weapons; they were covered with fur cloaks and plentifully covered with red ocher. So in Sungir in one of the graves was buried a tall, broad-shouldered man 55—56 years old, lying on his back with his hands folded on his stomach, his head was turned to the northeast. He was wearing a suede or fur shirt, leather pants and leather shoes such as moccasins. All the clothes of this man are 24 millennia BC. It was embroidered with 3,500 beads carved from mammoth tusks. On his hands he wore more than 20 bracelets from thin, cut from mammoth tusks, plates, as well as bracelets from strung beads. The entire headdress was embroidered with beads and ended at the back of the head with arctic fangs. On the man’s shoulders lay a short fur cloak embroidered with larger beads. A girl of 7—8 years old and a boy of 12—13 years old were buried next to the man. Their burials were also accompanied by a huge number of mammoth bone products. Of particular interest are spears made from split and straightened tusks: 2 m. 42 cm in the boy and 1 m. 66 cm in the girl. Today it is not yet clear how our distant ancestors straightened and split the three-meter tusks, how long, straight; hard and sharp spears were trimmed. Children’s clothes were embroidered with beads even richer than the clothes of men. A total of about 7,500 beads were sewn on it, children wore bracelets, and mammoth bone rings. In addition, the clothes were decorated with elegant ornamented slotted discs, hair clips, fasteners.

Archaeologists suggest that the burial of children does not occur simultaneously with the funeral of an adult and was done much earlier. This indicates that this is not a random rich burial, but a stable tradition that has developed for a long time and has been preserved for millennia.

Bone products. Sungir

Abstract human thinking of the Upper Paleolithic of Eastern Europe was significantly developed, as evidenced not only by the burial of Sungiri, but also numerous ornamented crafts of that distant time, being highly exemplary Paleolithic art. So on the Don (Kostenki) on bone and flint products – female figures – as a rule, graphic depicted ribbon bands on the chest and waist. Of the elements of the ornament, an oblique cross is most often found. M. D. Gvozdover writes: «Obviously, this ornament should be considered the most characteristic of the Kostenkov culture, moreover, in other Paleolithic cultures, the rows of oblique crosses are almost unknown… The choice of ornament and its location on the subject is not caused by technological reasons or material… the nature of the arrangement of the elements of the ornament and their choice are caused not by technological reasons, but by cultural tradition… archaeological culture is characterized by both the elements of the ornament themselves and the type of their location on the ornamental field and the grouping of elements.»

Figurines. Kostenki

In the ancient Stone Age, for the first time on the products from mammoth tusks found in the Mezin site in the Chernihiv region (23 thousand BC), another type of ornament appears – the meander motif and swastika

.

Mezin

An outstanding Russian researcher V. A. Gorodtsov wrote in 1926, analyzing the North Russian peasant weaving and embroidery: «Until recently, it was believed that the meander and the ovs are the fruits of the ancient art of Greece, and the swastika is the art of India, but all this turned out to be wrong, since it has been documented that the swastika, meander and ovs were the favorite motifs of the ornament of the most ancient centuries of the paleometallic (bronze) era, when maybe there were neither Greeks nor Indians hiding in the same Indo-European family, and when these motives managed to spread not only to all the continents of the Old World, but also infiltrate Central America. And this is not surprising, because the swastika and the meander of earlier and those times distant from us: they were found in Russia on the art of the Mezin Paleolithic site, whose time is far from us, according to geologists, for many tens of millennia. And in what amazingly developed form they are there! And what’s most surprising is that they contacted bird figures there, undoubtedly having the same cult religious significance as they have in our time, those the meaning of the symbol of the spring sun and related ideas about happiness, prosperity and joy. Thus, in a lovely complex of swastika signs, in the patterns of the North Russian skilled craftswomen, hiding reminiscence (living memory) of the most ancient universal religious symbols. And how fresh, what a solid memory!»

What was the initial model for the most complex rhombus-meander and swastika ornament Mezin still remains a mystery. Paleontologist V. I. Bibikova in 1965 suggested that the meander spiral, torn meander stripes and rhombuses on objects from the Mezin arose as a repetition of the natural pattern of mammoth tusks dentin. From this she concluded that a similar ornament for the people of the Upper Paleolithic was a kind of magical symbol of the mammoth, embodying (as the main object of hunting) their ideas about wealth, power and abundance.

I. G. Shovkoplyas, who published the materials of the Mezinsk site, notes that meander patterns characteristic of the monuments of this Upper Paleolithic culture, they have no direct analogies in the Paleolithic art of Europe and can be put «on a par with the perfect geometric ornament of later historical eras, for example, Neolithic and copper-bronze.»

Mezin Ornaments

In the division of V. A. Gorodtsov, European Upper Paleolithic cultures of 25—20 thousand BC into three separate regions – Western European, Central European and Eastern European in the nature of art monuments, the basis for highlighting the Eastern European region was the unique geometric ornament of Mezin.

Thus, «our Mezin in the Chernihiv region is famous for the geometric meander ornament on the bone. In the remaining parts of the Old World, the meander appears only in the Bronze Age.» True, in connection with the origins of this ornamental motive, various researchers have developed very different points of view. It has already been noted above that V. I. Bibikova considers it possible to derive the Mezinsk meander and swastika from a repetition of the natural pattern of dentin of mammoth tusks. A. A. Formozov comes to the conclusion that: «the meander, characteristic of antique vase painting, the ancient Greek potters adopted from the weavers, and they only copied a pattern of threads that they obtained involuntarily in the manufacture of clothing. The Paleolithic hunters of Eastern Europe, not familiar with weaving, the meander appeared most likely as a result of the complication of zigzags, often engraved on their bones.»

It seems that it is difficult to agree with both the first and second assumptions of A. A. Formozov. The ancient Greek potters could also adopt another «thread weaving pattern», as soon as their weavers were so virtuoso that they received meander patterns in the structure of the fabric. After all, it’s impossible to get a meander by «involuntary» weaving of threads, for this you need to master the most sophisticated multi-piece weaving technique, so, probably, both the ancient weavers and the potters sought to decorate their products with a meander pattern not by chance, but quite consciously, connecting it with a certain complex of ancient representations. As for the Paleolithic hunters, they hunted mammoths not only in Eastern, but also in Western Europe, however, there are"zigzag complications,» also engraved on bone, did not happen.

Galaxy

Probably still closer to the truth B. A. Frolov, who, decoding the ornament of the Mezinsk bracelet, I came to the conclusion that the complex of the most complex representations of the Paleolithic man on the movement of time, on the change of seasons of the year, on the lunar calendar is reflected here those. We are not dealing with a simple imitation of a natural pattern and not with the «complication of zigzags», and with the complexity of thinking, with a complex worldview system.» He writes: «An analysis of the paleolithic graphics of Eurasia now indisputably shows: certain laws, a kind of «algorithms» for constructing the first ornaments really existed. The number of elements in the ornament groups, intervals between homogeneous groups repeat the cycles of the most frequent and visual cosmic phenomena for the inhabitants of the Earth, primarily associated with the movement of the sun and moon.» It should be noted that A. A. Formozov also believes that it was «with the development of the thinking of our ancestors who managed to move from a concrete-shaped perception of life to complex abstractions» that «a change in the face of art in the Neolithic and bronze» was connected, when the «true flowering survived the ornament».

The fact that the world of the Paleolithic man was much more complex and spiritually richer than we had previously imagined evidenced by the highly developed and specialized stone industry, and complex constructions of bone-sod houses, and thousands of drilled polished beads, spears and bracelets from mammoth tusks in the graves of Sungir, musical instruments and statues of Mezin and much more.

As noted earlier, already in the Upper Paleolithic we meet with a peculiar contrast of red and white: the whiteness of the bones was contrasted with the saturated color of the engraved ornaments worn by red ocher. In the graves of Sungir, the bottom was sprinkled with white matter (chalk or lime) and «already on the white layer of the grave densely showered with bright red ocher.

«Researchers noted what exactly red color played a huge role in cult rites and aesthetics of this period. Red dyes were used even in mustier (up to 50 thousand BC), and for a very long time there was a belief that ancient people used only natural dyes. As a result of research, it was found that by firing glandular nodules in different modes, red dyes of various shades were obtained already in the Upper Paleolithic.

N. D. Praslov writes: «… in general, it can be stated that more than 20 thousand years ago primitive people used a wide range of dyes, at least four primary colors: white, ocher, red and black. Especially rich colors are red paint.»

It should be noted that in the textile decor of many peoples of Eurasia, such a traditional combination of red and white survived to the 20th century. And this is especially characteristic of East Slavic ornamentation in general and North Russian, in particular. It is in such a strict and ancient red-white color scheme that the ornaments of «a charming complex of swastika signs in the patterns of North Russian skilled craftswomen» are made, in which, according to V. A. Gorodtsov, «a vivid memory of the most ancient universal symbols is hiding.» – the researcher exclaims. And this is not surprising. Having studied the Mezin Upper Paleolithic site, I. G. Shovkoplyas believed that the commonality of ornamental complexes indicates the affinity of the groups using these complexes. He believed that the population of Kostenki II on the Don, the Mezinsk site in the Dnieper and the East Siberian sites of Malta and Buret was closely related. He’s writing: «… a very distant resettlement of certain groups of East European Late Paleolithic population, possibly also originating from the Middle Dnieper basin (the Middle Dnieper ethnocultural region), probably, the location of Malta and Buret sites in Eastern Siberia should also be explained, extremely close and even identical in many manifestations of their material and spiritual culture (flint tools, bone products, character of dwellings, etc.) with sites of the Middle Dnieper basin, first of all with the same Mezinsk. Not excluded that the inhabitants of the sites of the

Mezin culture in the Middle Dnieper basin, on the one hand, and the named Siberian sites – on the other, had a common origin and even for some time constituted one population group at an early stage of their history. " 26 To the cited above, it should also be added that the inventory of the Upper Paleolithic Buzovaya site, located 175 km. from the Arctic Circle, which is 25—29 thousand years away from us, has much in common with the complex of the lower layer Kostenki I, 12 on the Don and dates back to the same time that, according to the conclusions of I. G. Shovkoplyas testifies to the genetic kinship of human groups that left these sites. At present, for most researchers, the population of the Urals at the end of the Mologo-Sheksna time seems indisputable.

Ornaments Kostenki II on the Don

Ornaments Malta Buret

Ornaments Kargopol

The exceptional development and perfection of the norms of ornaments, sculptures, relief’s dating back to this time convince that their roots should be sought in the more ancient Mousterian era, in that period of the Mikulinsk interglacial (130—70 thousand years ago), when human groups already mastered the Pechora basin and the coast of the Arctic Ocean and when the climate of the north of Eastern Europe did not differ from the modern climate of England and Southern Germany.

Ice sheet during the maximum stage of the Valdai glaciation The discovery in the last decades of first-class Paleolithic monuments in the north of the European part of our country (Bear Cave is located at 65° N), with lots of flint inventory and even wall painting, is an outstanding event.

It shows once again that in the ancient Stone Age human groups widely populated the north of Eastern Europe, those territories of the future Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Kostroma, Vyatka regions and the Komi Republic.The warm young Sheksninsky time was replaced about 20—18 millennia ago by a sharp cooling when the overgrown Scandinavian ice sheet reached its maximum development. The data of modern science indicate that the limit of the distribution of the Valdai glaciation went in the latitudinal direction from Vilnius to Smolensk, and then to the northwest to the Rybinsk Reservoir, Lake Kubensky and Nyandoma. Further to the northeast, the border is not reliably established.

At this time, in the territory of England and Ireland, free of glacier, stretched the tundra and subarctic meadows. Birch woodland (park tundra) was common in Western Europe, and the woodlands with birch and birch-pine forest stands occupied most of Central Europe and then a relatively narrow strip along the coast of the future Baltic Sea, and then Baltic glacial lake, to the northeast. Real forests or as they are called «typical forest boreal formations», in the western and middle parts of Europe at that time there were very few and they were mainly in the valleys of large rivers and intermontane basins.

Within the Russian plain, forests occupied, unlike Western Europe, a large area in the form of a wide strip crossing it in the direction from the southwest to the northeast. These were birch, pine, spruce and fir forests.

Paleogeographers note that: «in a number of areas there already existed forests with the participation of broad-leaved species such as oak and elm …vegetation of the steppe type was widespread in the southern part of the Russian Plain. It is interesting to note that during the maximum of the Valdai glaciation, when almost the entire territory of England was covered with a glacier, and habitable sections were tundra and arctic meadows, primitive people and animals such as the wolf, cave bear, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, bull and mammoth lived only 50 km. from the edge of the glacier. At the same time, meadow steppes with spruce-birch and pine forests were widespread in the Upper Volga basin. In the Oka basin, during the maximum glaciation, spruce-pine forests of the north-taiga type were noisy. In the area of the village of Pokrovskaya on the Puchka River (near Lake Kubensky, at 60°N), directly at the edge of the glacier, about 38 species of flowering and spore plants grew and the woodland consisted of birch, spruce, larch. Need to mark, that the actual tundra type of vegetation in Eastern Europe was a relatively narrow strip along the border of the Scandinavian ice sheet. But in Central Europe the tundra occupied, apparently, «the entire strip between the Scandinavian ice sheet in the north and the Alpine glacier in the south, and in the Atlantic part their distribution was even greater.»

If during the period of the maximum stage of the Valdai glaciation (20—18 thousand years ago) almost the entire territory of Western Europe, with the exception of the south-west of France, the upper reaches of the Danube and the foothills of the Eastern Carpathians, was occupied by subarctic meadows and tundra with birch and deciduous woodlands, then in Eastern Europe from the upper Dniester began a wide strip of meadow steppes with pine, deciduous and birch forests, passing through the Pripyat basin, Middle Dnieper, the middle course of the Oka. Expanding in the direction from southwest to northeast, in the northwest it reached the Upper Volga (in the Yaroslavl region) and the middle Vychegda in the north. The entire southeast of Eastern Europe at that time was occupied by cereal steppes, reaching in the northeast up to 55° N, in a number of areas there were forests with the participation of broad-leaved species such as oak and elm. Thus, plant zones were located in the submeridian direction, «sharply different from basically the breadth of zonality of the modern vegetation cover of Eurasia, „that“ can be considered as one of the most characteristic features of the nature of Europe in the era of glaciation.»

Vegetation. Maximum Valdai Glaciation

In most of the European territory of our country, there was no glacier during the maximum of the Valdai glaciation. And of course, in the presence of those natural conditions that existed then, it is unlikely that the population left these lands. Experts believe that during the peak of the Valdai glaciation during the period of the greatest cooling, the outflow of the population from the territories bordering the edge of the glacier went «south to the mountains, south-west to the territory of the Central Massif of France and along the Sudeten and Carpathians towards the Russian Plain», with its meadow steppes and forests, and hence with an abundance of food. However, it should be noted that the entire territory of the Baltic States, Northern Belarus, the North-West of Smolensk, Leningrad, Novgorod and a significant part of the Tver regions were covered with glacier and their settlement occurs only at the end of the Late Glacial, at the turn of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic. It remains to be assumed that with climate change worsening, and then with the advent of the glacier, the population who left these territories, to a large extent advanced to the east of the Russian Plain and the Urals, and part of it went to the Trans-Urals, to the lands of Western Siberia and further east, up to Altai. Maybe, it was then that the division of the unified boreal parent language into three independent branches occurred – the Early Indo- European language, which continued to develop in Eastern Europe, the Early Uralic language, which was formed in the Trans-Urals and early Altai language.

Paleolithic sites in Eastern Europe

Mesolithic

About 13.5 – 13 thousand years ago, global warming began and 12 millennia ago, a new postglacial time begins – the Holocene. In the north of the European part of our country, its beginning was noted, as in Western Europe, by a transition zone, an important property of which was the presence of sharp climatic fluctuations: warming belling (12,400 – 12,000 years ago), cooling of the average Dryas (12,000 – 11,800 years ago), warming Allered (11,800 -11,000 years ago), cooling of the Late Dryas (11,000 – 10,300 years ago), Polovtsian warming (10,300

– 10,000 years ago), Pereyaslav cooling (10,000 – 9,500 years ago).

Already 11,900 – 10,300 years ago, summer temperatures in Europe were approaching modern. 31 This time was marked in Eastern Europe by a significant reduction in the area of the glacier. So already about 13600 years ago, the Klimetsky island on Lake Onega was abandoned by a glacier, and the Luga glacier zone was formed about 13,200—1,300 years ago. At 8 kb the eastern border of the glacier was on the border of Karelia and Finland.

Dryas vegetation

Subsequently, there was an increase in heat supply, up to the so-called Holocene climatic optimum, which came about 8 thousand years ago. Already 12

thousand years ago, on the site of the current swamps of the Yaroslavl and Leningrad regions, spruce, birch and pine forests grew and after 2—3 millennia – linden and elm. During the late glacial warming, birch, pine and spruce forests spread on the territory of the Russian Plain; in the south of the Pskov region there were thermophilic plants, for example, sea buckthorn. The White Sea has been freed from mainland ice and in the next millennium it was connected with the Barents Sea by two straits. In the north of the Pechora lowland 10—9 thousand years ago, woody vegetation developed the territory, moreover, «it was established that the degradation of the last ice sheet of the Pechersk Lowland, as well as of the entire north-east of the European territory of the USSR, occurred in an unusual way, fundamentally different from the degradation of the Scandinavian ice sheet.»

Researchers suggest that the destruction of the ice sheet was accompanied and may have been caused by processes of a seismic nature, catastrophic earthquakes. The Baltic is getting warm. On the island of Gotland over a period of time from 9700 to 9000 years ago, temperatures increased by 15° C, reaching modern values. Since the end of 7 thousand BC forests of the northern taiga appearance has advanced to the Barents Sea, the tundra on the continent has completely disappeared. In the place of modern middle taiga, southern taiga forests appeared with the participation of oak, elm, maple, and hazel. In relation to the current situation, the northern border of the middle taiga has advanced 450—550 km to the north. Broad-leaved forests in the west of the Russian Plain have grown to a strip width of 1200—1300 km. in the meridional direction. Dark coniferous spruce taiga occupied an area three times smaller than at present. Between 8,200 and 6,000 years ago, deciduous forests advanced south, and the zone of real steppes was limited only to a narrow strip of the Black Sea coast.

In the forest belt of Eastern Europe in the Holocene begins a new period of the Middle Stone Age or Mesolithic (10—5 thousand years BC) – the time of settlement and development of the northern and north-western territories. Ice liberation took place in many ways. Modern researchers suggest that there was an influx of population from the south-west from the Volga-Oka and Baltic-Dnieper regions.

This is not unexpected after all; people followed a long beaten path. Recall that analyzing the inventory of the Upper Paleolithic sites of the Dnieper (Mezin culture), Don (Kostenki), Siberia (Malta and Buret) and Pechora (Buzovaya site), the researchers suggested a genetic relationship between the human groups that left these sites. In addition, significant areas of the north of the Russian Plain, located between the eastern border of the glacier (Mologa blade) and the Ural Range, covered and at the peak of the glacier with mixed forests and meadow grass steppes, hardly abandoned by humans. In the Mesolithic era with improved climatic conditions, with the increase in the zone of broad-leaved forests, the population in these territories should naturally increase, because it is broad-leaved forests that «have high biological productivity and extremely favorable conditions for the extraction of plant and animal food».

During the Mesolithic, almost the entire territory of the Leningrad, Novgorod, Tver, Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Vologda regions, Karelia and a significant part of the Arkhangelsk region were in the subzone of deciduous forests.

Holocene vegetation

In the Mesolithic era, man develops the Arctic. A large number of sites of this time were identified in the basin of the Northern Dvina, Vychegda, Pechora.

Already 12—11 millennia ago, human groups mastered the Arctic coast of the Kola Peninsula. At the turn of 7—6 BC Mesolithic settlements appear in the West Siberian Arctic, in Taimyr, in the Lena, Indigirka and Kolyma basins. Mastering new territories, tribes or groups of tribes transferred their labor skills, cultural traditions, rituals and rituals that developed long before the Mesolithic period to great distances.

In the northern part of Eastern Europe, 8900—8300 years ago, «areas are distinguished that are separated by a line from the Kola Peninsula to the Urals, to a latitude of 60° N and further to Lake Baikal. To the north of this line during the indicated period it was warmer (in places more than 5° C), than now, south is colder.»

The same situation persists in the following time 4 – 3 thousand BC, when thermophilic vegetation has spread widely, and climate warming and mitigation «was not observed everywhere, but in a number of regions of the northern hemisphere, approximately between 45 and 70° north latitude, south was a relative cooling strip».

It was during this period, called the Atlantic, that a maximum of broad-leaved, which appear in the north of Eastern Europe already in the second half of the boreal, i.e. in 8 thousand BC.

Natural areas in the Paleolithic

Natural areas in the Mesolithic

S. V. Oshibkina writes that: «Natural conditions, according to most researchers, were especially important in the early period of history, when they determined the economic activity of a person, although they probably had no decisive significance in the historical development of society. There is an opinion that the most significant restructuring of society took place at the boundary between the Paleolithic and Neolithic and was associated with sharp changes in natural conditions at the beginning of the postglacial period.»

Many modern researchers believe that during the Middle Stone Age -Mesolithic in the north-west of Eastern Europe, there was a significant influx of population from the south-west from the Volga-Oka and Baltic-Dnieper regions, where, based on the Late Paleolithic Swider culture, new ones arise, already Mesolithic cultures. At the same time, a number of archaeologists believe that the origins of Swidersk culture, the finale of which falls on the beginning of 8 thousand BC, should be sought in the southeast among the Late Paleolithic cultures of the Kostenkovsk-Borshevsky region on the Don.

It was previously noted that 25—29 thousand years ago, there was a certain connection between the Don Paleolithic cultures and sites on the Pechora River (Kostenki I, 12 and Byzovaya site). Currently, the question of the origins of the wider Late Paleolithic culture remains debatable, but researchers believe that the population that left the monuments of witness culture, at the beginning of 8 thousand BC migrates north and northeast.

Based on the Swider culture in the Volga-Oksk interfluve in the middle of 8 thousand BC the so-called Butovo culture, represented by four groups: Meshchera, Pereyaslavl, Kostroma and Lower Oka.

It should be noted that monuments with Butovo elements were found in the Novgorod region, in the Middle Volga region and in the Sukhona river basin.

«The economic structure of the Late Butut tribes is based on hunting. The population at this time, according to paleographers, lived in dense broad-leaved forests. The main object of hunting was probably forest fauna – elk, bison, red deer, wild boar, etc.»

From the second half of 7 thousand BC and until the second half of 6 thousand BC in the Volga-Oka basin, the Yenev culture tribes spread, coming from the territory of the Upper Dnieper and ousting the Butovites from their original territory to the north and northeast. But already in the second half of 6 thousand BC the descendants of the exiled Butovites in turn oust the Yenev population and return to their original lands. At the same time, a population of Ust-Kama culture appears on Kama, supposedly related to Yenev culture advanced east from the basin of the Upper Dnieper.

Products of the Swider culture

Products of Butovo culture

Products of Yenevskaya culture

Products of Ust-Kama culture

In general, the Mesolithic era differed from the Paleolithic exceptional mobility of the population. So already in 7 thousand BC according to modern anthropologists based on the study of the bone remains of the Oleneostrovsky burial ground, in the region of Lake Onega, a mixture of northern and southern Caucasoids took place.

Significant advancement of the North European population to the south at the turn of the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras is evidenced by the data cited by D. I. Telegin. Comparing the burial rite of the north and south of Eastern Europe, he notes that for the northern latitudes, already from the Paleolithic, the burial of the dead in an elongated position on the back, in contrast to those crouched in the south. So all the skeletons of Sungir (24 thousand BC) lay on their backs in an elongated position. In the Mesolithic Oleneostrovsk burial ground (7 thousand BC) on Lake Onega there are 118 burials elongated on the back, and only 14 on the side. In the burials of the Popovo burial ground (on Lake Lache, the right bank of the Kinem River) of the second half of 7 thousand BC all the dead lay in an extended position on their backs.

D. Ya. Telegin notes what if for the south of Eastern Europe throughout the Mesolithic era the dominant position in the burials was a position crouched on its side, then, during the transition to Neolithic time, a sharp change is noticed in the burial rite, «when the elongated back position becomes prevailing in the position of skeletons throughout the study area. He’s writing: «It seems to us that the reasons for such dramatic changes in the funeral ritual of the population of Eastern Europe on the verge of eras should be sought, firstly, in changing the composition of the population itself, and secondly, in changing his ideology. Moreover, at different times, these factors played, obviously, far from the same role: during the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic, the first factor probably prevailed (i.e., population change.) … So, according to the definition of anthropologists, the Mesolithic population of Ukraine, who left the Voloshsky-Vasilievsky-type burial grounds with burials buried on their sides, belongs to the Mediterranean race, while the Neolithic tribes who replaced it are characterized by all the signs of the Late Cro-Magnon type (the so-called subglacial North European type.). It is to these tribes that the numerous burial grounds of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture belong, where the skeletons lay in an extended position in rows. Consequently, a noticeable sharp change in the rite of burial here is associated with a change in population.»

So, in the Dnieper at the boundary of the Mesolithic and Neolithic (at the end of 7 – beginning of 6 thousand BC), a new population comes from the northern regions. At the same time, even in Pechora appear groups that came from the southwest.

More than a hundred sites of the Mesolithic era are open in the Vologda Oblast. S. V. Oshibkina notes that the sites of the Sukhona River basin (Kolupaevskaya on the Staraya Totma River and Yasnopolyanskaya on the tributary of the Sukhona River, Sombol River) existed surrounded by forests of pine (27%), birch (25%), linden (33%), oak (1%), hazel (2%), and the percentage of linden increases over time. S. V. Oshibkina emphasizes that: «As established by M. I. Neishtadt, the period of domination of broad-leaved species and alder falls on 2500 – 7700 years from our days or 5700 – 500 years BC.»

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