Monday, July 25, 2016

As Russian archaeologists digging Paleolithic – BBC

– For a long time you head Verhnedesninskuyu expedition and carried out excavations there. Is there something special parking Khotylevo I and whether it was possible to detect traces of Neanderthals, who lived in the area?

– The archaeological site Khotylevo I was opened in the late 1950s, an archaeologist from the Museum of Bryansk Zavernyaevym Fyodor Mikhailovich, who excavated some areas from 1960 to 1964. Even then, it was found out that found one of Europe’s largest localities of the Middle Paleolithic. Our expedition exploring Khotylevo I since 2010.

To date, we know nine cultural layers found at different sites, and they all belong to the era of the Middle Paleolithic, which is identified with Neanderthal man.

So I Khotylevo this is not a lot, but a complex of multi Middle Paleolithic sites. Now a name for Khotylevo I more adequately. Until we found the remains of Neanderthal man in any of the cultural layers. But we hope that sooner or later these findings, we will. The discovery of fragments of human skeletons in the cultural layers monuments Lower and Middle Paleolithic is so rare that each of these findings becomes sensational.

The main findings of the Neanderthal man in our country have been made in the Crimea, the Caucasus and Altai. This cave monuments which are very different from open-type monuments in the Russian plain

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Today, throughout the Russian plain, we have a unique anthropological find of the Middle Paleolithic cultural layer – a tooth of the parking lot Horn in the Sea of ​​Azov, discovered in 1963. The physical type of person for a tooth, usually difficult, and in the case of a tooth from the Horn, there are two opinions: on belonging to Neanderthals or sapiens. And only a few days ago there was an attempt to extract DNA from it, to find out what physical type belonged to the man. Exact results yet, but at least it turned out that there is DNA. Therefore, after some time will be precisely known, it is sapiens or a Neanderthal. For the Russian plains it is all unfortunately

-. Neanderthals have long regarded the cavemen. But you are learning parking open type. So, the theory about the cavemen – a myth

-? Caveman – is strongly outdated definition. It all smacks of XIX century (laughs ). The phrase “caveman” long ago lost its meaning. In every age people settled in places where they were, as a rule, safe environment and favorable conditions for the settlement – the proximity of water, terrain, which helps them to hide or saves them from the extreme cold, extreme heat, allowing them freely to find ways to stone-quality raw materials sources

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Thus, the stone Age, or confined to the places convenient for hunting, or to sources of natural resources, or to some very user-friendly shelters.

Of course, in areas with a complex, rugged terrain, especially in mountainous areas, such places anymore. Cave – is a universal shelter at all times. But not always the caves are located near the outcrops of stone materials suitable for making tools. If convenient cave was far from high-quality sources of raw materials, the primitive people had to bear it, and often far away.

In some cases it is possible to reconstruct the complex human communities to adapt the system to the conditions of the terrain, which was their habitats. Sometimes we can assume that the same team returned to the same place for several seasons in a row and at the same time may have some basic parking lot away from the short-term camps. It has long been identified and proved parks specialization, among which distinguish the workshops for pre-treatment and the manufacture of flint stone tools, parking on the site of the slaughter and butchering of animals killed nearby, and so on. Where are these monuments – in caves or in open areas – important when we talk about the techniques that we use to study them, but on the first place there is the function of each type of parking. For example, in the same cave cavity in different periods of the Middle Paleolithic could be a series of specialized short-term parking of some small groups and long-term settlement of a group of people, after which left a rich cultural layer. The same can be parked an open

-. You are able to produce tools for the Neanderthal technology. It’s complicated? How to learn

-? This is a common process modeling isotropic splitting rocks that give the conchoidal fracture, usually a flint. If you are studying the Stone Age, we must imagine the process of making stone tools at least in the most general terms. It is quite difficult, because it requires the use of certain technologies, which should be clearly withstand. Depending on the goals that you set for yourself, you get a particular result. Without training does not work, you just smash, Crush Stone

-. What it means to be a Neanderthal? What do they know how? What was their world

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– Most likely, it means to be smart. Neanderthal man was producing very complex instruments. They practically perfected the manufacture of processed bilaterally guns – bifaces. We prepared from different types of stone materials and surprising results achieved. More people have already stepped up to the upper Paleolithic Solutrean culture in France and Spain. They learned how to get a series of identical size and shape of the blanks for the manufacture of various tools intended.

It should be said that thinking of Neanderthal man, in my opinion, not much different from the thinking of modern man : logical consistency in their actions, the structure behavior during the manufacture of guns is not much different from what we are used to equate the actions of the first sapiens and by and large the actions of modern man.

The Neanderthals were so developed that have mastered a variety of chemical processes. For example, in a parking lot in Germany Kenigsaue we know an amazing example of the special fabrication resin for fixing instruments to the shaft. Of course, they have the language and appear with rather complex syntax. Neanderthal man – a man who thought in much the same way as we conceive. The only thing that distinguishes us from the Neanderthals, in my opinion – is the amount of the information which we operate. Neanderthals it was less than we have – more

-. As archaeologists dig the stone age? What are looking for – guns, bones? Someone may say that it is boring. That if we study the Middle Ages – there are coins, jewelry, weapons, armor. And then that

-? The research process of the Stone Age – one of the most labor-intensive processes in the study of archeology from the methodological point of view. Firstly, a great length of time that separates us from this period, causes a small amount of artifacts that we can find. As a rule, retained stone tools and very rarely preserved bone. Even more rarely preserved wood and other organic materials.

However, if not for archeology and excavations, we would not have known about this era.

just think what a huge reservoir of human history – more than two million years – we have lost sight of, if not carried out these” boring “excavated paleolithic sites!

Meanwhile, this knowledge is conceptual in nature, forming a faithful representation we have of ourselves. Until we have very little came out of that era, so we have very methodically to study any of the monument of the Stone Age. This is normal when parking meticulously excavated decades. Gone are the days when for two or three seasons were opened vast areas of hundreds of square meters and was considered a monument studied. In fact, the more carefully we work with the cultural layer, the more we derive from it. Modern technology allows us to methodically examine all the nuances. Over time, the cultural layer of strongly deformed, it is almost never preserved in the form in which was in the time of primitive man. So we need to unravel all these events in the reverse order. geologists, specialists in buried soils paleozoologists: With our specialists from related disciplines is required to operate. In addition, she and Stone Age archeology has a number of special methods that make stone tools in a complete source of information about the life of ancient man

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– On your parking lot, where the excavations are conducted, it managed to find only tools of human bones found. Can I just only on material remains established that Neanderthals lived here

-? You can, but it will be to some extent assumed. As long as we do not find at least a small fragment of Neanderthal skeleton, we can only speculate. But, on the other hand, the types of weapons that have been found by us, is usually associated with Neanderthals because their skeletal remains found, for example, in France, in Spain, in the Crimea, the Caucasus, in Belgium, in Germany, in Central Asia and the Altai, accompanied by instruments of these types belonging to different cultural communities of the middle Paleolithic.

So we can quite reasonably say that when we find the guns of the middle image we are faced with the world of the Neanderthals.

– In the parking lot, you are studying very late age – 27 thousand years.. At this time, just south of the Cro-Magnons lived. As they coexisted with Neanderthals

-? In fact, the cultural layer of the Middle monument bet our group received a series of very recent dates from 25 thousand to 32 thousand years… This is exactly what we are now actively engaged. The fact is that during this period that we are studying in the Russian plain intersected two worlds – the late Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic developed associated with sapiens. For example, in Kostenki near Voronezh employees of our institute Upper Paleolithic industry found, whose age exceeds 40 thousand. Years. Middle Paleolithic sites, which we are studying, have an age of about 35-40 thousand. And 27-32 thousand. Years. It turns out that the Russian Plain Neanderthals, or, strictly speaking, the media of the Middle traditions chronologically overlap with native Upper traditions, apparently they somehow interact with each other. This is only the first results of our research

A few years later, I’m sure the results will be even more interesting

-.. As the locals refer to archaeologists? Do not interfere?

– Our expedition locals are very helpful, and we are very grateful to them for that. This applies to citizens of all the places where we do the excavation, -. And in the Bryansk and Volgograd and Rostov regions

In fact, our work does not differ from any other and if we are treated well, it means that we are working well.

In my opinion, between the behavior of the expedition, and how to apply it, there is a direct link. Local residents are always keenly interested in an event, come to the excavation. The first question, as a rule, of course, about the gold and treasures, but by learning more, people are starting to better navigate, they are always very impressive most ancient sites

-. And if there is a so-called black problem Grinders? And in general, how, in your opinion, is to deal with them and whether

-? Unfortunately, we sometimes have to deal with these “gentlemen of fortune”, despite the fact that Paleolithic them usually not interested. To deal with them is very difficult and, of course, necessary. In addition to the prosecution of the robbers of archaeological sites and, for example, a ban on the free sale of metal detectors, it is necessary to educate people and explain to them what immediate benefit they receive, destroying archaeological sites, is a hundred times lower than the information that they thus destroyed. They should clearly understand that destroying state property, part of the common cultural heritage, which persisted for hundreds, thousands, or even more tens of thousands of years, often only through incredibly happy coincidence.

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