«BULLETIN OF THE IRKUTSK STATE UNIVERSITY. GEOARCHAEOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY, AND ANTHROPOLOGY SERIES»
ISSN 2227-2380 (Print)

List of issues > «Geoarchaeology, Ethnology, and Anthropology Series». 2016. Vol. 17

About the Specificity of Dune and Marsh Geoarchaeological Objects as Sources

Full text (russian)

Author(s)
A. N. Sorokin
Abstract
The Mesolithic in the European Russia is widely known thanks to the study of dune sites. A significant increase in the number of excavated in 1980–1990 so called “marsh settlements” has led to the emergence of the myth of their wealth and source-first inferiority. The analysis shows that such opposition is not entirely correct. Dry lands, where people lived, in both cases are the same and stacked mostly within the outwash sands area. The differences between the two types of sites do not consist in the dry valleys, but in the trails, which are absent in the dunes and on the other hand, are present in many wetland geoarchaeological objects. Trails as landforms of the fast accumulation, they made an instant burial of organic matter and provides its best preservation. However, they are not themselves the settlements and residential areas, but a kind of natural rubbish dump filled with artifacts. The general condition of lowland geoarchaeological objects because of their cultural layers of compression does not allow for the most part correctly solve the problems of the genesis of archaeological cultures, their history and issues of paleopopulation acculturation. The analysis proves that to produce an adequate picture of the past it is necessary to study stratified sources and compare the phenomena of qualitative order. That's why the multilayerness of the trails investigated using the Geoarchaeology creates a phenomenal opportunity to reconstruct the real historical picture.
Keywords
geoarchaeological objects, archaeological sources, dune sites, marsh settlements, cultural layer, stratigraphy, trail, organic remains
UDC
902.01"633"(47)
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