Pages: 59-110

The article reviews archaeological data on the transitional period from the Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic in the Upper Volga basin. It starts with an overview of different approaches to the periodization of the cultural history of the region from the Final Pleistocene through the Early Holocene. The periodizations based on typological grounds are criticized. As an alternative, the author attempts to correlate cultural and environmental processes, giving particular attention to the paleogeographic and stratigraphic evidence (including radiocarbon dates nad faunal fata) obtained from the multilayer sites of Zolotoruchie 1, Stanovoe 4, and Vashana. The ecological reconstructions suggest that the end of the Pleistocene in the Upper Volga was a period of cold climatic conditions, culminated in the Younger Dryas. The hypotheses suggesting a very early settlement of the region by reindeer hunters do not agree with the empirical data. The early Preboreal settlement of the Upper Volga by the Butovo culture people seems to have been associated with the north-taiga hunters. The warm Preboreal optimum caused the shift of the boreal zone to the north and the spread of pine forests in the Upper Volga, which was accompanied by the appearance in this region of the Iyenevo culture people. The cultural transformations that took place in the Upper Volga basin at the turn of the Holocene appear to have been caused by local environmental changes.

Keywords: Upper Volga region, Final Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, periodization, chronology

Information about author:

Sergey Lisitsyn (Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation). Candidate of Historical Sciences. Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dvortsovaya Emb., 18, Saint Petersburg, 191186, Russian Federation
E-mail: [email protected]