Дискусійні питання палеоліту Чистопадів (Подільська височина): середній чи верхній палеоліт

Abstract

The Ternopil Plateau is a large geomorphological region that occupies a significant part of the Podollian Upland. The issue of the occupation of this geographical area by Palaeolithic people remained little researched for a long time. Peculiarities of the relief and the geological structure of the territory indicated the prospectiveness of Palaeolithic finds in this part of the Podollian Upland. However, until recently, there was no information about the earliest occupation of this region. The first find, from which the scientific study of the sites of the Palaeolithic period on the territory of the central part of the Ternopil Plateau of the Podollian Upland began, was a large massive blade discovered in the 1880s in the vicinity of the village of Chystopady of Ternopil (former Zboriv) district, Ternopil region. The context in which it was found is unknown, which did not allow characterizing widely the history of the settlement of this region. In 2020, near the village of Chystopady, in an abandoned loess quarry on the right bank of the Seret River, archaeologist Vasyl Ilchyshyn discovered a Palaeolithic blade, which is quite rare for this part of the Ternopil Plateau. The section of Quaternary sediments in which this blade was found is characterized in this article, an opinion about its geological age is expressed, and also some mismatch between geological (stratigraphic) and archaeological dating is emphasized. Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the find near Chystopady discovered in the 80s of the XIX century a massive retouched blade (or flake of elongated proportions) of an oval shape, which various researchers date from the Early to Late Palaeolithic. So, the puzzle of Chystopady is still not solved. We consider that the solution to this problem is possible by carrying out large-scale archaeological excavations and searching, in particular, for a full-fledged Palaeolithic site. Key words: Palaeolithic, blade, loess-palaeosol sequences, Dubno fossil soil, solifluction, Podollian Upland.