Bone and antler implements of the Early Neolithic Dnepr-Dvina interfluve settlements: technological and functional features, context

Abstract

In this paper we consider the results of the use-wear analysis of the bone and antler implements received as a result of excavation of the Early Neolithic settlements on the territory of Dnepr-Dvina interfluve. This kind of research is conducted for this category of archaeological material for the first time. For the analysis we have selected 27 bone, antler and teeth items occurring from two settlements of the Serteysky microregion Serteya X and Rudnya Serteyskaya. The good preservation of items has allowed us to study macro- and microtraces connected with technology of processing of raw materials and receiving products, ways of usage of finished utilitarian and not utilitarian character items. The following categories of implements have been marked out: knives, awls, pendants, spear-heads, arrowheads, barbed points, preforms, fragments of items with processing traces. The obtained information is correlated to other materials of settlements ceramics, stone artifacts, economic and cultural characteristic of settlements in general. Ceramic traditions in upper courses of the Western Dvina belong to 7 millennium BC. The earliest ceramic traditions are combined in Serteyskaya archaeological culture. Later, in materials of the Early Neolithic sites influence of Early Neolithic cultures of East Baltics is traced. As a result, on the territory of Podvinya the Rudnyanskaya Early Neolithic culture is formed.