Flint Processing in Donbass during the Chalcolithic

Abstract

In the Neolithic, the Donbass was finally formed as one of prominent European centers for extraction and primary processing of raw flint. The formation of such a large economic area with its particular production specialization was determined by the mineral wealth of the region and its plentiful deposits of high-quality Upper Cretaceous flints. The most complex sites of mining in terms of organization and specialised workshops on primary flint splitting date back to this period. As far as mining in the southern Donbas of the time is concerned, there emerged adits for flint extraction in the layer of limestone (Shirokoie). The mine workings were made in the form of wide horizontal chambers along the slope with separate entrances and transport and ventilation apertures. The mining was carried out with horn tools and adzes with metal wedge-shaped inserts. In the Chalcolithic, workshops for production of bifaces (Krasnoie) and a specialized settlement of flint craftsmen (Vasilyevskaia Pustosh) emerged in the North-Western Donbass. A variety of techniques for primary splitting and making of stone tools, characterized by a distinct cultural context, was used in these workshops. For the production of plates, large blanks of lithic cores with one platform and two longitudinal edges with two-sided processing that converge at the base were used. The most complex technologies for lithic cores splitting and tools processing are associated with the so-called Novodanilovsky cultural complex. The article contributes to the series of publications on the development of the Donetsk center for mining and primary processing of flint in the Stone Age.