New materials about the Neolithic period of the North Caspian Sea region

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the results of the research materials of Kairshak site of the North Caspian Sea region. The relevance of the topic is determined by the role of this region in the Neolithic process of Eastern Europe. The ceramic tradition of the early Neolithic is one of the oldest in this region. Technical and technological analysis of ceramics indicates that the dishes were made of silt with an addition of freshwater molluscs. Different vessels are typologically identified. An ornament is made by a drawn line and a single prick. The set of features allows to assign the collection of ceramics to the Kairshak type. Stone tools are characterized by plate-flake technique. End scrapers dominated. Arrowed and other forms are rarely met. The second category concludes geometrical microliths of segment type. The number of sharp points isnt big. An amount of indicators indicates that the complex has an early Neolithic character. A kind of animal is identified with an archeozoological method kulan. The radiocarbon date indicates the end of the 6th millennium BC. This contradicts the available data bank on the chronology of the Kairshak type sites. According to all characteristics of the stone and ceramic inventory, the discovered complex is most similar to the materials of the Kairshak I.