Related Neolithic cultures of the Dnepr-Donetsk community of the Upper Dnepr region: common and distinctive features

Abstract

The paper provides data on two Neolithic cultures of the Upper Dnepr basin: the Dnepr-Donetsk and the Upper-Dnepr cultures. It addresses the main stages of historic study of the Neolithic sites on the right bank of the Dnepr and the middle and lower Sozh River area. Even now the problems related to the formation of early Neolithic complexes, the absolute chronology of the Dnepr-Donetsk culture in general, remain topical, especially for Eastern Polesye. Only the first steps have been attempted in terms of interdisciplinary study of the settlements of the Dnepr-Donetsk culture: a petrographic analysis of ceramics and radiocarbon dating of soot, a geomorphological and geochemical analysis of settlement structures in the micro-region of the Streshinskaya lowland. Despite the impressive historiographic data, the western and southern borders of the Upper Dnepr culture area, the morphological features of ceramic complexes, and the genesis of the culture based on local Mesolithic still remain controversial. Radical carbon data that appeared mainly due to the dating of soot on the walls of vessels of different periods in the culture development are also scarce. Traditionally for Belarus archaeological literature the author considers Neolithic sites of lower Pripyat as an east polessian variant.