THE DONETSK NEOLITHIC CULTURE SITE OF BONDARIKHА II

Abstract

The Neolithic site Bondarikha ІІ was explored 70 years ago by D. Ya. Telegin. The materials of the site were not processed utilizing modern methods. The authors of the paper re-examined and analyzed the site’s materials using current methodologies.
 The Bondarikha II site is set along a natural boundary on what is now the south-eastern outskirts of the modern city of Izium, Kharkiv region. The location of the site is a section of an over-flooded terrace that stretches along the left bank of the River Siversky Donets, and a section of an older river bed named the Willow Pit. In the north, sections of the terrace were crossed by an unnamed stream, and its southern boundary defined by floodplains. The lowlands nearest the terrace are primarily comprised of wetlands.
 It is quite clear that the Willow Pit was once an active river and seasonally may have transformed into a lake during times of flooding. The site is located approximately 7 m above the current floodplain. The general site position is typical for the Neolithic sites of Donetsk Culture, with the vast majority of which are located on terraces above the floodplain lakes of Siversky Donets, with the habitational remains occupying the highest areas of terraces, or the periphery / edges of such terraces.
 The interpretation of Bondarikha material culture was quite simple. The presence of pencil-like blade cores, oblique truncated points of the Abuzova Balka and Donetsk types, a series of blades displaying abrupt retouch on edges, along with bilateral burins, scrapers on flakes, and ovate axes are attestation that the assemblage and complex are connected with the advanced stages of Donetsk Culture.
 The estimation of the site’s age is possible only by the principles of relative chronology. The Mariupolian origin of the trapeze projectiles allows us to establish the earliest age range of the complex within the beginning of the VI millennium BC. However, the utilization of trapeze projectiles with flat dorsal retouch that spread in the basin of Siversky Donets in the third quarter of VI millennium BC is not present. Accordingly, we can safely place the age of the site within the first half of VI millennium BC.