The Sokolniy VIII Settlement – the New Site of the Late Neolithic in the Mari Volga Basin

Abstract

In the article the results of investigations of the Sokolniy VIII settlement located in the Zvenigovskiy district, Mari El Republic are presented. The topography of site, the history of its study, information about stratigraphy and spatial structure of archaeological material are considered. The characteristics of ceramic complex of site and technology of pottery making are discussed. The detail description of the stone inventory and the main types of tools are presented. At the Sokolniy VIII settlement any constructive components of the cultural layer except for one fireplace were not determined. This fact allows the authors to interpret the settlement as short time site. The most of the pottery shards belong to the Krasny Most ceramic type of the Late Neolithic in the forest Middle Volga basin and have the direct analogy in the materials of the reference site such as Krasniy Most II-III, Sosnovaya Gora III, Dubovskoe VIII. The technology of ceramics is characterized by the stablility of the main components. The silt organic clay was used as main raw source. As a temper grog and organic solution were added. The stone tool collection is impressive. The nuclei and morphological tools total consist of 45 items. The most of typological types of inventory have analogies to the artifacts from earlier studied assemblages. On the base of radiocarbon dating the period of the settlement exiting can be concerned to the last quarter of 5th millennium BC.