Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2020 number

The territory of the West Amur Region is a heterogeneous geographical area, where an original and unique cultural center has been formed since the Stone Age. The history of studying the late Neolithic era in the region dates back more than a century and is divided into several stages on the level of knowledge. According to historiography, each stage is characterized by a certain level of the material accumulation, processing and understanding, as well as a certain scientific concept. The studies began in the second half of the XIX century. Since then, the source base has been broadening. A new stage in systematic and gradual study of the Stone Age of the Far East is related to the Far Eastern expedition led by A.P. Okladnikov that carried out first works in the territory of Priamurye in 1935. The research of the Stone Age in the region carried out in the 1950s was of great importance for the future reflection of the late Neolithic. During this period of time, a number of locations with elements of late Neolithic material culture were discovered on the Upper Amur. The turning point in studying the late Neolithic period in the region was 1961, when the Far Eastern expedition began systematic studies in the territory of the West Amur Region. A new late Neolithic culture, called Osinoozerskaya, was identified based on the materials received from a number of sites during research in the 1960-70s. It helped to highlight cultural and chronological characteristics of the settled population which lived in semi-subterranean dwellings and engaged mainly in hunting and fishing. The obtained archaeological data allowed the researchers to draw a preliminary conclusion about the presence of argiculture rudiments in this culture. Then there was a 30-year break in studying the late Neolithic in the region. In fact, before the new millennium’s start, there was no information in the archaeological literature about new complexes that could expand sites’ number of the Osinoozerskaya culture. The view of it reflected the level of the source base established by the mid-1970s.