THE LOWER ISHIM REGION NEOLITHIC CHRONOLOGY (DATA FROM THE SETTLEMENTS OF THE MERGEN ARCHAEOLOGICAL MICRODISTRICT)

Abstract

In the last decade, the Mergen archaeological microdistrict has become a base for the study of the Neolithic of the Lower Ishim region. Systematic studies of key settlements (Mergen 3, 5–8) were carried out, 42 radiocarbon dates were obtained. It is established that the process of formation of the Neolithic in the region is associated with the appearance (no later than the first quarter of the 7th millennium BC) of the carriers of the tradition of making flat-bottomed ceramic vessels, on the basis of which the early Boborykino culture is formed. By the end of the 7th millennium BC, in the Ishim Valley, representatives of the Koshkino culture of the Trans-Urals appear, and the tradition of making vessels with relief bands, which has some similarities with the Satygin and Mulymya complexes of the mountainous Trans-Urals and the Kondinsky lowland. The coexistence of these groups of the population and the early Boborykino was recorded, in the morphology and ornamentation of the vessels of which the characteristic features of the “classical” Late Neolithic were clearly manifested. At the middle stage of the Neolithic (the second quarter of the 5th millennium BC), the Kozlov population appeared in the Lower Ishim region and, probably, a little later (the third quarter of the 5th millennium BC) bearers of the tradition of making dishes similar to the Sosnovoostrovskaya culture of the Middle Tobol region. Stable ties were revealed during this period, at least for the former, with the southern neighbors (the Makhanjar culture of Turgay). The presented chronological sections illustrate the continuity of the Lower Ishim region and Trans-Urals (Southern, Middle, possibly mountain forest), as well as the steppe territories in the south, in cultural and genetic processes during the 7th–5th millennium BC.