Mesolithic Hunters and Fishermen of Dnipro Rapids Area (Nadporizhzhia) by the Materials of Ihren 8
Abstract
The famous Mesolithic settlement Ihren 8 in Central Ukraine on the bank of the Dnipro River was excavated by D. Telehin, L. Zalizniak, D. Nuzhnyi in 1973—1976, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1990. The settlement consisted of 10 large deepened into the ground dwellings located along the river bank. The remains of dwellings looked like the rounded-shaped lenses of dark sand of 6,0—9,0 m in diameter and filling of 0,5—1,0 m thick. Most of them had been partly destroyed by the river. Inside the dwellings there were a lot of microlithic flint artefacts, bone tools and bones of animals (auroch, red deer, elk, horse, boar, fox, wolf, hare), swimming birds, fish and cockleshells.
Flint and bone artifacts from Ihren 8 are typical for Kukrek Mesolithic culture of South Ukraine. For microlithic flint industry of the site a perfect micro-blade technique, pencil-shaped pressure flaking cores, numerous round-shaped scrapers, flake burins and Kukrek-type insets are typical. Among bone tools there are typical spearheads with slots for microblade insets. There were also found numerous points, awls, borers, adzes and arrowheads made of cracked bird bones. Several tools have the geometric ornament on surface. The site is dated by Boreal period of Holocene due to the radiocarbon dating (8th ka BCE).
The deepened dwellings of the Mesolithic settlement Ihren 8 have the analogies in dwelling structures of other Mesolithic sites (for example, Viazivok 4A site in Poltava Region in Ukraine, Jasztelek site in Hungary) and also in winter semi-dugouts of Siberian people well-known under name “ground tent” or “golomo”.
Obviously Ihren 8 dwellings were round in section, deepened into the ground up to 1,0 m, with conical wooden frame covered with reed and turf. According to archaeological and ethnography parallels such large deepened dwellings used as the winter dwellings for several small families of hunters and fishermen of the Dnipro River valley. During the warm seasons small families moved to the individual light dwellings on the river bank.
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