동부시베리아 선사문화의 편년연구 - 특히 구석기에서 신석기로의 전이문제에 대하여

Abstract

While research into Mesolithic of Siberia began in the late 19th century and approximation of culture-historical chronostratigraphic subdivisions of the period began to appear during 1960s, most of the vast territories of eastern Siberia remain uninvestigated until today.

The condition which hinders development of Mesolithic research is exacerbated by limitations in methodological and theoretical considerations in approaching early Holocene archaeology.

Transbaikalia and mid-Lena River Basin are the most-cited areas for Meoslithic research, and only a handful of sites are reportedly pertaining to the period in the territory of the Siberian Far East and the Maritime region. Mesolithic industries of Transbaikalia are often treated as containing a number of distinct cultural types, including Badai, Verkholenskaya, Kanskii and Baikal Type. Differences among them are usually found in the presence/absence of certain tool and debitage types, which therefore mayor may not allow interpretations other than the one based on the assumption of cultural or ethnic differences.

Interesting founds made in the mid-Lena Basin are usually treated in collectivity as representing the Sumnagin Culture, following the name of its type locality. While researchers tend to regard Mesolithic industries of each separate region as containing a number of variants among them, the data indicate strong morphological and technological similarities with those from the terminal Pleistocene context. Such continuity may reflect that the mode of adaptation had little changed during the early Holocene when compared to terminal Pleistocene.

Geological and faunal evidence strongly suggests that the climatic conditions of the region remain extremely severe during the first several millenia of Holocene. Thus one might be allowed to expect little or no change in the mode of adaptation among the ancient hunter-gatherers of the region since the Sartan times. Such conditions also might have not allowed any large-scale population movement into the region, while effectively delimiting population growth and group expansion among the occupants. As such, concept of reversed circumscription or marginal isolation may well be found applicable to explain the character of Siberian Mesolithic.