Tentative Findings from Excavations on Suchu Island, Amur (1973 Season, Excavation I)

Tentative Findings from Excavations on Suchu Island, Amur
(1973 Season, Excavation I)

DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2016.44.4.046-059

V.E. Medvedev¹ and I.V. Filatova^{1, 2
1}1Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
²2Amur State University for Humanities and Pedagogy, Kirova 17, bldg. 2, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, 681000, Russia

This article outlines the results of the 1973 excavation season at a Neolithic habitation site on Suchu Island, in the Lower Amur. New fi ndings relate mostly to the middle Neolithic Malyshevo culture—the stratigraphy and planigraphy of dwellings, their chronological sequence, and construction features, specifi cally the considerable variation of dwellingpit depth. Artifacts, totaling 4407 specimens, include stone tools, ceramics, and objects of art and cult. Lithics, made mostly of gray siltstone, were analyzed with regard to typology and function. The toolkit indicates a complex economy: it includes hunting, fi shing, and butchering tools, some for processing stone, wood, and bone, some for preparing vegetable food, and some for digging. The ceramics of Malyshevo and other Neolithic cultures from excavation I were subjected to petrographic and radiographic analysis. The results reveal cultural differences in types of clay and paste, shaping, surface treatment, fi ring modes, and forms of vessels. Decoration, too, is culturally specifi c. Apart from the Malyshevo people, the excavated area on Suchu Island was often visited by those associated with other cultures of the Middle, Late, and Final Neolithic.

Keywords: Amur Basin, Suchu Island, Neolithic, dwellings, stone tools, ceramics, petrographic analysis.