Materials from Dwelling 2 on Suchu Island, the Lower Amur (1977 Season, Excavation III)

Materials from Dwelling 2 on Suchu Island, the Lower Amur (1977 Season, Excavation III)

Materials from Dwelling 2 on Suchu Island, the Lower Amur
(1977 Season, Excavation III)

doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2021.49.3.013-023

V.E. Medvedev1 and I.V. Filatova1, 2
1Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia
2Amur State University for Humanities and Pedagogy, Kirova 17, bldg. 2, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, 681000, Russia

This article presents the final results of excavations at one of the largest Neolithic sites in northeastern Asia— a settlement on Suchu Island on the Amur. Most of the rich collection (3967 spec.), owned by IAET SB RAS (stone tools, ceramics, ornaments, and artistic and ritual artifacts), has not been described before. This publication focuses on the analysis of artifacts from dwelling 2 (excavation III, 1977). We describe the construction of this semi-underground dwelling, circular in plan view. The typological analysis of the lithics indicates a complex economy. Many of them (arrowheads, projectile points, inserts, knives, plummets) relate to hunting and fishing, and to processing carcasses (end-scrapers, scrapers, burins, combination tools), others are chopping tools. The distinctive feature of the lithics is that some are bifacial. The analysis of the ceramics suggests that they belong to the Late Neolithic Voznesenovskoye culture. The use of binocular microscopy allowed us to assess the technological and constructive properties of the ceramics, as well as their morphological, decorative, and functional features. Non-utilitarian artifacts shed light on the worldview of the Suchu people. The collection dates to the mid-second millennium BC.

Keywords: Amur River, Suchu, Neolithic, culture, dwelling, artifacts, analysis