Upper Paleolithic Sites near Synycheno Village, Kharkiv Region

Abstract

The search for the Stone Age sites in the middle of the Siversky Donets River basin was begun before the XII Archaeological Congress, continued in the 1920-30s by M.V. Sibilyov and restored in 1988 by the expedition of the Kharkiv Historical Museum.

M.V. Sibilyov discovered 7 sites in the area, but now there are some difficulties with their localization since several sites located in different places around one settlement are marked as one, or a new site is identified with the one found before. Indicative in this sense is the situation with the sites, located around village Synycheno.

Near the village, there are two Upper Paleolithic sites localized by M.V. Sibilyov: the upper reach of the Kyiansky ravine and the Prystin natural boundary.

A large ravine is located south-east of the village. In its upper reach in 1940-41 M.V. Sibilyov conducted small excavations, having found a few lithic flakes, a knife-like flake, a few microliths and a flint nobule. He conceded that the site was destroyed by a ravine.

To the south-east of the village, on the edge of the large forest, stretching along the Siversky Donets to the village Yaremivka there is a Prystin natural boundary, which M.V. Sibilyov visited in 1940, having found flint lithic flakes. The following year, during the cleaning of the rock outcrop at the depth of 0.6-0.7 m he found many small lithic flakes, microlithic flakes, a small microlithic nucleus, and at a depth of 0.9-1.3 m – lithic flakes and flakes of a larger size. I.F. Levytsky and D.I. Telegin during the surveys in 1950 thoroughly studied the Prystin natural boundary, having made two cleanings of the terrace above flood-plain. One of them gave a little amount of Lower Neolithic material, and a nucleus-like fragment was found in the gullies of the slopes.

In 1988, during the surveys carried out by the expedition of the Kharkiv Historical Museum under the leadership of the author near the village of Synycheno the new Upper Paleolitic site was found. The site was located 50 m south of the outskirts of the village Synycheno, 1 km from the river Siversky Donets, on the right bank of the river, in the lower part of the slope. The assemblage of flint produced items taken from the cultural layer of the site has 1747 items and is represented by the following groups: nodule debris, nuclei and nucleus-like debris, chips of forming and refining of the nuclei and tools, lithic flakes, flakes, microflakes, burins, grooved tools, awl. At the area of the site, the findings were located unevenly, forming seven groups corresponding to the workplaces. The site gives the impression of being a place of a group of hunters short-term stop for repairing and replenishment of the equipment. The site was completely studied during 1989-2002 and was introduced into scientific circulation under the name of the «Site near Synychyno».