ИСТИНА

The open-air Upper Paleolithic site Sungir is located on the central part of the Russian Plain in the basin of Klyazma river, 192 km east of Moscow, on the outskirts of the city of Vladimir (56°11’ NL, and 40°30’ EL) (Bader, 1978). It was found in 1956. The expedition under the leadership of O. Bader, N. Bader and L.A. Mihailova discovered over 4000 square meter of the site area for 24 field seasons (1957-2004). The site became world famous after the discovery of the four burials, one skull, and two femur fragments with a very rich collection of accompanying inventory. Based on a series of 14С dates the site dates to the period from around 29,000 to 26,000 BP, AMS over 30,000 BP (Homo sungirensis… 2000; Kuzmin et al., 2014; Marom et al., 2012). The remains consist of stone and bone objects, faunal remains, fireplaces, firepits and ritual pits. A complicated burial complex with two graves and two burials in each grave was also found at the site. O.N. Bader singled four aboveground dwellings at the site, but this hypothesis is rejected by a number of specialists (Bader, 1978; Gavrilov, 2004; Seleznyov, 2004). Stone industry is characterized by parallel reduction. The main type of blank is a flake. The tool kit has two sets of tools. The first one — Mousterian — consists of a side-scrapers, triangular points with concave base and projectile points. The second set — Upper Paleolithic — includes the end-scrapers (single end-scrapers, circular end-scrapers, oval end-scrapers, etc.), burins (truncation burins, straight burins, etc.), punches, pièces esquillées etc. (Bader, 1978; Seleznyov, 2004). Analogous industry is discovered at the sites of Streletskian culture at the Middle Done. Also this industry has combined two techno-complex elements: Aurignacian and Szeletian (Bader, 1978; Gavrilov, 2004; Grigoriev, 1990; White, 1993). The faunal record of the Sungir site contains numerous remains of mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), polar fox (Alopex lagopus), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), horse (Equnus caballus cf. Taubachensis Frend), wolf (Canis lupus), etc. (Bader, 1978). As the materials for the tools found at the site were used bone, antler and ivory. (Soldatova, 2014а, b). Ivory ranks second at the site in the number of findings made of hard organic raw material — 26% (Soldatova, 2014a). Truncated flakes are represented by 7 items, all of which are small, subrectangular in profile mammoth ivory fragments. The artifacts have a clearly defined impact point that appeared as a result of the flake removal from the base. These linear preforms are believed to be related to the production of mammoth ivory personal ornament, such as beads and diadems. (Pitulko et al., 2015). “Preform production entailed a double truncation performed at the widest part of a stone flake that is placed on a hard surface/anvil and struck at a spot on the dorsal surface. Two blows removed the massive proximal and the thin distal portions of the flake, producing a thin but rather long ‘strip’ with a relatively regular rectangular profile and points of percussion visible on the lateral sides. Sharp implements from bone spalls, with little modification and noticeable traces of intensive use were used for this activity” (Pitulko et al., 2015. P. 369). This linear preforms are associated with the production of headbands and beads. Linear preforms for headbands and beads could be produced using the same method of splitting tusk fragments, or exhausted cores, or any sizeand shape-appropriate chunks with an already available platform or those suitable for creating a platform necessary to remove such preforms. Thus, the another stage of the process of making personal ornament — beads and headbands (similar in morphology with diadems) of ivory was found in the Sungir’s materials. This stage allows us to describe the process in more detail. Moreover, such a clarification technology gives us the opportunities for analogies with other monuments of Upper Paleolithic Europe.