Research in the Tselinograd region

The expedition of the Tselinograd Museum of Local Lore continued to work on Paleolithic sites near the village of Vishnevka in the upper reaches of the Ishim River. At the Vishnevka 4 location, lifting equipment was assembled on an area of ​​325 sq. m. The collections were carried out in squares (1 sq. m) with the fixation of the finds on the plan; for oblong objects, the direction of the long axis relative to the slope was determined. A total of 2944 finds were collected. The raw material was dark gray platy Devonian siltstone. 37 cores, three chippers, 2144 spalls, 362 flakes, 24 blades, six pieces of blades, 115 pieces of flakes and chips (mainly notched and serrated forms) were found. Typical side-scrapers and side-scrapers are rare, Mousterian and Levallois points are absent. The group of bifaces includes 32 objects of oval, spear-shaped and similar shapes in 24 blanks of similar items. There is a series of objects with clear traces of secondary use and processing, confirming the presence of at least three assemblages of different times on the site.

At Vishnevka 6, the collection was carried out on a narrow area between the steep slope of the hill and the Ishim riverbed. The finds are redeposited: moved down the slope from 15–20 m above the water level. Many items were affected by Ishim spring floods and are therefore heavily weathered. Along with them, the collection contains almost "fresh" samples. Reddish Devonian siltstone served as raw material. In total, about 1.5 thousand items were collected, typologically not significantly different from the inventory of Vishnevka 4.

In the Tengiz district of the Tselinograd region, inventory collection was continued at the Paleolithic workshop Ak-Koshkar 1. The collection was carried out in squares (2xx2 m) with a fixation of the finds on the plan. An oval accumulation measuring 16х7 m is outlined. The collection includes more than 1.5 thousand light gray Devonian quartzite sandstone items. The industry belongs to the Vishnev type: with bifaces and a predominance of a notched-toothed group in the toolset. It is characterized by large varieties of cores, flakes and tools. A small part of the inventory is older: typologically inexpressive, heavily rounded objects.

The collections were also carried out at the small Paleolithic site Ak-Koshkar 8, confined to the outcrops of Devonian granites. The products are made of dense and brittle clastic grey-green sandstone, which is hard to split. In total, more than 300 items were collected. The industry is common, of the Vishnev type, based on the Acheulean substratum: flat bifaces without heels, a poorly differentiated flake toolset, and the Lower Paleolithic splitting technique. The peculiar appearance of the monument is given by the absence of klekton forms in the inventory; splitting was carried out in line with the Levallois-Mousterian technical traditions.