Early Neolithic structures on the Upper Don

The peculiarity of the flood plain settlements on the river Don watershed and its tributaries is the fact that almost all of them are multi-layered. Early neolithic structures are a very rare find for the Upper Don territory. There are only two of them that are known. The first of them was investigated by V.P. Levenko by Fish Lake 2 in 1964. The second was investigated by the author of this article in 2012. They are light ground structures. Both of them are oval-shaped, about 11 and 18 square meters, slightly recessed in the mainland. Early Neolithic sites were seasonal. The structure from the Fish Lake 2 settlement had a hearth and probably functioned in the cold season. Structure from Vasilevsky Cordon 3 settlement functioned in the warm season, as no traces of the hearth were found in the explored structure. It is interesting to observe, that in each of the buildings only fragments of only one vessel were found. The same situation is observed in two Early Neolithic dwellings from the Vyunova Lake and Ytuz ancient sites in the Middle Volga. Both buildings belong to Karamyshevskaya Neolithic culture. They both are dated to the same period in time. Ceramics from settlement Vasilevsky Cordon 3 settlement are traced to one and the same date – 5868 + 120 BP (1σ 5036–4458 BC) (SPb 1638).