Buildings of the late settlement stage site Serteya XIV: cultural attribution and possibilities of graphic reconstruction

The lake settlement Serteya XIV (Velizhskiy district, Smolensk region, Russia), studied during the 1990s – the beginning of 21st century, was found to contain several different «habitation horizons» with finds and building remains dating from the Mesolithic to the Final Neolithic or Chalcolithic (9 – the 1st half of 2 Millennia cal. BC). Cultural layers of the settlement lie both within sandy coastal sediments and peaty part of the lake basin. The dwellings remains from the later stages of habitation are discussed in this paper. These include two buildings located on the sandy shore terrace and one in the peaty part of the site. During the excavations and initial find analysis these buildings were connected with the Middle and Late Neolithic. These conclusions were revised after the subsequent analyses of ceramic material and spatial distribution of different ceramic groups and other objects at the settlement, as well as obtaining a series of radiocarbon dating. The earliest of the dwellings was determined to belong to the Early Neolithic, to the final stage of Serteyskaya or the beginning stage of Rudnyanskaya archaeological culture (the 4th quarter of 6 Millennium cal. BC). Two different chronological phases were detected in the remains of the second building: the first one connected with the final stage of Rudnyanskaya archaeological culture (the end of 6 Millennium cal. BC), the second one with Usvyatskaya archaeological culture (the late 5–4 Millennia cal. BC). The third construction originally associated with Rudnyanskaya culture was confirmed to belong to the Final Neolithic/Chalcolithic (the 1st half of 2 Millennium cal. BC). Its date and cultural attribution have not been determined more precisely yet. The second important question of the present research concerns the possibilities to make graphic reconstruction of Stone Age buildings. As the cultural layers of most sites in the studied region are laid in sandy deposits, which do not preserve any organic materials or details of the buildings, all reconstructions have tentative character. Therefore, the building found in the peaty part of Serteya XIV is of great importance due to the preserved details of wooden construction. These materials provide additional information about the used tree species and the ways they were utilized in building activities.