The question of «vestigial Neolithic» forest-steppe Don

The concept of «vestigial Neolithic» was presented by A.T. Sinyuk in his thesis and hasn’t undergone any significant changes. It was based on statistical and stratigraphic observations of Universitetskaya 3 settlement. Here three Neolithic stages and the fourth stage «vestigial Neolithic» were identified. Its beginning was connected with the appearance of the population of the lower Don Eneolithic culture on the Middle Don, which contacted with the tribes of fish culture. The findings were based on the assumption that the economy of the Rybnoserskaya culture was appropriating, while the economy of the Nizhnedonskaya culture was producing. The possibility of their coexistence was explained by the rich ecological resources of the forest-steppe Don, as well as the focus on the extraction of different food resources. New materials have not confirmed the Neolithic nature of the Nizhnedonskaya culture. The topography of the settlements indicates that both local and alien tribes occupied the same ecological niche. The beginning of the Eneolithic period on the Middle Don should be associated with the Middle Eastern culture, the population of which displaced or assimilated the aborigines. There wasn’t any period of coexistence of Eneolithic and Neolithic (survivable) cultures either on the Middle Don, or in the forest-steppe Volga region.