THE ECOLOGICAL BACKGROUND OF EARLY NEOLITHIC INNOVATIONS IN THE NORTH OF WESTERN SIBERIA

Abstract

In the mid-7th — early 6th millennium BC at the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition, a number of innovations appeared in the lifeways of people in the West Siberian taiga, including the first appearance of pottery (the defining criterion for the onset of the Neolithic), the intensification of the subsistence economy with an increasing role of aquatic resources, and the transition to a less mobile lifestyle. These innovations were reflected in the construction of long-term open and few fortified settlements, including circular layouts and the construction of ritual mounds (kholmy). These improvements attest to significant changes in subsistence economy as well as worldviews of the hunter-fisher-gatherers of the taiga zone of West Siberia. The emergence of these innovations chronologically coincides with the most prominent global climatic cooling event of the Holocene, which took place around 6.2 thousand years cal BC (the so-called 8.2 ka BP event) and had a substantial impact on the ancient societies of Europe and Southwest Asia. To reconstruct the paleoclimate of northern West Siberia, the most informative source to date are peatbogs, which contain, as a rule, complete sedimentation sequences of all Holocene periods, allowing a greater degree of reliability in using scientific methods in paleogeographical reconstructions. This article reviews current evidence on features and age of the peat formation process and additional information on the Early Holocene paleoclimatic developments in northern West Siberia. The preliminary data indicate that favourable climatic conditions led to balanced and probably abundant environmental resources in the early Atlantic period. At the same time, the sparsely populated territory might have seen the arrival of new population groups into the region, which might have introduced or triggered a number of socio-economic innovations such as the construction of fortified settlements with complex layouts and the tradition of clay pottery manufacture.