Смольянинов Р.В., Ранний неолит Верхнего Дона

Summary __________________________ triangular, or irregular in shape. The belemnite stamp was practi­ cally never used in the ornamentation. The fate o f the Neolithic population o f the Srednedonskaya culture is still largely unclear. A part o f the population was driven out by the Lyalov-culture tribes to the territory o f northern Ukraine; the remainder was gradually assimilated by the Late Neo­ lithic Ljalov and Eneolithic Srednestogovskay culture populations. Within the framework o f this study, we realized many o f our goals and objectives: we determined the chronology o f the Early Neolithic population o f the Upper Don in connection with natural and climatic changes, revealed the mechanisms o f interaction be­ tween the Elshanskaya, Srednedonskaya, Karamyshevskay, Verkhnevozhskay, Dnepro-Donetsk, and Dronikhinsk Neolithic cultural-historical areas, cultures or types (both among themselves and with the cultures o f neighboring territories), and determined the specifics o f certain groups o f monuments o f the Upper Don. We also summarized all currently known sources for the study o f the Early Neolithic. In addition, it is also important to determine the historical fate o f the Early Neolithic population o f the Upper Don, and the nature o f contacts with tribes o f the developed Neo­ lithic and Eneolithic cultures who also came to this territory. Unfortunately, it was not possible to analyze the stone and bone inventory o f the Early Neolithic Upper Don population on a deeper level and, based on that analysis, to advance to the level o f economic reconstructions. There is an objective reason for this: the fact that the analyzed complexes occur, as a rule, from multi­ layered sites, and those sources that are confidently linked to a specific archaeological culture are still few, and do not represent a stable series for analysis. 195