Archaeology of the Indo-European Fatherland. A. G. Vinogradov
art. So on the Don (Kostenki) on bone and flint products – female figures – as a rule, graphic depicted ribbon bands on the chest and waist. Of the elements of the ornament, an oblique cross is most often found. M. D. Gvozdover writes: «Obviously, this ornament should be considered the most characteristic of the Kostenkov culture, moreover, in other Paleolithic cultures, the rows of oblique crosses are almost unknown… The choice of ornament and its location on the subject is not caused by technological reasons or material… the nature of the arrangement of the elements of the ornament and their choice are caused not by technological reasons, but by cultural tradition… archaeological culture is characterized by both the elements of the ornament themselves and the type of their location on the ornamental field and the grouping of elements.»
Figurines. Kostenki
In the ancient Stone Age, for the first time on the products from mammoth tusks found in the Mezin site in the Chernihiv region (23 thousand BC), another type of ornament appears – the meander motif and swastika
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Mezin
An outstanding Russian researcher V. A. Gorodtsov wrote in 1926, analyzing the North Russian peasant weaving and embroidery: «Until recently, it was believed that the meander and the ovs are the fruits of the ancient art of Greece, and the swastika is the art of India, but all this turned out to be wrong, since it has been documented that the swastika, meander and ovs were the favorite motifs of the ornament of the most ancient centuries of the paleometallic (bronze) era, when maybe there were neither Greeks nor Indians hiding in the same Indo-European family, and when these motives managed to spread not only to all the continents of the Old World, but also infiltrate Central America. And this is not surprising, because the swastika and the meander of earlier and those times distant from us: they were found in Russia on the art of the Mezin Paleolithic site, whose time is far from us, according to geologists, for many tens of millennia. And in what amazingly developed form they are there! And what’s most surprising is that they contacted bird figures there, undoubtedly having the same cult religious significance as they have in our time, those the meaning of the symbol of the spring sun and related ideas about happiness, prosperity and joy. Thus, in a lovely complex of swastika signs, in the patterns of the North Russian skilled craftswomen, hiding reminiscence (living memory) of the most ancient universal religious symbols. And how fresh, what a solid memory!»
What was the initial model for the most complex rhombus-meander and swastika ornament Mezin still remains a mystery. Paleontologist V. I. Bibikova in 1965 suggested that the meander spiral, torn meander stripes and rhombuses on objects from the Mezin arose as a repetition of the natural pattern of mammoth tusks dentin. From this she concluded that a similar ornament for the people of the Upper Paleolithic was a kind of magical symbol of the mammoth, embodying (as the main object of hunting) their ideas about wealth, power and abundance.
I. G. Shovkoplyas, who published the materials of the Mezinsk site, notes that meander patterns characteristic of the monuments of this Upper Paleolithic culture, they have no direct analogies in the Paleolithic art of Europe and can be put «on a par with the perfect geometric ornament of later historical eras, for example, Neolithic and copper-bronze.»
Mezin Ornaments
In the division of V. A. Gorodtsov, European Upper Paleolithic cultures of 25—20 thousand BC into three separate regions – Western European, Central European and Eastern European in the nature of art monuments, the basis for highlighting the Eastern European region was the unique geometric ornament of Mezin.
Thus, «our Mezin in the Chernihiv region is famous for the geometric meander ornament on the bone. In the remaining parts of the Old World, the meander appears only in the Bronze Age.» True, in connection with the origins of this ornamental motive, various researchers have developed very different points of view. It has already been noted above that V. I. Bibikova considers it possible to derive the Mezinsk meander and swastika from a repetition of the natural pattern of dentin of mammoth tusks. A. A. Formozov comes to the conclusion that: «the meander, characteristic of antique vase painting, the ancient Greek potters adopted from the weavers, and they only copied a pattern of threads that they obtained involuntarily in the manufacture of clothing. The Paleolithic hunters of Eastern Europe, not familiar with weaving, the meander appeared most likely as a result of the complication of zigzags, often engraved on their bones.»
It seems that it is difficult to agree with both the first and second assumptions of A. A. Formozov. The ancient Greek potters could also adopt another «thread weaving pattern», as soon as their weavers were so virtuoso that they received meander patterns in the structure of the fabric. After all, it’s impossible to get a meander by «involuntary» weaving of threads, for this you need to master the most sophisticated multi-piece weaving technique, so, probably, both the ancient weavers and the potters sought to decorate their products with a meander pattern not by chance, but quite consciously, connecting it with a certain complex of ancient representations. As for the Paleolithic hunters, they hunted mammoths not only in Eastern, but also in Western Europe, however, there are"zigzag complications,» also engraved on bone, did not happen.
Galaxy
Probably still closer to the truth B. A. Frolov, who, decoding the ornament of the Mezinsk bracelet, I came to the conclusion that the complex of the most complex representations of the Paleolithic man on the movement of time, on the change of seasons of the year, on the lunar calendar is reflected here those. We are not dealing with a simple imitation of a natural pattern and not with the «complication of zigzags», and with the complexity of thinking, with a complex worldview system.» He writes: «An analysis of the paleolithic graphics of Eurasia now indisputably shows: certain laws, a kind of «algorithms» for constructing the first ornaments really existed. The number of elements in the ornament groups, intervals between homogeneous groups repeat the cycles of the most frequent and visual cosmic phenomena for the inhabitants of the Earth, primarily associated with the movement of the sun and moon.» It should be noted that A. A. Formozov also believes that it was «with the development of the thinking of our ancestors who managed to move from a concrete-shaped perception of life to complex abstractions» that «a change in the face of art in the Neolithic and bronze» was connected, when the «true flowering survived the ornament».
The fact that the world of the Paleolithic man was much more complex and spiritually richer than we had previously imagined evidenced by the highly developed and specialized stone industry, and complex constructions of bone-sod houses, and thousands of drilled polished beads, spears and bracelets from mammoth tusks in the graves of Sungir, musical instruments and statues of Mezin and much more.
As noted earlier, already in the Upper Paleolithic we meet with a peculiar contrast of red and white: the whiteness of the bones was contrasted with the saturated color of the engraved ornaments worn by red ocher. In the graves of Sungir, the bottom was sprinkled with white matter (chalk or lime) and «already on the white layer of the grave densely showered with bright red ocher.
«Researchers noted what exactly red color played a huge role in cult rites and aesthetics of this period. Red dyes were used even in mustier (up to 50 thousand BC), and for a very long time there was a belief that ancient people used only natural dyes. As a result of research, it was found that by firing glandular nodules in different modes, red dyes of various shades were obtained already in the Upper Paleolithic.
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