Archaeology of the Indo-European Fatherland. A. G. Vinogradov

      In general, the Mesolithic era differed from the Paleolithic exceptional mobility of the population. So already in 7 thousand BC according to modern anthropologists based on the study of the bone remains of the Oleneostrovsky burial ground, in the region of Lake Onega, a mixture of northern and southern Caucasoids took place.

      Significant advancement of the North European population to the south at the turn of the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras is evidenced by the data cited by D. I. Telegin. Comparing the burial rite of the north and south of Eastern Europe, he notes that for the northern latitudes, already from the Paleolithic, the burial of the dead in an elongated position on the back, in contrast to those crouched in the south. So all the skeletons of Sungir (24 thousand BC) lay on their backs in an elongated position. In the Mesolithic Oleneostrovsk burial ground (7 thousand BC) on Lake Onega there are 118 burials elongated on the back, and only 14 on the side. In the burials of the Popovo burial ground (on Lake Lache, the right bank of the Kinem River) of the second half of 7 thousand BC all the dead lay in an extended position on their backs.

      D. Ya. Telegin notes what if for the south of Eastern Europe throughout the Mesolithic era the dominant position in the burials was a position crouched on its side, then, during the transition to Neolithic time, a sharp change is noticed in the burial rite, «when the elongated back position becomes prevailing in the position of skeletons throughout the study area. He’s writing: «It seems to us that the reasons for such dramatic changes in the funeral ritual of the population of Eastern Europe on the verge of eras should be sought, firstly, in changing the composition of the population itself, and secondly, in changing his ideology. Moreover, at different times, these factors played, obviously, far from the same role: during the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic, the first factor probably prevailed (i.e., population change.) … So, according to the definition of anthropologists, the Mesolithic population of Ukraine, who left the Voloshsky-Vasilievsky-type burial grounds with burials buried on their sides, belongs to the Mediterranean race, while the Neolithic tribes who replaced it are characterized by all the signs of the Late Cro-Magnon type (the so-called subglacial North European type.). It is to these tribes that the numerous burial grounds of the Dnieper-Donetsk culture belong, where the skeletons lay in an extended position in rows. Consequently, a noticeable sharp change in the rite of burial here is associated with a change in population.»

      So, in the Dnieper at the boundary of the Mesolithic and Neolithic (at the end of 7 – beginning of 6 thousand BC), a new population comes from the northern regions. At the same time, even in Pechora appear groups that came from the southwest.

      More than a hundred sites of the Mesolithic era are open in the Vologda Oblast. S. V. Oshibkina notes that the sites of the Sukhona River basin (Kolupaevskaya on the Staraya Totma River and Yasnopolyanskaya on the tributary of the Sukhona River, Sombol River) existed surrounded by forests of pine (27%), birch (25%), linden (33%), oak (1%), hazel (2%), and the percentage of linden increases over time. S. V. Oshibkina emphasizes that: «As established by M. I. Neishtadt, the period of domination of broad-leaved species and alder falls on 2500 – 7700 years from our days or 5700 – 500 years BC.»

      The population of the Kolupaevskaya site lived in rectangular ground dwellings, at least 6 x 6 m. This had a rigid structure. The guns found in the archaeological sites lots of the Sukhona river basin, have an ancient tradition and are associated with the late-Paleolithic witness culture, the origins of which some researchers see in the Late Paleolithic cultures of Poland, Lithuania and Western Belarus, others are in the cultures of the Kostenkovsk-Borshevsky region on the Don. S. V. Oshibkina believes that the typology of the tools, which has been preserved for a long time, has been developed among the population of the Volga-Oka interfluve, the west of the Middle Volga and the Sukhona basin, related by origin. She writes: «Culturally, the Mesolithic of the Sukhona Basin resembles the Volga-Oka Mesolithic, which is explained by the common origin of the population, which is part of a single cultural region and retains witnessing traditions.» It makes sense to recall that part of the Volga-Oka Mesolithic population is considered to have come from the Dnieper and from the banks of the Desna River, while the other part is considered to be descendants of local Late Paleolithic tribes.