Bones. Ancient civilization near Voronezh

For the last five years, I have been compiling the genealogy of my family, for my daughters. All the great-grandfathers about whom I managed to find out something, I entered. Unfortunately, for three years now, my husband's parents are no longer alive. Therefore, there is no way to know the details. But on the other hand, I enter “new” family members there: husbands, wives and children. This is a very pleasant "work". I have already "infected" my cousin, she not only found out about our great-great-grandfathers, but also found the first family of her grandfather. My pedigree is still on paper and handwritten. In the electronic version, these are only surnames, first names, patronymics and family ties. Someday, I will figure out how to draw up this “document” of the family and take it to the printing house.

Naturally, I am very interested in the origin of surnames. Demidova is my husband's surname. In girlhood, I am Pankova. I already knew about the origins maiden names mothers and grandmothers. It's good that the husband's father spoke about the name Demidov. It turns out that the husband's ancestors once had a very famous noble family. I'm sorry I didn't remember her. The father's great-great-grandfather's name was Demid. Therefore, his children were called Demidov's children, that is, the children of Demid. This is where the surname came from. My daughters already know this story.

But for the origin of my maiden name, I had to turn to the Internet. And this is what I learned: Pankov is possibly the descendants of Poles who were resettled deep into pre-revolutionary Russia during the war with Poland. These Poles expelled from their homeland were called pans or punks by the surrounding Russians. Also, a connection with the names on Pan - Pankratiy, Panteleimon is not excluded. (SITE - NEOLOVE. The history of the origin of the surname. The secret of the name - a women's magazine.)

Perhaps German origin surnames. In Germany, not far from Berlin, on the territory of the former GDR, there is the city of Pankow, which stands on the Panke River, which gave it its name. Perhaps the ancestors of the owner of this surname came from this city. In Germany in this moment there are about 500 people bearing the surname Pankow (Pankov).

One of the first mentions of the surname in historical documents refers to XVI century. In the "Onomasticon" by S. B. Veselovsky, Pankov Ivan Afanasevich is recorded, 1596, Orel. Pan, eventually received the surname Pankov. Among the famous owners of the surname - Russian critic, literary critic, doctor of philological sciences Alexander Viktorovich Pankov (1947-1996), author of articles and reviews on modern Russian literature.
I remember my grandma used to call us "punks" as a kid. To the question “why”, she said that once upon a time, “punks” came to one Russian village - that was the name of the Poles. She assumed that her grandfather's ancestors were Poles. Where grandfather comes from, I don't know. My mother says that their family lived in many villages and villages of Tatarstan, and the children were born in different villages. Therefore, I am not entirely sure of the Polish origin of the surname. Later, I managed to find the following data on the Internet:

The biography of my mother's father - grandfather Krasnov - is also not known, because he came to Tatarstan during the Great Patriotic Wars s from Tashkent. Mom only knows that he was raised by his grandmother. He either did not know about his parents, or concealed them. It turns out that in the 1920s, the children of former nobles, who "sided" with the Bolsheviks, called themselves "Krasnovs" in honor of the Red Army. On the Internet, I found the following facts: from a nickname (or even a non-church male personal name); Besides ancient Russian meaning“beautiful” the word red in Vyatka dialects meant “red-cheeked” and “careless”.

Also in my family tree there are surnames: Kozinovs, Chizhenkovs, Gorshunovs. Considering how surnames were given in Russia, I can conclude that most of my ancestors came from peasants who were engaged in such crafts as: pottery, fishing, catching birds, were good singers and dancers, manufacturers or sellers of stockings. Although not necessarily, because as they write on some sites about the origin of surnames: "This information is conjectural."

"Kostenki" - archaeological museum-reserve. It is known throughout the world for its complex of ancient sites of the Stone Age. For more than 130 years scientific research has been carried out here.

"Kostenki" - museum-reserve. Location

The ancient village, located 40 kilometers south of Voronezh, is called Kostenki. In the territory of this settlement only in different times more than 26 sites of the most ancient primitive people stone age.

The museum-reserve got its name from the name of the village. It is located in the territories of Kostenki and with. Borshchevo.

25 protected areas with monuments of the Stone Age, the total area of ​​which is about 9 hectares, unites the museum-reserve has an amazing and unique historical landmark, which is known throughout the world. This place has a beautiful informal name - "Pearl of the world Paleolithic".

Creation of the museum

The idea of ​​creating such a wonderful museum belongs to A.N. Rogachev - a famous Soviet archaeologist. It was built at the expense of the local Voronezh authorities. The excavation and conservation of the monument itself was carried out by the expedition of the regional Leningrad branch of the Archaeological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences under the leadership of A.N. Rogachev.

Then they created this temporary exhibition. In 1983, the museum was opened, then still a branch of the Voronezh local history museum.

And in 1991, this branch separated from the main local history museum and received the status of a museum-reserve. Moreover, it included not only the main museum above one of the sites ("Kostenki-11"), but also all the existing monuments (Upper Paleolithic) of the Kostenkovsko-Borshevsky region, as well as the Slavic settlement - Borshchevskoye. This is how the state archaeological museum-reserve "Kostenki" was formed. The main purpose of its creation is the protection, study and popularization of the Upper Paleolithic sites.

Finds at ancient sites

All parking lots have their own numbers. In the process of recent work on the study of the most ancient sites ("Kostenki-14", 12), sensational finds were discovered that definitely change views on primeval history.

In the Kostenki-14 site in 2000, the oldest ornaments in Europe (Eastern) were found - ornamented threads made of tubular bird bones, shell pendants. They were discovered in a layer of volcanic ash brought to the Russian Plain from Italy more than 38 thousand years ago.

These ancient finds (decorations and the remains of settlements), precisely in the ashes, suggest that this settlement ceased to exist during the global catastrophe that occurred on the territory of Europe in that era.

In 2001, almost a whole skeleton of a still very young mammoth and even the skull of this animal (usually it is poorly preserved) were discovered there. For the territories of Siberia, this is a normal phenomenon. However, everything happened in Kostenki. Here, earlier archaeologists usually found only individual bones of mammoths. In ancient times, people brought them to their parking lots for household needs.

It turns out that the mammoth found here either fell into or was dragged into the swamp. In the same year, a head from a statuette of a human figure was also found, made of (age - 37 thousand years). This became a world sensation, since today this find is the oldest sculptural work (statue of a man) in the Paleolithic of Europe.

Age

Prior to this discovery, the age of sculptural images was determined at about 32 thousand years. It turns out that they are more than 10 thousand years older.

Also, according to an analysis in 2002 by an American laboratory, the age of Kostenok-12 (the oldest lower cultural layer) is up to 50 thousand years (instead of 40 thousand) for the Upper Paleolithic.

"Kostenki" (museum-reserve) will be replenished with ancient historical facts the lives of the people of that curious era. Most of the history of these places still rests under water and is waiting for its researchers.

Where did it all begin?

In 1979, the first parking lot was opened. It represents the dwelling of a man from the Stone Age. It was built about 20,000 years ago from mammoth bones. Consists of this ancient house from 570 mammoth bones. The size of the dwelling is 9 meters in diameter. It is surrounded by pantries in the form of pits. It was first discovered by a local resident I.I. Protopov (built a cellar) in 1949.

Now this unique house is located right inside the building of the museum itself in the same place and in almost the same condition as it was when it was first seen by that local resident. Kostenki, a museum-reserve, can present a lot of amazing things to its visitors.

Many amazing legends were born due to the fact that people found huge, unthinkable mammoth bones (they had never seen such animals).
One of them says that a huge beast lives underground, which does not appear in public. And from the words "ma" - "earth", "mut" - "mole" people began to call him "mamut".

To date, more than 60 settlements have been discovered in this territory, the age of which is between 45 and 15 thousand years.

"Kostenki" (museum-reserve) has great amount various ancient exhibits. It exhibits figurines of women ("paleolithic venuses"), various household items. And for some reason the figurines were mostly carved in the form of pregnant women. They had a symbol - the continuation of life.

All this is priceless and the only evidence of the longest era in cultural development humanity on earth.

Paleolithic sites in Kostenki.

Kostenki- a village in Khokholsky district Voronezh region, the administrative center of the Kostensky rural settlement.

Kostenki is recognized as the richest place in Russia for the concentration of sites of the Upper Paleolithic era - people modern type. Here, on a territory of about 10 km², more than 60 sites are open (on a number of several dwellings, sometimes very large), dated from 45 to 15 thousand years!

In connection with the huge area (albeit at different times) of settlement, researchers are looking for arguments in favor of recognizing Kostenok one of the oldest proto-cities on the planet(with a population of 200-300 people at the same time). Kostenkovo ​​sites of the ancients contain dwellings made of mammoth bones, over one of which a pavilion-museum was built. Numerous works of art have been found, including world-famous female figurines - the so-called "Paleolithic Venuses".

There are many traces of life activity from the Mesolithic times up to the present time in the district. By virtue of different reasons the population repeatedly left the district for relatively long periods. Defined as a city in the XVI-XVIII centuries.

In the course of recent work on the study of two ancient sites Kostenok-14 and Kostenok-12, sensational finds have been discovered that change our views on primitive history.

According to the results obtained from the American laboratory in 2002, the age of the lowest cultural layer Kostenok-12 can drop to 50,000 (!) years instead of the traditional 40,000 years for the Upper Paleolithic!Despite a solid history of study, Kostenki today is an iceberg, most of which rests under water and waits in the wings and its researcher.

The presence of antiquities in the Kostenok area is mentioned by S. G. Gmelin in “Journey through Russia” (1768), although the remains of mammoths were found here earlier, as the name itself indicates locality. Accompanying Peter I to the south in 1703 The Russian Dutchman de Bruin, for example, writes: “In the area in which we were, to our great surprise, we found many elephant teeth, of which I kept one for myself, for the sake of curiosity, but I cannot understand how these teeth could get here. True, the sovereign told us that Alexander the Great, passing by this river, as some historians assure, reached the small town of Kostenka, located eight versts from here, and that it could very well be that at that very time several elephants fell here, the remains of which are still here today."

Discovery history. The Kostenki-1 site was discovered in 1879 by Russian archaeologist Ivan Polyakov. The purpose of the excavations in 1881 and 1915 (largely unsystematic) was to find stone tools. The systematic study of the Kostenkovo ​​monuments began in the 1920s.

Most significant works P. P. Efimenko led in Kostenki. In the 1930s, these scientists unearthed a dwelling made of mammoth bones (36 x 15 meters in size, about 20 thousand years old), which has now been mothballed. On the territory of the dwelling there are 12 pits, which were used as ossuary. Other dwellings of Kostenkovites are elongated; along the longitudinal axis there are a number of foci.

By the second half of the 20th century, it became clear that Kostenki did not represent one settlement, therefore, in scientific literature you can often find a numeral after the name of the site, the most famous of which are Kostenki-12 and Kostenki-14 (Markina Gora).

Kostenki-1 (Polyakov's site) has much in common with the upper layer of the Avdeevskaya site in the Kursk region. Kostenki 1/1, Kostenki 4/II (Aleksandrovskaya site), Kostenki 8/2, Kostenki 21/3 are attributed together with the sites of Pushkari 1, Borshchevo 1, Buran-Kaya, Khotylevo 2, Gagarino, Zaraysk, Willendorf, Dolni-Vestonice, Prsedmosti, Pavlov, Avdeevo, Petrkovice and Berdyzh to the Eastern Gravettian culture. Kostenki 2, Kostenki 3, Kostenki 11-Ia and Kostenki 19 are combined into the Zamyatninskaya culture. Kostenki 1 layer 2, Kostenki 1 layer 3, Kostenki 6, Kostenki 11, Kostenki 12 layer 3 belong to the sites of the seletoid circle. The Telman culture was named after the Kostenki VIII site (2nd layer) (Telman site).

AT top layer The sixth left edge mammoth with the sharp part of the flint tip stuck in it.

At the first investigated site (Kostenki-1), ten “Kostenki Venuses” were found: stone or bone figurines of naked women with enlarged belly, chest, and hips. Such finds are also unique, such as, for example, pieces of dyes, suggesting that the Kostenkovites used charcoal and marl rocks to obtain black and white paints, and ferruginous nodules found in nature, after processing them in a fire, gave dark red and ocher tones. dyes. Burnt clay was also found there - perhaps it was used to coat baking pits. The camps consisted of huts, the foundations of which were mammoth bones. There are two types of dwellings. Structures of the first type are large, elongated, with hearths located along the longitudinal axis, like a ground dwelling uncovered in the 1930s by Pyotr Efimenko measuring 36 meters in length and 15 meters in width, with four dugouts, 12 storage pits, various depressions and pits that were used as storage. Dwellings of the second type were round, with a hearth located in the center. Earth mounds, mammoth bones, wood and animal skins were used for construction.

Also found were the remains of household objects, tools, jewelry typical of the Late Paleolithic: headbands, bracelets, figured pendants, miniature (up to 1 centimeter) stripes for headdresses and clothes, fragments of small plastic, seashells from the Black Sea coast.

human remains. In the 1950s, during three field seasons, four Upper Paleolithic burials were discovered in Kostenki. In 1983, another discovery was made. Thus, scientists judge the population of the Middle Don by findings from five burials: a young man from Kostenki-14, an elderly man from Kostenki-2 (Zamiatnin site), two children from Kostenki-15 (Gorodtsovskaya site) and Kostenok-18, a newborn boy from Kostenki-12. The burials of Kostenki-2 and Kostenki-15 belong to the Kostenki-Gorodtsov culture, the burial of Kostenka-18 (21020 ± 180 years ago) belongs to the Kostenki-Avdeev culture. The burial of Kostenka-14 from Markina Gora belongs to an unknown cultural tradition.

Human remains from the Kostenki-14 site (37 thousand years ago) were reconstructed by M.M. Gerasimov, who personally participated in the excavations. According to anthropological indicators, they resemble modern Papuans. They were distinguished by short stature (160 cm), narrow face, wide nose, and prognathism. However, the later population of the site already has a Cro-Magnoid appearance.

The skeleton from Markina Gora (Kostenki 14), dated at 37,000 years old, was examined for mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA. He was found to have the mitochondrial haplogroup U2 (now this haplogroup is distributed mainly in Northern India and the Kama region) and the Y-chromosomal haplogroup C1b. The Kostenka-12 sample, dated at 32,000 years old, has a Y-chromosomal haplogroup CT and a mitochondrial haplogroup U2.

V.P. Yakimov discovered the similarity of the metric data and contours of the brain region of the skull of Kostenka-15 with the skull of Predmost II from Moravia. For the Kostenka-2 skull, G. F. Debets noted a disharmonic combination of a long skull and a wide face. Long bones have so far been practically unexplored, since they have not been extracted from the monolith. The poorly preserved children's skull Kostenka-18 has archaic features. The postcranial skeleton (parts of the skeleton, except for the skull) of a newborn boy from the burial at the Kostenki-12 site, discovered by M.V. Anikovich in 1983, differed from the skeletons of modern newborns much more high value elbow-shoulder pointer.

G. F. Debets believed that skulls from Kostenki belong to three races- Cro-Magnon proper (Kostenki-2 and Kostenki-18), Brno-Prshedmost (Kostenki-15) and Grimaldian (Kostenki-14) and that these finds reflect the participation in the formation of the Upper Paleolithic population of the Russian Plain of ancient forms modern races. V. V. Bunak considered the skull of Kostenka-14 and the skulls of the “Negroids” of Grimaldi to be sharply deviating forms.

The small volume of the brain capsule of the skull from Kostenki-14 indicates the heterogeneity of this find among other Upper Paleolithic Neoanthropes. The physique features of a person from Kostenki-14 are directly opposite to the features a man from Sungir brachymorphic, big stature, a large conditional indicator of volume and a high ratio of body mass to its surface. It is possible that the discovery of a man on Markina Gora is evidence of the early penetration of a representative of a population into the Russian Plain that was not adapted to life even under warming conditions.

American professor John Hoffecker declared the neighborhood of Kostenki the ancestral home of all modern European nations: "Such ancient sites of primitive man have not been discovered in Western and Central Europe.", and the finds are unique on a global scale and force to reconsider traditional look to ethnogenesis. It is Kostenka finds that call for a fundamental revision of generally accepted views: - "the technique of sawing, drilling, grinding turns out to be absolutely the same as in the artifacts found in the southern Russian and Ukrainian steppe sites of the Neolithic era. But they are thirty to thirty-five thousand years younger !This circumstance completely destroys the traditional idea: the lower the layer and ancient era the more primitive the culture. In general, modern man appeared much earlier than previously thought. Evidence of this was found precisely in Kostenki.

Doctor historical sciences Mikhail Anikovich, researcher Kostenok-12, points to the worldwide significance of this unique archaeological site: - "here, on a stretch of the Don coast, about ten kilometers long, there are more than sixty sites of the ancient Stone Age - the Upper Paleolithic. This corner of the earth is unique: it is, as it were, in miniature reflects the picture of the development of the whole of Europe in the period from approximately 45 to 15 thousand years ago.<...>Kostenkovskaya district - this small "patch" with an area of ​​​​about thirty square kilometers - is one huge monument of WORLD significance.

M. Anikovich, based on the results of his expedition, claims that the long-held concept of the evolution of a Neanderthal into a Cro-Magnon man is untenable: - "We found that nowhere in Europe can we trace the evolution from the Middle Paleolithic (the period of the Neanderthal man) to the upper one (the Cro-Magnon period). Upper Paleolithic was brought to Europe from the outside. Our excavations have confirmed that the Upper Paleolithic could not have come to the middle Don from the south or southwest. Nor could it from the Caucasus."

Middle Don Anikovich considers representatives of the Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic cultures to be a place of acculturation and assimilation, explaining the fruitfulness of this contact by the fact that neither of them were autochthonous here: - "Neanderthals, who brought their traditions to the Middle Don and transformed them here under the influence of homo sapiens, came from the Crimea. Apparently, some part of them, for some unknown reason, was forced out of their historical homeland and migrated to the north. In the Middle Don, there was a "meeting" of these flows of migrants. It was here, on a land equally alien to both a certain symbiosis arose between them. But where did the people come from, who brought to Europe the most ancient highly developed culture of the Upper Paleolithic - it is difficult to answer this question reliably. "

According to the remains discovered in Kostenki, an anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov created a sculptural portrait of a man of the Paleolithic era, which became canonical and went around all the textbooks and encyclopedias of the world.

How many people know that according to latest research, the ancestral home of mankind is not Africa at all, but the right bank of the Don, and, more precisely, the village of Kostenki, Voronezh region? Most likely, the answer will be negative, because. Kostenki, despite the unique history, has not gained wide popularity and has not become a popular place among tourists, like, for example, the Egyptian pyramids or the English Stonehenge. But meanwhile, deep antiquity is nearby, and there is something to see.

History of the village of Kostenki

The village of Kostenki was founded in 1642 by Bogdan Koninsky, and at that time was the city of Kostensk. Judging by the name, even then the area was rich in interesting finds. In order to somehow explain the unprecedented number of mysterious bones that came across in the ground, people put together a legend about the Inder beast, which I. S. Polyakov wrote down in 1879: “Once upon a time there lived a beast on earth, called Inder. Once he came from the depths of the continents to the Don; his head was near the waters of the river, his body stretched along the entire Chekalin ravine, with the tops of which the tail of the animal ended, so that the giant, in accordance with the length of the ravine, was more than two versts in length. Inder had to go to the other, opposite bank of the Don; but since his children followed the monster and he was afraid that when crossing the river they might drown, he decided to drink the Don. And indeed, he began to drink, the river began to decrease and, finally, it became no larger than the Chekalin stream. Then the beast thought it was time to cross, and in order to let the children know about this and make them go, he looked back, but at that time he burst from the effort, so that his bones scattered for a long distance ... ". It is worth noting that in the legends of the northern peoples, the white population of Siberia is called “endri”, which means “mammoth people”.

According to another legend, a beast lives underground, which is never shown to people, and only after death do its bones become visible.

In the XVIII century, during the next stay of Peter I in Voronezh, stories about the bones reached the emperor. Peter writes to the vice-governor of the Azov province, the center of which at that time was Voronezh, S. Kolychev: “He orders in Kostensk and in other cities and districts of the province to search for great bones, both human and elephant, and all sorts of other unusual ones.” Many found or bought from local residents the bones were sent to St. Petersburg, to the cabinet of curiosities.

Interestingly, according to Peter I, these were the bones of the elephants of Alexander the Great, who pursued the Persian king Darius in the southern Russian steppe lands, and in which several elephants died during the battles. Of course, the emperor and his entourage could not imagine the fullness of the picture associated with the number of bones in the area. The scattered fragments found, thus, logically took shape in the theory of several dead animals. But at that time this point of view was the closest to the truth.

Speaking of mammoths. Mammoth is a herd, herbivore animal weighing 4-5 tons and up to 4 meters in height. The number in the herd reached up to 12-15 individuals. During the day they dispersed to get food, by night they returned to the herd. Their diet was established on the basis of data obtained from the study of the stomachs of several mammoths found in permafrost (Berezovsky, Shandaren). They ate mainly small cereals, sedge, green moss shoots. In summer, food was obtained, probably in the valleys of rivers, lakes, on the outskirts of swamps, in reed beds, fortunately, that the climate contributed to rich vegetation.

During bad weather, in order to protect females and cubs, adults stood around them, thereby protecting them from wind and cold. Massiveness often turned against the mammoth itself. So, the polynya in the spring, to which the animal came to drink, posed a great danger. The ice could not support the weight of the mammoth, dragging it into the fast flow of the river. The body of the animal was carried by the current to the shores, thus forming entire cemeteries of mammoths.

But back to history. So, having managed to acquire legends, Kostenki existed until 1879. It is this year that a young scientist Ivan Semenovich Polyakov, who was sent by the Russian Geographical Society to investigate the location of the "ivory bones". The local population actively joined to help the scientist, bringing the found bones, acquainted with the area. Interested in the site of F. A. Manuilov, Ivan Semenovich receives permission from the owner to conduct research excavations there. “Finally, by evening, when the entire layer of chernozem with a thickness of 1.15 m to 1.4 m was removed, gray clay was discovered, and with it those fossil remains that made an indelibly deep, amazing impression on me.” There were also pieces of ash, coal, stone tools. So, on June 28, 1879, direct evidence was found that it was here, in Kostenki, that ancient sites of the Stone Age were located and, moreover, here, according to I. S. Polyakov: “... man not only existed together with the mammoth and hunted on him, but even more, he pursued him, followed on his heels. So, the first parking lot of Kostenki 1, or Polyakov's parking lot, was opened.

The second site was found in 1905 by the Russian archaeologist A. A. Spitsyn, who was mainly engaged in research of the ancient Slavs, in the neighboring Kostenkam village of Borshchevo. In one place, mammoth bones and flints were found. So, the parking lot was named Borshevo 1.

In 1923, the Kostenkovskaya Paleolithic Expedition was created, led by the Stone Age researcher P.P. Efimenko. An important point At this stage, the discovery in Kostenki 1 of a female figurine made of mammoth bone, comparable in execution to the famous “Venuses” of the Western European model. Thus, it gradually becomes apparent that this place is the most ancient settlement Europe, and it is from here that European civilization began.

Gradually, interest in Kostenki increases, research is carried out every year, new discoveries are made and, importantly, a special method of excavation is formed - in large areas.
From 1939 to 1947, due to the beginning of the Second World War, and then the Great Patriotic War, the excavations stopped. Work resumed only in 1948. In the 50s, burial places of people were found, on the basis of which M. M. Gerasimov made a sculptural reconstruction. Now one could literally see the appearance of our ancient ancestors.

Studies have shown that the people who inhabited the territory of Kostenki of that period were already not much different from us. The volume of the brain is comparable to modern man. At the same time, their physique was more compact, sinewy. Anthropologists call people of this period homosapiens-sapiens, i.e. reasonable twice.

The objects found showed that people were quite developed and could well take care of themselves and their offspring in difficult conditions at the glacial zone. For the construction of the dwelling, its foundation, frame, they used the bones of mammoths. So, for one such dwelling, about 500 large bones were required, and this is about 35 animals. There is no clear evidence that early man actively hunted the mammoth. To date, only three finds testify to the death of an animal at the hands of an ancient man: a mammoth with a tip between the ribs was found in Arizona, in Khanty-Mansiysk and in the Voronezh region. Those. a large number of bones, apparently, is not associated with the need for building material. Animals often died in natural conditions, falling into the water or getting stuck somewhere, or getting sick. Everything you need to build a home was literally under your feet.

Judging by the finds, man skillfully used tusks, mammoth bones to make tools. The tusks were used to make spears, triangular-shaped flint-tipped darts, devices for stitching skins, etc. The found female figurines, the rudiments of writing tell us that the people of that civilization are people of a special order, having an idea of ​​​​beauty, able to give shape to an imaginary image. Harsh conditions were not an obstacle to the development of the spiritual component of man.

In the 60s, excavations were also actively carried out, during which large areas of the territory were painstakingly processed. This approach slowed down the work, but brought results. It became apparent that under the top studied cultural layer, there was an earlier layer representing a previous civilization. And so, for thousands of years, people actively settled in the same place, finding this particular territory attractive, giving an opportunity to preserve life and develop.

Museum Reserve Kostenki

In 1949, a local resident Kostenok, while digging a cellar, discovered a large amount of accumulation of bones. Upon further research, a well-preserved dwelling of an ancient man made of mammoth bones was discovered, reaching a diameter of up to 9 meters. In addition, it was surrounded by special pits for storing food. The idea arose to turn the unique find, called Kostenki 11, into a museum, which would serve as a clear fact for the future generation of scientists. A. N. Rogachev and A. P. Soloviev took up the implementation of this idea.

Because Since the idea was very non-standard, it was necessary to try hard to convince the relevant authorities of the expediency of building such a museum. As a result, in 1967 a positive decision was made. Within a decade the museum was built.

The execution of such an unusual building was not an easy task, because. it was necessary to build a room without internal supports, while maintaining an open cultural layer, and leaving the possibility of further excavations. As a result, a building without a foundation was built on eighteen reinforced concrete pillars, in the center of which there is an excavation - a 20,000-year-old dwelling made of mammoth bones. It was a unique building experience for the 60s.

Gradually, there was a need to include in the general fund of the museum all the monuments found during all this time. In 1991, the museum in Kostenki acquires the status of a museum-reserve, uniting 25 objects of the Stone Age throughout the territory.

For a long time, the museum's exposition was of a temporary nature. In the 2000s, the museum began to fill up. An exhibition hall was opened, a taxidermic sculpture of a mammoth made in real size, as well as a diorama "Stone Age Settlement" appeared.
In winter, the museum is closed, because. works seasonally. From May to November, its working hours are from 10:00 to 18:00 (all days except Monday)

Kostensky caves

If the topic of the mammoth museum is significant at least for the Voronezh region, then even the locals do not always know about the caves. There are only three large caves in Kostenki, and even small ones cannot be counted. Cretaceous Kosten caves are the very echoes of an ancient civilization near Voronezh, which for some reason is forgotten by our government, but is actively covered by the world community. The temperature in the caves is approximately the same in winter and summer. It was this factor that provided our ancient ancestors with a relatively quiet life.

The black Philatius lived in it. There are rumors that 40 people died in the act of self-immolation in it.

Population in Kostenki

The people in Kostenki are diverse. From old grannies in Kostenki themselves, as well as rich summer residents, to young and old inmates on the outskirts of the village in the RTS. There are about 1000 people in total.

In the 90s, there was a serious scam with mammoth bones. Residents found mammoth bones in their gardens and actually sold them as scrap. A small bone is a pack of pistachios. Large - a fantastic 300 rubles or three bottles of beer. In the US, then the goods were resold at a price of $ 10,000 per bone.

Both foreigners and students of historical faculties come to the village. Foreigners (Germans, British, Italians) are forbidden to enter into dialogue with the locals. However, they somehow played with the local Kostenki team. Lost 23:5. Their professor came and asked for the bill, but the locals don't understand English. They wrote to him with a stick on the ground, and the peasant was naturally surprised. Now it is not known whether the English students completed their studies in their Oxford.

Those who are in the know are buying property in Kostenki. After all, someday people will come who will develop tourism in this glorious land. In the meantime, some houses are abandoned, while others are given away for darma. But something tells me that the question of not only the all-Russian glory of Kostenok, but also the global one is just around the corner.

Sometimes cool celebrities come to Kostenki. Bi-2 decided to escape from big cities to a small ancient village.

A discovery that shocked the scientific world. Our ancestors lived on the Russian Plain 45,000 years ago. Kostenki is an archaeological site located in the village of the same name on the right bank of the Don, in the Voronezh region. First discovered in 1879, but the first excavations began in the 1920s.

Over 60 sites were found on an area of ​​10 km², the age of which ranges from 45 to 15 thousand years. Judging by the artifacts found, our ancestors had a developed culture and art. This sensational discovery casts doubt on the theory that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and migrated from there to the north of Eurasia.

Kostenki is an archaeological site located in the village of the same name on the right bank of the Don, Khokholsky district, Voronezh region. The local sites of the Upper Paleolithic era are known throughout the world. Russian archaeologist Alexander Spitsyn called them "the pearl of the Russian Paleolithic". Kostenki is a place of sensational finds that change our views on primitive history! From time immemorial, large bones of mysterious animals have been found here. It is no coincidence that the name of this area is based on the root “bone”. Local residents have long had a legend about a beast living underground, the bones of which people find. No one saw this monster alive, so the people decided that it could only be discovered after his death. These bones interested even Peter I.

Back in 1717, Peter I wrote in Voronezh to the Vice-Governor of Azov Stepan Kolychev: “He orders in Kostensk and in other cities and districts of the province to search for great bones, both human and elephant, and all other unusual ones.” Many of the remains found in Kostenki were sent to the St. Petersburg "Kunstkamera". Then it was believed that the giant bones found were the remains of the war elephants of Alexander the Great, who "went to fight the Scythians." The first serious archaeological studies of the sites in Kostenki were carried out by the outstanding scientist and anthropologist Ivan Polyakov in the second half of the 19th century. So, on June 28, 1879, flint tools, spearheads and other items were extracted from the first pit, confirming the existence of people in these places many centuries ago. And only since the 20s of the last century, a systematic study of Paleolithic sites began. Here were all the most famous representatives Russian archeology: Sergey Zamyatnin, Petr Efimenko, Alexander Rogachev, Pavel Boriskovsky.

Bones are of great interest even today. Today, archaeological excavations in the Kostenok area cover an area of ​​about 10 km². During this time, more than 60 sites were discovered, the age of which, according to scientists, ranges from 45 to 15 thousand years!

It is noteworthy that, according to traditional historiography, during this period the Russian Plain was still covered with a glacier. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that in the same cultural layer were found: the remains of a modern type of man and a mammoth, numerous works of art, as well as ten world-famous female figures, nicknamed "Paleolithic Venus". Thus, the finds discovered by Russian archeology cast doubt on the generally accepted hypothesis that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and migrated from there to Western Europe. Kostenki is the most important archaeological monument, proving that a highly developed civilization has existed on our land since ancient times.

Paleolithic "capital" of the world found near Voronezh

Cradle of European civilization discovered near Voronezh...

The archaeological world is shaken by sensational news: on the right bank of the Don, in the village of Kostenki near Voronezh, the ancestral home of all European peoples was discovered. The discovery of American and Russian scientists radically changes the traditional view of ethnogenesis and the subsequent history of the continent. In short, Europe, accustomed to considering itself an advanced region of development, has been relegated to the backyards of the primitive world.

scientific commotion

Science was alarmed by an article published earlier this year in the journal Science by a professor at the University of Boulder, Colorado, John Hoffecker. The bottom line is this: the skeletons of modern people found in Kostenki and the age of archaeological finds suggest that homo sapiens appeared in the middle reaches of the Don much earlier than in Europe.

According to the generally accepted version, Central and Western Europe was mastered by people from the climate-friendly Balkans, from the territory of present-day Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, but not from the east of the continent. It was believed that the eastern part was settled tens of thousands of years later. That is why science counted the remains of ancient settlements in Kostenki only 20,000 years old, at most 32,000 years old, which, of course, did not allow the Voronezh village to be considered the “capital of the Paleolithic”, and our great-grandparents were the legitimate discoverers of Europe.

VERBATIM. John Hoffecker, professor, Colorado State, USA: “The Kostenkovo ​​sites are interesting not only for their unique antiquity. We still do not know in what ways primitive people migrated here - from Africa or from Asia? But it was in these places that they acquired new abilities and formed the beginnings of human civilization. This is evidenced by the finds in the lower layer of the excavation - flint tools, bone, stone figurines of women and animals, which can be attributed to the most ancient works of primitive art. So the local homo sapiens lived not only by hunting, they knew many crafts and were not alien to artistic creativity.

But science moved forward, paleontological methods improved, and archaeological finds “aged” along with them. In the end, after analyzing the ashes, spores and pollen found in the excavations, as well as subjecting the bones to paleomagnetic and radiocarbon studies, Russian scientists found that the Kostenki rarities are no less than forty-forty-two thousand years old. American laboratories by the thermoluminescent method "added" them another three millennia. This is how Kostenki got ahead and became the most ancient site of primitive man in Europe. And the American Hoffecker, who announced this, is pushing science towards a fundamental revision of generally accepted views on the early period of human history.

Everyday life of the ancestral home

The village of Kostenki, which found itself in the epicenter of fame, does not leave the pages of scientific publications. And for some reason the inhabitants are boring.

“They deceived us,” Uncle Lesha Proshlyakov explained to MN correspondents. - Since we are now the navel of Europe, then the pension should be given in euros, but they bring us rubles. Yes, even if they paid for science! In my yard there are only mammoth bones for half a museum. Another would have become a millionaire, but I, by consciousness, protect disinterestedly.

In Kostenki, every second hut is above the site of an ancient man. Dig with a shovel - either a bone will come out, or something else useful for science. In the economy, these finds are unnecessary, so archaeologists have no problems with the population. Yes, and they find recent times, from the point of view of the village, all sorts of nonsense - fangs and pebbles. There were no significant finds for a long time. Ever since the skeleton of a mammoth was allegedly found in Proshlyakov's yard. It’s even strange how a six-meter hulk weighing five and a half tons fit on his beds.

“Yes, he lay with his head next to my neighbor, Nikolai Ivanovich,” says Uncle Lesha. — One tusk right under the kitchen, like a foundation. When they pulled out, the corner almost collapsed. Before that, he stood strong. We were still surprised: everyone had been skewed for a long time, but Ivanych’s house, at least something. That's the power in this mammoth, - concludes Proshlyakov. - A thousand years ago he died, but he kept the hut on himself.

The narrator, if he is lying, is just a little bit. In 2001, at the Kostenki XIV site, the skeleton of a young mammoth was indeed found, which had once bogged down in marshy soil at the bottom of a ravine.

ancient abode

For Kostenki, such a find is a rarity. Ancient settlements are being excavated here with a mass of mammoth bones, but they are “brought in”. That is, our ancestors specially collected large bones of killed or dead animals and laid them in the base of their dwellings. For example, in the ancient site preserved under the roof of the museum-reserve, there are 573 bones that could belong to 40 individuals, and 16 pairs of mammoth skulls. Some of them served as a kind of foundation, in which poles with skins stretched for warmth were strengthened, the other part, stored in five pits, was kept in reserve.

It seems that we are terribly lucky that the ancient inhabitants of Kostenki did not exhaust all the mammoths for their needs, and at least one of them has survived to this day in the form of a skeleton. And then for several centuries there was a theory that the accumulations of bones on the chalk slopes of the Don are of elephantine origin. Under suspicion was the famous conqueror Alexander the Great, who was armed with war elephants. On the way to Kostenki, the unfortunate animals allegedly suffered a mass pestilence, as a result of which they covered the entire territory with their bones.

The inquisitive Peter the Great, having arrived in Voronezh in 1696 on ship matters, ordered the soldiers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment to excavate the “big bones”. This is how the study began historical monument in Kostenki. But then the villagers were not yet as conscious as they are now. The soldier broke the dam, they complained to the king, and the excavation was stopped.

Nevertheless, science still dozed off. By the eighteenth century, Alexander the Great was rehabilitated, about whom archeology was mistaken, even earlier it turned out that elephants are just cousins ​​​​of mammoths, and their bones are just toys compared to those found in Kostenki. And only in 1879, the famous Russian naturalist Ivan Polyakov guessed that in a place where there are many finds of mammoth bones, there may be the remains of the vital activity of a primitive man. His hypothesis was justified: in a pit laid on the territory of one of the estates, pieces of ash, coals, ocher, stone tools were found - evidence of ancient life.

The road of life

“That was a real archaeological discovery,” says the director of the Kostenki Museum-Reserve, Viktor Popov, clearly contrasting it with the sensation that shocked Europe at the beginning of the year. - Further research simply confirmed that the village of Kostenki is the richest place in Russia where the sites of the Upper Paleolithic era are concentrated. Is this not enough?

Of course not. But it seems that a noble European origin will not hurt the Russians either. That is why the American Hoffecker's version of the Kostenki protonucleus of Europe is taken so close to heart. In fairness, it must be said that the scientists of the St. Petersburg Institute of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences were the first to announce this. But, as usual, there is no prophet in his own country:

Although it cannot be said that our scientists were not heard at all. In the Voronezh Department of Culture, for example, at scientific research responded with a cultural initiative. The expected flow of tourists from Europe, who would certainly want to take a look at their ancestral home in Kostenki, was supposed to be met with “shish kebab on mammoth bones”. Archaeologists were horrified. Culture was embarrassed, but now, according to Viktor Popov, it is not greedy for museum expositions and gives money to repair the building.

In principle, the Voronezh authorities already have a reason for cultural pride. The Museum of Archeology - in fact a sarcophagus that completely covers the ancient site - built during the Soviet era, was and remains the only one in the world. It's just that in no other place the dwelling of homo sapiens has been preserved in such a primeval state. And in Kostenki - please. In 1953, the peasant Protopopov was digging a cellar and came across an ancient apartment.

The name of this digger is not very interesting for fundamental science, but it will forever remain in historical memory villagers. Because Protopopov's cellar Soviet authority redeemed for big money, gave him two-room apartment in Voronezh, and the village got an asphalt road, which, thanks to the museum, still exists. And if it were not for this road of life connecting Kostenki with the hospital, post office and social security in the regional center, then over the past ten years, when the local collective farm finally collapsed, a new cultural layer would have already formed over the primitive sites. This is how Viktor Popov jokes sadly, before whose eyes the ancient inhabitants of Kostenki evolved to Europeans, and contemporaries lingered in some incomprehensible Paleolithic. Because of unemployment, most of the villagers, as in the old days, live by subsistence farming, and some even have thatched huts with dirt floors. For complete identification with the progenitors, only mammoths are missing.

But that's another story that has nothing to do with archeology.

MN: The Kostenki archaeological reserve is located on the territory of the Khokholsky district of the Voronezh region. Total area 36 sq. km. There are 26 Stone Age sites aged from 20 to 40 thousand years. Most of them are multi-layered, containing from two to seven cultural layers dating back to different times.

The habitation of primitive man in Kostenki coincides with the period of the so-called Valdai glaciation, when the southern border of the ice shell was halfway between present-day St. Petersburg and Moscow. Availability a large number mammoths on the flat terrain is explained by the persistently cold climate. AT last years in Kostenki a number of new sensational discoveries. In 2000, the oldest on the territory were found of Eastern Europe ornaments - threads with ornaments made of tubular bird bones. In 2001 - the head of a human figurine made of mammoth tusk, created about 35,000 years ago. To date, this is the oldest sculptural image of a person in the Paleolithic of Europe.

Ludmila Butuzova, Roman Mukhametzhanov (photo), Kostenki village (Voronezh region)

Photo: Our great-grandfathers built their dwellings from such mammoth bones (below is a fully preserved ancient site)
Viktor Popov - director of the world's only archaeological museum-reserve
Figurines of women (20-30,000 years old) found at excavations in Kostenki. Reconstruction of an ancient man who lived on the middle Don 28-30 thousand years ago.