ANKARA ONIVERSITESI OIL VE TARiH- COGRAFYA FAKOLTESI ARKEOLOJi BOLOMO DERGISI
ANADOLU I ANATOLIA
CILT: 40
2014
Guneydogu Ukrayna 'da Bulunan Neolitik Obsidyenler: jzk Tanzmlama ve Kaynak Tayini
Paolo BiAGi Bemard GRATUZE
Dmytro V. K.!OSAK Oleg V. TIJBOLZE
Zoya H. POPANDOPULO
(AYRI BASI)
ANKARA ONIVERSiTESi BASIMEVI - ANKARA I 2014
A11adolff I .rlllololitl40, 201-1
P. Biagi - B. Crohtze - D. 1". Kiosak - 0. V. lit!Jolzel! - Z. H. Poptmdopulo
THE NEOLITHIC OBSIDIANS FROM SOUTHEASTERN UKRAINE: FIRST CHARACTERIZATION AND PROVENANCE DETERMINATION P . Biagi, B. Gratuze, D. V. Kiosak, 0 . V. Tubolzev, Z. H . Popandopulo*
K eywords: Obsidian •
t'olithic • Se!llei/OIIka 1 • I~ysa Gora • Golliidog
Abstracc 11ti~ paper discusses rhe results obtained from the characterization o f six obsidian samples from the eolithic sir es of Lysa Gora and o ne from Semenovka 1, in southeastern Ukraine. T hey show that obsidians of different sources were ucil.ized by the inhabitants of Lysa Gora, among which are Baksan (Russian Federation), Sjunik (Armenia) and another undefined source, while the provenance of the blatleler fragment from Semenovka 1 is of particular interest since ir comes from one of rhe Golliidag outcrops in Central Anatolia. T he first cbaracrerizatioo of krainian specimens fills a gap in our knowledge io the distribution of the archaeological obsidians in a wide region delimited by the Carpathians, in the west, and the Cauc:tsus, in the east. They contribute to the interprecuion of the models of their procurcmcnr and circulation in the steppe region northwest of the Azov Sea during the Ncolithic.
GUNEYDOGU UKRAYNA'DA BULUNAN NEOLlTtK OBStDiYENLER: tLK TANIMLAMA VE KAYNAK TAY1N1 Anahtar K elime/er: Obsid!Jm •
1
eolilik • Semmo11ko I • Lysa Cora • Gol/iidog
O z: Bu makalc, Ukrayna'nm giineyd ogusunda yer alao Lysa (;ora Ncolitik yerle~imindcn alu, Semenovka I Neolitik yerle~iminden bir obsidiyen ornegin tammlanmasmdan eldc cdilcn sonu~lan tart1~1r. Onlar Lysa Gora sakioleri tarafrndan kullamlm1~ farklr kaynaklardan obsidiyenleri g6srcrir, bunlar arnsmda Baksan (Rusya Fedcrasyonu), Sjunik (Ermcnismn) vc tammsrz ba~ka bir kaynak vardlr. Orsa SemcnO\·ka I 'de bulunan dilgicik par~aslllUl men~ei, Ona 1\nadolu'daki Golliidag kaynakl:tnndan biri oldugu i~in zellikle ilgi ~ekicidir. Ukraynalt ornekJerin ilk tammlamasr, doguda Kafkaslar, batrda K~trpatlar rarafrndan smtrlan rnr~ gen i ~ bir hol~edc arkeolojik obsidiyenlcrin dagthnu konusundaki hilgilcrimizdc bir bo~lugu doldurur. O nlar Neoljcik slircsinct: Azak Dcnizi'nin kuzcybartstndaki step (bo7lor) bOigedc obsitliyenlcnn tedarik edilmc ve dola~tm modcllerinin yorumlanmasma katktda bulunur.
* Pnl D1: P(lo/o 13io,~i, "Co' Foscari" Unil'l't:riry, Depad!IJI'JJI ofAsian and North Africtm StNdies, Gi' Grppello San Polo 2035, 1-30125 r/eJ11'tfo, e-JJJaiL· pm•
[email protected]; Prof. DT: 13emortl Gratlfze, lJJsfitul de Recherches mr le.r 1
Archlomateriolf.Y, Cmtre Emu/ Babelo11, UM R 5060, C /~SI U11i1•. Or/ions, 3D me de la Firollnie, P-45071 Orlirms redex 2, t'-lllail: grotllze@,am-orleansjr; Dr. DII!Jitv V. Kiosak, "l.l. J\1erh11ikot•" Tatiotwl Uni1•ersity, Departnmtl of /lrchaeol~gy and Etbnology of tbe Ukmilll', Dvorytmskt!Ja 2, UA-65082 Odesso, t'-lllail: dkiosak@llkr. ,,.,,. Dt: Olef!, V ..l itbolznl, 'Nml /lrcbaeolo_~ical. rcboo/" P~tblic Orgpniifilion, Metallmg,ov fii'CIIIIC 22I 2, UA-69006 Zflporoi!Jiha, e-1/Jail: olegt11@111f'!o.No; Dt: %qya H. Popa11dop11lo, Zapo,izk{y Kroet~lm'cqy Mu~y, Chekistei1• Street 29, UA-6906 3 Zaporizhtf;yo, e-111ail:
[email protected].
TI.H' Nfolitbic Obsidians Prom Solftheastcm Ukmine: rlrsl Characlcliza!ion and ProtJCIICIIICI' D cll'l"fllillalion
Introductio n
T he scope of this paper is to describe the results of the fi rst characterizations of seven obsiclian samples from two Neolithic sites of southeastern Ukraine, and to frame them into the general pattern of circulation of archaeological obsidians within the territory comprised between the Carpathians, in the west, and the Caucasus, in the east. Given that Neolithic obsidian artefacts from this region have never been analyzed before with this method, the results are expected to cJarify some of the complex aspects of the Neolithization of the south steppe zones of Ukraine and Russia, a topic still much debated 1• The recent analysis of archaeological o bsidian from the Balkan s2 and the Caucasus3 have greatly contributed to the models of interpretation of the exploitation and distribution of the
*
This paper has been written tha nks ro a Ca' Foscari University Archaeo logical Rest:arcb Grant. The obsidian specimens anaJyzed for this paper were provided by o ne of the authors (O.V.T.) thanks ro B. A. BuseJ and B. V. }.1azko w ho recovered most of the samples from Lysa Gora 2. 1l1anks to the kind ness o f M. Glascock, who shared with us his neutron activation analysis and X-mys fluo rescence dala o f the Carpathian obsidian groups analyzed at Missouri University Rcse:trch Reactor, it has been possible ro compare d1e composition of the l .ysa Gora Progon flakclcr to the o ne of the newly defined CarpaLhian C3 obsiclian group. Special thanks arc due to 0. C randcll (Babcs-Bolyai University, Cluj- apoca - RO) for peer-revic..:wing the..: manuscript and the correction of the original E 11glish tt:.xt. See for instance Tdegin 1988; Korova 2003; ToYkailo 2005; T sibriy 2008. WiHiams Thorpe d al. 1984; Biagi et al. 2007. Badalyan 2010; Chataigner - Gratuze 20 J3a; 2013b.
2
Carpathian, Melian4 and Caucasian sources, and the definition of the mechanisms of circulation of clifferent tool types, leaving the steppe zone north of the Black and Azov Seas an empty quarter still o pen to investigation. History of the rese arch on Ukrainian obsidians
In the Soviet era obsidian was recognized as a raw material exploited in prehistory for making tools even from the beginning of archaeological research 5 . NI. Rudinskiy6 was one of the first to report archaeological obsiclians from Eastern Ukraine. Since then several specimens have been recovered from contexts of djfferent periods, from the Palaeolithic to the Chalcolithic. However, the problem of obsidian provenance started to attract the attention of archaeologists only in the 1960's, when V. F Petrun (or Petrougne) pointed out tl1e importance of chemical characterization, although his research was based mainly on thin section analysis and optical refraction measurement. His studies were cen tered on obsidian from both archaeological and raw material sources of the Carpathians7 and Soviet Far East. Nevertheless his papers, mainly published in local journals, had little impact on the archaeology of the country that remained o ften uninterested m scientific techniques aimed at the defm.ition of provenance of volcanic glasses 11•
6
T o rrencc 1986; Grano!:e 1999; Pcrlcs et al. 201 1. G o rodrsov 1923, 23. Rudinskiy 193 1, I M. Pctrun 1972; Petru&>ne 1986. Petmn 1960.
/~lllldolu / Alltllolir~ 40. 2014
P. Bit{f!.i - H. Gratuzf - 0 . I '. Kiosok- 0. I '. Tubolzer• - £. H.
Popa~~tlopulo
In contrast the approach by V. asedkin and A. A. Formosov was ut:ilized for a long time. Analyzing the obsiilians from Kuban by o ptical technique, on the basis of refraction index similari ties, they concluded that some samples were from Zayukov, others from Transcaucasia9 •
(Zaporizhzhya region). I ts approximate location is 46°52'08" - 35°25'59"E (fig. 1, n. 1; fig. 2). It was discovered and test trcnched by B. D. Mikhailov and later excavated by N . S. Kotova and 0. V . T ubo ltsev in 1991 -1992 11 •
Probably influenced by their work, L. Matskevoy started a similar study o n a circular scraper from his excava tio ns at the eol.ithjc site of Frontove, in E astern Crimea 10• The petro!:,rrapher . Makarov defined its refraction index, similar to those published by V. Nasedkin and A. A. Formosov for the Armenian and Kabardino-Balkaria o bsidians, altho ugh he could no t defme tts prectse provenance.
attributed to the Surska culture with some Azov-Dn ieper ceramic fragments, was found at the depth of 1.4-1.8 m in an undi sturbed part o f the site. I t produced m any chipped stone artefacts, am ong w hich are 154 tools, and m ore than 200 po lsherds attributed to at least 22 vessels; 2) the upper layer belongs to a later asp ect o f the Azov-Dnieper cul ture, from which come fragm ents o f at least 9 vessels contamm g sand and shell inclusions. The chipped stone tools consist m ainly of blad es with semjabrupt, convergent retouch , and differen t types o f end scraper s.
Later, when L. Mats kevoy moved to Western Ukraine, he started to work o n local archaeological obsidians, which were more commo n in this regio n than in Eastern Ukraine, focused on sp ecimen s o f different ages from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolitruc. Both methods, refraction index and thin section analysis, were later applied b y se\'eral mineralogists and p etrographers, although in most cases wid1 co ntroversial res ults because o f the absence of chemical characterization of the reference samples from the different o utcrops.
The s ites Semenovka 1 Semenovka 1 .is located o n the right (northern) terrace of the Molo chna Ri ver at the northern outskirts of Melitopol
Semenovka 1 yielded evidence of two main cultural layers: 1) the lower,
T he proximal edge o f an o bsidian b lad elet (fig. 6, n. 6) was recovered from the loam layer of Trench 2, in square 19 12. Five radiocarbon dates have been obtained fro m unidentified animal bones collected from Trench 2, attributed to the Early Neolitruc Surska culture, fro m the ho rizon just below the obsidian sp ecimen: 7285±70 BP (Ki-7679), 7125±60 BP (Ki-6689), 7110±60 BP (Ki7677), 6980±65 BP (I i-6688) and 6850±70 B P (Ki -7678) 13 • Th e upper laye r, containing Azov-D niep er pottery, 11
1)
111
ascdkin - Form o~o\' 1965. Matsk
