On the Criteria of Archaeological Cultures' Distinguishing in Paleolithic of Transbaikalia

In: Izvestija Irkutskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta: Bulletin of the Irkutsk State University. Serija "Geoarcheologija. Ėtnologija. Antropologija" = Geoarchaeology, ethnology, and anthropology series, Volume 38, p. 24-33

Abstract

An archaeological culture is one of the base terms of archaeology. The content of this term was discussed from the time of its introduction into scientific discourse. During the investigations in Transbaikalia, researchers asserted about Stone Age archaeological cultures for the first time at the beginning of the 1930s. Till the beginning of the 1890s, A. P. Okladnikov's opinion has prevailed. According to him, Transbaikalia Paleolithic represented a monocultural phenomenon. This point of view is developed by some archaeologists in the present day. Additionally beginning from the 1960s the idea about existing of several archaeological cultures in the Transbaikalia Paleolithic has been generated. In the 1930s the distinguishing archaeological cultures in Transbaikalia Stone Age was based on morphology and typology of stone artifacts. In this sense, the technology of stone tools production was considered to a lesser degree. At the end of the 20th century, the main emphasis has been given to the tools' production technology as the key component of the stone industry. Therefore, while a theoretical base of Transbaikalia Paleolithic developed stone industry was in the base of identifying archaeological cultures with the shift of some accents from morphology and typology to the technology of production. Gradually together with stone industry data of cultural horizons spatial organization becomes involved as supporting elements in distinguishing archaeological cultures in Transbaikalia. At the same time often the only stone industry is accessible for the investigations, and it demonstrates the main trend of Paleolithic material culture development. Using the complex of different criteria for distinguishing archaeological culture corresponds to the system approach which is recently developed intensively. As a result of the assessment of the synchronous stone industries of Transbaikalia, we concluded that the archaeological culture is the tool of the interpretational level and reflects phenomena that really existed in the past. It is proposed to use as criteria not only typology, morphology, and technology, reconstructed on the base of the stone industry but also life subsistent strategies reconstructed with the taking into consideration all available data. Such strategies could be conditioned by the environment, but also are the reflection of the development of the technological traditions inherent to the given culture.