Early Neolithic of Southern Belarus: current state and prospects for study

Abstract

The article discusses the main hypotheses of the emergence of ceramic production in the territory of Southern Belarus. The authors relate the appearance of ceramics, the main sign of the beginning of the Neolithic for the forest zone of Eastern Europe, to impulses originating from the Southern Bug and Dniester. The Early Neolithic of the south of Belarus is represented by the Pripyat-Neman, Eastern Polesie, Upper Dnieper cultures and monuments of the Strumel-Gastyatin type. The first ceramics, according to the current dates from the territory of Belarus and the Belarusian-Ukrainian borderland, appears in the south of the republic in the middle of the second half of the VI millennium BC. The idea of making ceramics penetrates into Western Polesie from Volyn, and into the southwest of Belarus – through the Dnieper. Ceramics of the Dubichay and Strumel-Gastyatin types are formed under the influence of representatives of the Samchinskaya phase of the Bug-Dniester culture. Subsequently, the pottery production technology spread to the territory of Lower Pripyat, where the Eastern Polesie culture was formed. The Upper Dnieper culture began to form in the middle of the V millennium BC under the influence of an impulse that went from east to west through the Desna.

Keywords

• archaeology
• neolithization
• early neolithic
• southern belarus
• ceramics
• pripyat-neman culture
• dubichay type
• eastern polesie culture
• upper dnieper culture
• strumel-gastyatin type