NO. 13 SOVIET ANTHROPOLOGY — FIELD 3 



Neolithic civilizations and determine their chronological sequence. 

 The new discoveries made in the course of these investigations, par- 

 ticularly the rock drawings in Karelia, the Gorbunovo turf pit, the 

 Olen-Ostrov burial mound, and others, shed light on the religious 

 conceptions of the Neolithic period, an aspect heretofore little studied. 



Extensive investigations of the early Bronze Age have also l>ecn 

 made. Excavations along the Dniester and the southern part of the 

 Bug Rivers and at Usatovo near Odessa demonstrated the existence 

 of various stages in the development of Tripolje culture and proved 

 its prevalence in the whole Dnieper and Danube basin during the 

 period from 3000-1000 B.C. Distinctions were established lx:twccn 

 the Bronze Age cultures in the northern and southern Caucasus, the 

 Shcngavit and Angbek cultures attributed to the early Bronze 

 Age. the Kuban burial mounds and Eilar and the excavations at 

 Trialeti,- all of which contained remains of highly developed Bronze 

 Age cultures. Excavations at Urartu brought to light considerable 

 material on the history of ancient Armenia, Investigations carried out 

 in the Black Sea regions and in the Ukraine established the chronology 

 of three main cultures — those characterized by pit, catacomb, and hut 

 dwellings. The origin of each of these three types was clearly defined, 

 and investigations were made of settlements of this period for the 

 first time. It was established that the final stage in the development of 

 Bronze Age culture was that of the Cimmerians, who inhabited this 

 region previous to the coming of the Scythians. In the \'olga region 

 investigations established the existence of two cultures — that of 

 Poltava (the beginning of the Bronze Age) and of Khvalinsk (the 

 end of the Bronze Age). Investigations in Siberia established three 

 stages of the Bronze Age as represented in the Afanasiev, Andronovo. 

 and Karasuk cultures. A new culture — the Abashev — was discovered 

 in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent regions. 



The study of the Scytho-Sarmatian culture is of great significance 

 for a knowledge of the population in the pre-Slavonic era and for 

 determining the ethnogeny of Slavonic tribes. New excavations were 

 carried out on the ancient sites of Kamensk, Sharapovsk, and Ncmi- 

 rov, as well as on the right bank of the Bug River and the western 

 coast of the Black Sea. Excavations were also made of Scytho- 

 Sarmatian burial mounds in the Kuban, the southern regions of the 

 Dnieper, and in other localities. 



Soviet archeologists continued the excavations bcgim in the ancient 



2 Sec Kiiftin. B. A., and Field, Henry, Prehistoric culture sequence in Trans- 

 cauc.nsia, Southwestern Journ. Anthrop., vol. 2, No. 3. pp. 340-3^0. 1946, and 

 Microfilm No. 2310, pp. 1-126, in American Documentation Institute. 



