Early Complexes of the Aylinka VIII Settlement

The article discusses the results of a reconnaissance study of the Aylinka VIII site, located on the right-bank terrace of the Shish River, the right tributary of the Irtysh River, in the territory of the village of Aylinka. During the work, materials from several cultural and chronological periods were revealed. The earliest complex is represented by fragments from thick-walled, flat-bottomed profiled dishes, ornamented mainly with shallow rounded indentations forming multidirectional straight lines. The section of the corolla is beveled inwards and slightly bent. The profile of the bottom part is concave, with a protrusion along the edge of the bottom, ornamented with indentations. Such ceramics have parallels in the materials of the sites from the Baraba forest-steppe, which were attributed by V.V. Bobrov to the Boborykino culture, and later by V.I. Molodin to the Baraba Early Neolithic culture (the 7th millennium BC). Another ceramic complex from the site is represented by fragments of vessels of the Ekaterininskaya culture, ornamented mainly by horizontal rows of oblique combed and smooth stamps and pits. The last of the early ceramics complexes contains flat-bottomed dishes of the Early Bronze Age, ornamented with a comb stamp. During the excavations, a collection of stone products was also obtained, which was represented mainly by the products made of quartzite (plates, scrapers), and a microplate made of jasper. The multilayered nature of the site and the priority choice of the studied habitat by the population during the Neolithic-Early Bronze Age were established. Probable pits of dwellings associated with early horizons of habitation have been identified. The Early Neolithic ceramic complex presented in the publication not only closes the gap between the Mesolithic and the Late Neolithic in the Middle Irtysh region, but also expands the area of distribution of the sites with flat-bottomed Neolithic ceramics in the southwestern Siberia. Its correlation with any archaeological culture is currently within the framework of the discussion that has unfolded in the recent years about the cultural affiliation of the complexes with flat-bottomed profiled Neolithic ceramics in the territory.