Characteristics of the Stone Age of Crimea in the Creative Heritage of A.S. Moiseev.

Cherkasov Aleksey Vladimirovich ORCID: 0000-0002-0331-7674 PhD in Pedagogy Associate Professor of the Department of Social and Humanitarian Disciplines, Branch of the Admiral F. F. Ushakov State Maritime University in Sevastopol 298609, Russia, Respublika Krym oblast', g. Yalta, ul. Timiryazeva, 27 cherkasov.alexei1976@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Kozlov Mikhail Nikolaevich Doctor of History Professor, Department of History, Sevastopol State University 299053, Russia, g. Sevastopol', ul. Universitetskaya, 33 cherkasov.alexei1976@gmail.com Other publications by this author

During the XIX – XX centuries . The Crimean Peninsula has been consistently formed as a scientific laboratory of excellence in the development of methods for excavating monuments of the primitive era, an integrated approach to the found material, its deep processing and analysis, a sample of the prompt introduction into scientific circulation of valuable facts, materials on the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. The creators of these processes were scientists, in whose works reflection on the origins of the ancient history of the region was gradually realized, the theory of the original historical process was developed, problems, goals and forms of scientific research were formulated. In this regard, an appeal to the creative heritage of those authors who stood at the origins of the formation of a fundamentally new scientific direction – the primitive archeology of the Crimea is relevant and useful. Among them, a special place belongs to Alexander Silovich Moiseev.

The main field research activity and academic creativity of the scientist are connected with geological and paleontological searches. These branches of scientific knowledge are devoted to almost the entire array of published articles and books by A.S. Moiseev (more than fifty nominations), geographically connected with the author's small homeland – Crimea. Thus, the researcher clarified and justified the schemes of the tectonic structure of the peninsula, the stratigraphy of the Jurassic and Cretaceous sediments composing it, compiled detailed geological and mineral maps of the region that have not lost their significance to date ^{[1, pp. 139-140]}.

At the same time, in the field of scientific interests of Alexander Silovich, there have always been issues of the ancient history of the Crimea. He practically studied the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic of the peninsula for almost ten years, conducting independent field surveys on mountain plateaus and the southern coast, taking part in regional and metropolitan archaeological expeditions, closely communicating with outstanding archaeologists of his time (G.A. Bonch-Osmolovsky, B.S. Zhukov, O.N. Bader). The result of such activity was not only the collections of flint artifacts collected and systematized by A.S. Moiseev, fragmentally presented in the museum funds of the country, but also the accompanying publications. There are only two published works by A.S. Moiseev on the primitive history of the Crimea, and, at first glance, it seems that this is not enough to characterize the views of the scientist on the indicated problems. But it happens that one small work in its content, orientation and conclusions becomes a kind of summing up of what has been achieved and outlines a program of promising search directions, and, as a result, means more than a lot of published general descriptions. Such, in our opinion, are the articles of Alexander Silovich – the subject field of the proposed publication.

A.S. Moiseev was born on March 16, 1893 in the Greek village of Outka (now in the city of Yalta) in a peasant family. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the Imperial Moscow University at the Natural History Department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, which he successfully graduated in 1914.1 He was left at the Department of Geology to "prepare for professorship" under the guidance of paleontologist and stratigrapher A.P. Pavlov ^{[2, p.11]}. Since that time, the future scientist constantly came to the Crimea as part of geological parties and expeditions, and in the crucial period for the whole country of 1918 – 1923, he returned to his hometown, getting a job as head of the Yalta Natural History Museum. At the same time, Alexander Silovich, without leaving his pedagogical activity, worked as an assistant at the Department of Geology at the future academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences V.A. Obruchev at the Tauride University in Simferopol (1919 – 1920).

In 1924 A.S. Moiseev moved to Leningrad. He taught at Leningrad State University at the Faculties of Physics and Mathematics (1924-1934) and Geology, Soil Geography (1934 - 1939), taught courses in historical geology, paleontology, geotectonics. In the 1930s he was an employee of the Central Research Geological Exploration Institute, in the 1930s - 1932s he worked as an associate professor at the Mining Institute2. Since 1935 – Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences. Alexander Silovich Moiseev died on July 26, 1939 in Georgia in the village of Salienty during a scientific trip at the age of 47 ^{[3, p.3]}.

Alexander Silovich has always emphasized that the study of numerous and rich accumulations of remnants of material culture belonging to the remote prehistoric past of the peninsula, which are of deep interest for understanding the past of the region, still remains an area of science, almost untouched by both Crimean and metropolitan scientists. As an exception, A.S. Moiseev mentioned isolated field studies and reports made at the end of the XIX century by K.S. Merezhkovsky, as well as a description of modest collections of artifacts from the primitive sites of Babugan-Yayly, the Gurbet-Dere pass and the Uch-Kosh gorge, collected in 1913 by N. Klepinin and N. Dubrovsky, and published on pages of the Proceedings of the Tauride Scientific Archival Commission (ITUAC) ^{[4, p. 297]}. To fill such a gap in the study of the ancient history of the Mountainous Crimea, the scientist during 1916-1922 conducted a comprehensive systematic survey of the plateau (yayl) of the Main ridge of the Crimean Mountains, focusing both on already known locations and parking lots, and identifying new monuments of the Stone Age. A total of 24 monuments were discovered and described ^{[5, p.29]}. Among them, according to the abundance of flint material, seven were "indisputable sites of prehistoric man." These are the locations of y (in):

· At-Bash Pass (over the Limens, now the Blue Bay and Simeiz);

· Yusupov farms;

· Balin-Kosh (west of the Bedene-Kyr peak on the Ai-Petrin plateau);

· Sikorsky Dam (at the Shishko rock on the Ai-Petrinsky plateau);

· Gurzuf Saddle pass;

· the cave to the west of the Bin-Bash-Koba cave (the lower plateau of Chatyr-Dagh);

·         Dogwood-Koba (between the Aji-Koba cave and the former German colony of Novye Kozanly) on Dolgorukovskaya yayla ^{[6, p.300]}.

A.S. Moiseev also found and described new monuments of the primitive history of the Crimea: at Lake Subotkhan and in the Veyrak-Chokrak tract on Dolgorukovskaya yayla, at the source of Domchi-Kai on Chatyr-Dagh, at Lake Sary-Gol and on the meadow of the eastern slope of Roman-Kosh on Babugan-yayla. After mapping the Stone Age monuments of the Mountainous Crimea, A.S. Moiseev came to the conclusion regarding the specifics of their localization: "almost all reservoirs, springs, mountain passes and good meadows" ^{[7, p. 124]}.

We emphasize that all the monuments discovered and investigated by A.S. Moiseev eventually became the basis for creating a modern complete archaeological map of the Stone Age of the region.

Taking into account the fact that the scientist's research fell during wartime (World War I, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War), in the course of field work, A.S. Moiseev limited himself mainly to laying small control pits and collecting flint tools in soil washouts. But these collections were also very revealing (for example, on Balin-Kosh, the collection of flints and tools amounted to more than 12 thousand items). Having conducted a general comparative analysis of inventory from the sites of the southern slopes and plateaus of the Main Ridge of the Crimean Mountains with the then-known finds of K.S. Merezhkovsky collected within the Inner Ridge and at the village of Kizil-Koba near Simferopol, A.S. Moiseev stated the identity of all artifacts. The author's "Yaylin" collection differed, as the scientist noted, only by a great variety and the presence of some new types of tools, which the author described in detail:

· 3-4-sided prismatic knives with dimensions and 10 x 2 cm, processed along the long edge of the rib, then with fine retouching, then with deep notches (the most extensive type of tools);

· semi-circular and disc-shaped scrapers with edge processing, and semi-circular with wide edge processing;

· microliths of rhombic and trapezoidal shape (tardenoise type);

· conical shaped cores from 3 to 8 cm long;

· bumpers representing pieces of flint semi-oval or pear-shaped;

· awl..., "distinguished by amazing miniaturization and careful processing";

· fine arrows and spears (sizes 2-4 cm long and 7 cm long, respectively);

· a vessel made of chlorinated slate, shaped like an antique lamp (Balin-Kosh parking lot);

· a tool in the form of a bay leaf, pointed on both sides, up to 10 cm long (Balin-Kosh parking lot) ^{[8, pp. 300-301]}.

The vessel mentioned in the list, which, according to A.S. Moiseev, resembles an antique lamp, should be discussed in more detail, since it was he who later attracted the special attention of the scientific community^[1].

Currently, this artifact is the only one of its kind found on the territory of the CIS. In 1953, the product was examined by V.V. Fedorov, who noted its similarity (in a reduced version) with Paleolithic analogues of Western Europe (from the La Mout cave in the Dordogne, the Scile grotto in Leschaug (Haute-Garonne), Grand Moulin (Gironde)). The lamp is a small stone cup, oval in shape. Along the long axis of the oval of the lamp there is a flattened, slightly pointed handle. On the handle, on the lower side, a deep, transverse groove up to 0.6 cm wide was made with a flint cutter. When holding the lamp in the hand, the index finger of the right hand was conveniently placed in this groove. The thickness of the lamp sides in the best preserved part, near the handle, reaches 0.5 cm. The length of the handle is 2 cm, the maximum width is 4 cm, the thickness is 2 cm. There are traces of numerous gouges on the tip of the handle of the product. It seems that something hard was hit on this place of the handle, or, conversely, the tip of this handle was hit vertically on something hard ^{[9, p.52]}.

The whole lamp was well sanded. A.S. Moiseev paid special attention to this fact, pointing out that in the 1880s K.S. Merezhkovsky, having not found polished tools on the peninsula, suggested the absence of "pores of polished artifacts" on the peninsula ^{[10, p.301]}. At the same time, the polished Balin-Kosh lamp, together with a sandstone hammer discovered by S.I. Zabnin in the Kizil-Koba cave, clearly refuted the statement of K.S. Merezhkovsko3.

Pointing out the low power of the soil cover on the Crimean mountain plateaus, as well as the unsterilicity of the stratigraphy of the occurrence of cultural layers on the Ai-Petrinskaya yayla, A.S. Moiseev emphasized the complexity of dating the collected collections, carefully defining the tools of the end of the Paleolithic – Neolithic. In particular, focusing on rare finds of fragments of ceramic dishes made of slightly burnt clay. The location of a large number of sites on yayla among good meadows, according to the scientist, testified that primitive hunters of wild boar, deer and roe deer (according to osteological findings) actively visited the low forests of the Main ridge of the Crimean Mountains ^{[11, p.12]}.

Thus, Alexander Silovich Moiseev can rightfully be considered the founder of the study of the Stone Age of the Southern Coast of Crimea. First of all, the scientist summarized the information available at that time about the finds of the oldest tools in this part of the peninsula (the discovery by an employee of the Yalta Natural History Museum E.I. Visniovskaya of a trapezoidal scraper and fragments of flint knives in 1918 in the vicinity of Livadia; the discovery of similar knives by Professor D.I. Shcherbakov in the Professor's corner near Alushta (in the same year); A.I. Markevich's unconfirmed mention by excavations of the discovery by Professor N.A. Golovkinsky of a primitive man's parking lot near the town of Castel; three flint tools from the collection of the Ai-Todor Museum). After that, exploring the coast from Kikineiz (modern Landslide) in the western direction from Ayu-Dag to Laspi Bay, A.S. Moiseev collected several dozen man-made flints and tools in layers containing mussel shells, patellas and oysters on promontories jutting into the sea and in convenient bays. All the artifacts found, according to the scientist, were similar to similar finds of the Mountainous Crimea. A.S. Moiseev dated the South-coast collection to the Neolithic era (the finds of a miniature arrow in Laspi Bay and fragments of clay pots with a characteristic ornament consisting of three parallel zigzag lines decorated with a dot pattern served as landmarks for this. "As a result," the scientist summed up, "further searches and excavations on the coast on a large scale will reward the researcher," emphasizing, at the same time, the expediency and efficiency of studying the Stone Age of the Southern coast of Crimea, in the perspective of resort development of this part of the peninsula and the possible destruction of monuments of the ancient past ^{[12, p.303]}.

A.S. Moiseev took the study of the Stone Age of the Southern Coast of Crimea to a qualitatively new level, consistently moving away from the simple collection of flints and tools, to their description, systematization and formation of collections, promising the creation of a complete archaeological map of primitive sites and locations. In the future, the achievements of A.S. Moiseev were actively and creatively used by his contemporaries and archaeologists of new generations. So, the above–mentioned Elizaveta Ivanovna Visniovskaya (1869 - 1943), an employee of the Yalta Museum of Local Lore and an associate of A.S. Moiseev, in the 1930s, more than 15 Stone Age monuments were discovered and described, located in the Foothills and Mountainous Crimea (on the Yalta and Ai-Petrinsky yayls and their spurs), as well as on the Southern Coast of Crimea (from Zaprudnoye village to the village. Katsiveli). In the detailed card file created by E.I. Visniovskaya, on most cards with descriptions of both well-known sites of primitive man and locations that were not touched by the attention of archaeologists of that time and have not been precisely localized to date, there is often a mark: "I learned this location from A.S. Moiseev"^{[2] [13, p.314]}.

Taking a direct part in the excavations in the Kosh-Khob cave near the village of Kipchak within the Dolgorukovskaya Yayla under the guidance of the famous archaeologist G.A. Bonch-Osmolovsky in 1923, A.S. Moiseev made an important assumption about the presence of cultures on the peninsula belonging to earlier Paleolithic epochs. When, in the course of research by the expedition of G.A. Bonch-Osmolovsky, layers containing bones of a cave rhinoceros, hyena with the remains of the flint industry were discovered, Alexander Silovich was the first to propose parallelizing them with the finds of flints and mammoth bones in the Wolf grotto near the village of Mazanka, discovered in 1879-1880 by K.S. Merezhkovsky. Comparing the sections of the bottom of the Kosh-Khob cave with the sections of the Crimean Yayl caves, the scientist believed that with detailed excavations of the latter, there is a high probability of finding remnants of the material culture of primitive man – "a contemporary of the Mammoth era" ^{[14, p.125]}. Proceeding from this, future studies of Stone Age monuments in the Mountainous Crimea, on the instructions of the scientist, were of considerable interest not only for the knowledge of this era on the peninsula, but also for solving the question of the age and origin of soils and clays of the Crimean yayl and creating a full-fledged geological map of the Crimean peninsula4.

Thus, in the process of archaeological exploration and expeditions (which took place, once again, in a difficult time, both in a sociopolitical and in a scientific and organizational context), Alexander Silovich Moiseev essentially formed a source base, a local school of followers (E.I. Visniovskaya) and outlined a program for future research of the Stone Age of the Crimean Peninsula in in general, and the Mountainous and South-Coastal Crimea in particular. The active activity of the director of the Yalta Natural History Museum in the development of communication processes, contacts and information exchange between local historians and metropolitan archaeologists (G.A. Bonch-Osmolovsky, B.S. Zhukov, O.N. Bader) contributed to the formation of a strong alliance of regional and academic science in the discovery and study of Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic monuments Crimea (which became a characteristic marker for the expeditions of the 1920s – 1930s). Given the fact that the archaeological study of the Stone Age of the peninsula during the period of A.S. Moiseev's research was in its infancy, the search, localization, topography and stratigraphy of Stone Age monuments, accumulation and systematization of information about them were the primary tasks, development of methods for collecting and forming collections of flints and tools, uncritical understanding of the materials obtained. Alexander Silovich brilliantly coped with all these tasks, and over time, the author's cultural and chronological interpretation of the complexes discovered and described by him received archaeological confirmation, deservedly entrenched in the regional historiography of the Stone Age.

^[1] The image of the lamp discovered by A.S. Moiseev is given by: Fedorov V.V. Lamp-lamp from the Balin-Kosh parking lot in the Crimea (Based on the materials of the Archaeological Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences) // Brief Reports of the Institute of Ethnography named after N.N. Miklukho-Maklay. 1953. No. 18. – p. 53.

^[2] For example: "The location of flints on the northern slopes of Yayla near the Tatar village of Uzenbashskoe Besh-Tekne". ... learned this location from A.S. Moiseev in 1918 (YAIM KP 37718 D – 5181) ... Collected: fragments of flints – 156; processed tools – 8; knife–shaped plates - 18".

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