Stone Age

The Stone Age in the Beshankovichy region

Archaeological sites

1. Mesolithic.

The first settlements found in the Beshankovichy district date back to the Mesolithic period, the middle period of the Stone Age (9th – 5th millennia BC). The glacial epoch ended, the climate began to warm and acquired modern features. Mesolithic sites were usually located on the indigenous banks of rivers. The most convenient place for settlements was promontories at the confluence of rivers, or where a river flowed into a lake.

A Mesolithic site was discovered and investigated in 1933 by K. M. Polikarpovich near the former village of Kryzhy, on the right bank of the Western Dvina (now Vitebsk district). Flint axes, a tanged arrowhead, knives, scrapers, and bones of red deer were found here. Remains of a Mesolithic settlement were discovered by M. M. Charniauski near the village of Asavets. About 8 millennia ago, a small group of people, armed with bows with leaf-shaped flint arrowheads, settled on the northern shore of a lake that existed in the place of the Kryvino peat bog.

2. Neolithic.

Primitive man fully settled the territory of the district in the Neolithic period (4th – early 2nd millennium BC). The population of our region at this time belonged to the Narva culture. Moreover, in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, a special (Kryvino) variant formed in the district, which Belarusian scientists call the Usvyaty culture. At this time, man clung to water. Lakes, streams, and rivers served as natural communication routes between impassable thickets and swamps. Fish were found here, and edible plants grew. Birds stayed near the water, and there were animal watering holes. A significant group of such settlements was discovered near the village of Asavets. These small village-sites usually consisted of two or three huts. Their inhabitants engaged in fishing, hunting, and gathering.

The right to be called the discoverers of the ancient settlements of the Kryvino peat bog belongs to Belarusian archaeologists K.M. Polikarpovich and A.D. Kovalenya.

In 1934, they discovered Neolithic settlements here, which were named Kryvino-1 and Asavets-1. Subsequent research was conducted by K.M. Polikarpovich in 1939. Three excavations with an area of 60 sq. meters were laid at the Kryvino-1 site. In 1959, the monuments of the Kryvino peat bog were investigated by P.A. Prybytkin, Ya.G. Halanava, N.A. Shpakouskaya, V.N. Rabtsevich, A.A. Buracheuski. Two excavations with a total area of 65 sq. meters were laid, and numerous artifacts made of flint, stone, bone, horn, and wood were discovered. In 1960, at the Kryvino-1 site, an expedition led by P.A. Prybytkin laid an excavation with an area of 65 sq. meters, and the Kryvino-2 site was discovered, which was investigated by E.M. Zaikouski in 1980 and 1981. By the mid-1960s, more than 525 sq. meters had been investigated at the Kryvino-1 monument. In 1966, a young employee of the Institute of History, Mikhail Mikhailovich Charniauski, came to Asavets. He has been engaged in excavations of Asavets settlements for more than 40 years. Since 2000, his son, Maksim Mikhailovich Charniauski, has also been working here. Work began in the summer of 1966 and continues to the present day. Thus, more than 10 ancient settlements from the Neolithic and Bronze Ages have been found and investigated in the Kryvino peat bog.

Asavets-2 settlement before the start of excavations. The cultural layer is cleared of the overlying peat layer and divided into meter squares with pegs. Behind the grid of squares are the participants of the excavations - students of Dabryhorskaya school. 1966.

M. M. Charniauski recounts:

– For many years now, archaeological excavations have been carried out at the Kryvino peat bog, located on the border of the Beshankovichy and Senno districts in the Vitebsk region.

Thousands of years ago, a wide lake with bays and islands, connected to the nearby Dvina River, spread across the site of the peat bog. The surrounding area was distinguished by a variety of landscapes and wildlife. Clay hills, sandy lowlands, and swamps were covered with pine and spruce forests, birch groves, aspen clumps, and dark alder thickets, while oak groves took root among them. Such diverse forests provided shelter for numerous wild animals, among which deer and elk, bison and aurochs, and wild boars occupied a special place. Beavers settled along the shores. The lake and river teemed with fish. There were many waterfowl and forest birds everywhere. The surroundings also had plenty of plant food, especially forest and water nuts, mushrooms, and berries.

Such a life-giving place attracted primitive man. About 8 millennia ago, a small group from the Middle Stone Age – Mesolithic period – settled on the northern shore of the lake. 6 thousand years ago, when water still filled the entire basin of the peat bog, a larger settlement of people from the New Stone Age – Neolithic period – was founded on one of the coastal hills. At this time, people first began to mold and use clay pottery, in which they cooked food and stored various provisions.

About 4 thousand years ago, when the climate in Belarus became drier, the lake began to shallow and recede from its shores, becoming peat-covered at the edges. Following the water, ancient people also moved their dwellings to the dried-up peat bogs and sandy elevations of the former lake bed. Moreover, the population at this time increased and settled in several sites.

One such settlement, dating back to the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (5 – 4 millennia ago), was discovered by archaeologists on a peat-covered sandy cape at the source of the river. Meliorators helped with the discovery – they cut through the peat layer with a canal, and under it, the remains of the settlement were revealed. This is where the main research is being conducted.

Finds from the Kryvino sites constitute the best part of the exhibitions on the Stone and Bronze Ages at the National Museum of History and Culture of Belarus. They also occupy a worthy place in a number of other museums in Minsk and cities of the Vitebsk region.

Mikhas Mikhailovich Charniauski at work.

Maksim Charniauski. Asavets-2. 2008.

Material culture of Stone Age man

1. Mesolithic.

Mesolithic man obtained most of his food from hunting. In a warm climate, with countless lakes and a dense network of rivers and streams, fishing also became significant. Abundant moisture and warmth created maximally favorable conditions for plant growth. Amidst such diversity, there was also sustenance for humans – leaves, stems, roots, fruits. People gathered forest and water nuts, berries and mushrooms, mollusks, and bird eggs.

2. Activities of the Neolithic era.

The inhabitants of the Kryvino peat bog settlements were heavily involved in fishing. During excavations, thick layers of fish scales and bones are found, among which are pike and catfish vertebrae the size of a silver platter. Fishing is also evidenced by bone fishing hooks, harpoons, sinkers for fishing rods, as well as clay sinkers and birch bark floats for nets. Fish were caught from the shore, and most often from boats. Fragments of oars are found in the layers, and in a nearby ditch, shepherds found a dugout canoe, unearthed by an excavator from under the peat, but did not understand its value. They boasted that it burned well.

In the cultural layer of the Asavets settlements, bones of deer, elk, hare, wild boar, badger, bear, wolf, beaver, aurochs, bison, roe deer, fox, and other animals and birds were found. These findings indicate the important role of hunting in people's lives.

The Stone Age was an era when the vast majority of tools and hunting weapons were made of flint. However, northern Belarus is very poor in flint raw materials. Therefore, the local population, including those in the Kryvinsk peat bog, learned to produce most of these items from antlers and bones.

Bone harpoon. Asavets-2 Flint knife. Asavets-2

During excavations of local settlements, flint arrowheads and spearheads, knives, awls, chipped and polished axes are found, but most such items were crafted from antlers and bones – a wide variety of arrowheads and spearheads, daggers, awls, pointed tools for weaving fishing nets, adzes, axes, and equipment for processing flint. And this list of various bone and antler artifacts can be continued.

During excavations of the Kryvinsk peat bog settlements, the most common finds are shards of broken pottery.

Among these piles of debris are true pearls of ancient artistic culture. And from the soot, which the housewives of that time did not bother to remove or scrape off the walls of the pots, scientists can now accurately calculate how many years ago the pots were used and even what dishes were cooked in them. The pots were molded from clay, to which finely crushed shells were added for durability. The bottom of the dishes was made pointed, which was rational, as food was cooked over bonfires of brushwood, among which the pots with their specially pointed bottoms were stuck.

Judging by the delicate fingerprints, the pottery was molded by women. This was a painstaking and slow process. Therefore, pottery, especially richly ornamented, was valued and preserved. If pots broke or cracked, they were repaired by applying birch bark to the cracks and breaks and stitching them with cords through holes drilled in the walls.

Remains of a clay pot. Asavets-2

Living among the forests, the Kryvinsk population widely used wood. From it, they built houses, made fences, wove various baskets, crafted dishes, made canoes, etc., shafts for arrows and harpoons, handles for axes and daggers. They planed boards for tables and bottoms for meat, fish, and cracking nuts. And even ladles and bowls. Bark, especially birch bark, served for making other utensils.

Dwellings were surface-level. The basis of such huts consisted of a row of rather thick poles, vertically driven into the ground, with a fork at the top. A horizontal pole-beam was laid in the fork. Inclined poles, secured in the ground with sharpened ends, were attached to it from two sides. Thin cross-laths were horizontally attached to the poles. This formed the framework of the roof, which was then covered with bark and reeds. The settlements were located on a peat bog, and people had long been familiar with the untamed element of peat fires. Therefore, hearths were made in a special way. A wide platform was laid out over the peat from layers of spruce or pine bark. A thick layer of sand was poured onto it – thermal insulation was arranged. And on such a base, fire was lit.

Thread impressions are noticeable on the pottery. This means that spinning existed and, consequently, some form of weaving. Impressions of various weaves are sometimes preserved on the pottery as well.

Bone artifacts Flint tools

Spiritual culture of Stone Age man

1. Religious beliefs.

As soon as primitive man acquired the ability to think, he began to ponder the interrelationships of phenomena and things in nature, and his place within it.

Fear and powerlessness in the face of mighty natural forces, and the desire to understand them and somehow influence them, led to the emergence of religious beliefs. Already tens of millennia ago, the European Neanderthal, struck by the inexorable inevitability of death, believed in an afterlife for humans. This is connected with the emergence of customs for burying the deceased according to magical rituals.

Over time, a complex system of beliefs in various supernatural forces — souls and spirits — formed, which supposedly influenced human existence and the entire surrounding world. These forces, it was believed, could be appeased with gifts — sacrifices, incantations, and appropriate ritual actions — ceremonies.

In this system, the cult of ancestors occupied a crucial place, as evidenced not only by burials but also by human images on pottery and figurines. Particularly renowned relatives, after death, were recognized as guardian spirits of an entire lineage or tribe.

Living in inseparable unity with nature, ancient man considered certain animals, such as the bear, elk, duck, and stork, to be his ancestors.

M. M. Charniauski recounts:

– In the difficult and sometimes dangerous daily life, local residents also found time for beauty and joy, for spiritual creativity, for reflection on the universe and their place in it. They loved to adorn their bodies and clothes with various decorations, both men and women. During excavations, various ornaments have been found. These include numerous pendants made from hunted animals, including bear fangs, pendants and beads made from bones, and ornamented bone rings. Just as gold is valued today, amber ornaments, which came to our Po-Dzvinnie region from the Baltic coast, were prized in ancient times.

The decorations impress with their perfection of form and craftsmanship.

Teeth – pendants. Elk figurine.

The wooden and especially bone sculptures of animals, snakes, and birds, and particularly human figures, impress with their perfection of execution and realism. Ancient sculptors carved human figurines as generalized images of their kin. And from them, we can see what ancient Kryvichians looked like – stern, mustachioed men with short beards and regular European facial features.

Pots predominantly had a spherical shape, resembling an egg. And the egg was given a deep sacred (religious) meaning – the inhabitants of Belarus at that time considered the duck to be the originator of the universe, from whose egg the earth and sky, water and celestial bodies were created. Because of this, pots were decorated with various special ornaments. Most of these had a magical meaning, which is now largely incomprehensible to us.

In addition to the rhythm of geometric ornaments, clay pottery was also adorned with pictorial elements – winding silhouettes of snakes, ducks on lake waves, dancing human figures. For us, all these finds are perfect works of primitive art. For our ancestors, they brought not only aesthetic pleasure but, first and foremost, were a reflection of their beliefs and worldview, helping to define their place in the human collective according to age, gender, and social significance. The worldview of hunters and fishermen. But into these reflections, they invested their best artistic abilities, the eternal human striving for beauty.

Human sculpture. Image of a swimming duck on a pot.

Music was not alien to the Kryvinians either. This is evidenced by the flutes made from bird bone extremities with drilled holes. Some of the instruments are ornamented. And where there is music, there certainly were dances.

The legendary Atlantis, about which ancient Greek philosopher Plato was told by Egyptian priests, has not yet been found. But Kryvinian Atlantis, located in the Vitebsk region, fully reveals its secrets.

Compiled by S. Leanenka