Manufacturing technology of stone miniature columns from the Bronze Age site Gonur Depe (southern Turkmenistan)

Archaeological cultures of the Bronze Age, despite the widespread use of metal, also used stone raw materials for the manufacture of tools, household, and sacred items. A lot of stone products had a complicated shape and meticulous finishing, but the technology of their manufacture is still not always clear. This fully applies to the materials of the Bronze Age of southern Turkmenistan where long-term settlements of the proto-urban type are being studied. These include Gonur Depe (2500-1500 BCE) - the administrative and religious centre of ancient Margiana (Sarianidi 2005). Among its materials are stone miniature columns of “unknown” purpose in the shape of a chess rook, which are usually found in sacral complexes. This paper deals with the technology of producing these objects (half of the collection of intact items was investigated) and is part of a collective work on a comprehensive study of large stone cult objects from Gonur Depe. The raw materials for studied miniature columns were gypsum, limestone, marbled limestone, marbled onyx, onyx, talcochlorite, and polymictic breccia. For the first time the authors made an attempt to consider the issues of miniature columns manufacturing technology. Thanks to the use-wear study of their surfaces, it became possible to reveal numerous technological traces invisible to the naked eye. The data obtained made it possible to characterize all stages of the miniature columns manufacturing technology, which indicates a high level of development of the stone-processing industry in the settlements of the Bronze Age of Turkmenistan

Functional use of large stone tool from the Upper Paleolithic site of Kamennaya Balka II (the Northern Azov Sea region, Russia)

The assemblages of many Paleolithic sites on the Russian Plain contain large pebbles of various types of stone, which, due to the natural and unmodified forms, rarely become objects of special study. Some of them retain their natural shape, others are slightly artificially modified. In the course of our research, artifacts from several Paleolithic sites in Russia and the Republic of Moldova were subjected to a comprehensive study. Technical-morphological and experimental-traceological studies made it possible to characterize the methods of their manufacture and use. Among the items studied, there is a trapezoidal slab retrieved in the lower layer of the Late Paleolithic stratified site Kamennaya Balka II (the Northern Azov Sea region, Russia). On its surface, use-wear traces were found, which are characteristic of wear traces on tools used to grind plant materials. To verify the results of the traceological analysis, a series of experiments was performed. The wear traces on the working part of the experimental tool turned out to be similar to those found on the original one. The functional identification of the slab from Kamennaya Balka II as a tool for processing plants was also confirmed by the discovery on the working surface of mineralized starch grains. This comprehensive study of an unmodified stone artifact from the Kamennaya Balka II site and its identification as the lower grinding stone indicates the presence of complex foraging strategies among the economic activities of the inhabitants of the site and their successful adaptation to the natural environment in this region