NEW DATA ON THE SPREAD OF THE SUMNAGIN CULTURE IN THE NORTH-EAST OF SIBERIA
Authors: СЛОБОДИН С.Б. , ЗЕЛЕНСКАЯ А.Ю. 
Published: September 2024

Включение долины Колымы в ареал сумнагинской культуры, к территории которой сейчас относят практически весь Северо-Восток Сибири, до сих пор происходило гипотетически, на основе технико-типологического анализа имеющихся материалов и сопоставления их с датированными комплексами этой культуры за пределами бассейна Колымы - как правило, Якутии или в лучшем случае на границе с бассейном р. Колымы. Благодаря планомерным археологическим исследованиям Северо-Восточного комплексного научно-исследовательского института (СВКНИИ) ДВО РАН, на Верхней Колыме была открыта археологическая стоянка Бурхала, где выявлен первый в долине р. Колымы стратифицированный, чистый, без примеси материалов других культур, однокомпонентный комплекс каменных орудий сумнагинской культуры. По древесному углю, извлеченному из культурного слоя вместе с артефактами, был определен радиоуглеродный (14С) возраст стоянки - 9,3 тыс. л.н.

Until now, only a few units of single-component, reliably dated and unmixed Early Holocene sites of the Sumnagin culture are known outside the Aldan River valley in Yakutia, where it was identified by Yu.A. Mochanov in 1966. Moreover, N.N. Dikov questioned both the very fact of the presence of the Sumnagin culture in the Kolyma River valley and its further spread to the east. This was justified by the existence in the Kolyma Valley of other early Holocene cultures (Siberdik and Maltan), identified by N.N. Dikov and “opposing”, in his opinion, Sumnagin culture. The question of the spread of the Sumnagin culture to Kolyma has been discussed theoretically for several decades, due to the lack of reliable data there, with the exception of some surface finds attributed to this culture. Only in 2017, as a result of systematic long-term field research in Kolyma by the Upper Kolyma detachment of the North-Eastern Research Institute of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Burkhala site was discovered, which provided the first stratified, pure, single-component complex of stone tools of the Sumnagin culture in the valley of this river, without admixture of materials from other cultures. The site was located on the pass of the left tributaries of the Kolyma, at an altitude of more than 1000 m. Its age, according to the results of radiocarbon dating of charcoal collected in the cultural layer of the site in association with stone artifacts, was 9300 14C B, which correlates with the earliest sites of this culture on the Aldan River. In Yakutia, sites on the passes (with the exception of sites on the Darpir Pass when crossing into the Kolyma basin from the Indigirka River), especially from the early Holocene period, are still unknown. The discovery and study of the Burkhala site in 2017-2020 in the upper reaches of the Kolyma made it possible not only to determine the nature of one of the stages of human exploration of the Kolyma River valley in the early Holocene, but also to obtain a final solution to the problem of exploration of the Kolyma River valley by Sumnagin culture bearers. The research allowed us to determine the search for archaeological sites in the passes from the Lena River basin to the valleys of the Yana, Indigirka and the rivers of the Okhotsk basin as a promising direction.