On investigations of rock-art of the Amur and Ussuri rivers

The paper considers rock art sites of Sikachi-Alyan and Sheremetievo in the Far East. The sites enter the rock art province located in the basins of the Lower Amur and Ussuri rivers. Field works related with monitoring of the sites' preservation resulted in discovery of a series of new rock art images, which represent an important contribution to the corpus of rock art of the Far East. Rare variants of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures, original mask-like images have been revealed on boulders and rock outcrops. One of them - a mask with wavy linear ornament is unique. Of special interest is diversity of ancient artists' attitude to texture of stone used for shaping rock carvings, reliefs and three-dimensional sculptures.