Concerning reconstruction of the population'S life-style on the terminal stages of the stone age

The article by A.P. Buzhilova, A.V. Suvorov, and O.A. Krylovich discusses the results of the archaeological investigations of the Minino association of sites (the Kubenskoe Lake region). The field works have yielded a significant collection of anthropological materials dating back to the late stages of the Stone Age (37 individuals). The studied burials are of different age: the earliest one (No. 19) is attributed to the Middle Mesolithic, the latest one of the dated associations (No. 5) - to the Early Neolithic. Comparison of the planigraphic data and the burials' chronology evidence that some burials form clusters, and other are separate burials. From the cultural deposits of Minino I representing different stages of the Stone Age totally 737 fragments of mammalian originate. In the Mesolithic local population mostly hunted elk, marten, water vole-mouse, wolf or dog. Different fish species were objects of fishing. On the later stages the hunters' bag included also beaver, fox, and bear. The anthropological studies help to reconstruct rigorous conditions of life determined by the seasonal character of environmental stressors, basic role being played by cold stress. According to the radiological data, two variants of organism's response to cold climate were singled out. Two stable variants of diet have been established. The complex investigation of physical stresses, the level of traumatism, palaeozoological data, and archaeological materials allowed the authors obtain specific characteristics of the population that lived in the conditions of cold forest zone. Special analysis of teeth crowns shows that rather often male individuals used their teeth as a kind of third hand: specific variant of dental attrition registered on molars and not related to age status points to this phenomenon. Similar changes are anthropologically known on the modern Eskimos due to the practice of processing skins with maxillary-dental organs.