Mesolithic sites of forest-steppe Trans-Urals

The article presents new data concerning the Mesolithic Age which has not been paid sufficient attention to. The forest-steppe Trans-Urals includes four major river basins - the Tobol and its left tributaries: Miass, Iset, and Uy. Therefore the place has been known for only three sites with Mesolithic cultural layers. In recent years the number of Mesolithic sites has doubled. The exploration of the site Krasnokamenka, mainly relating to the Neolithic-Eneolithic Age, helped to find complex stone tools of an earlier time. The tools had been lying on the floor of a dwelling, arranged in a natural population of the ancient bedrock depressions coastal terraces. The site Rodniki 2 with its excavation area of 64 square meters was explored by ground construction. Collection of stone tools comprises 3481 artifacts. The site Chyornaya Gora 2 comprises a number of places on the sandy floors of damaged sod cover. Chyornaya Gora 2 is best known for the accumulation of artifacts on the area of 40x40 meters. Due to its main typological and technical and technological parameters material culture of Krasnokamenka site, Rodniki 2 and Chyornaya Gora 2 is a typical example of Mesolithic Age in the Ural region. Among the commonly encountered tools there is a blade with edge retouch, angular cutters, a blade with a notch, blade scrapers, scrapers on flakes. The most expressive types of products are point-treated steep retouch from the back, sometimes with the abdomen, some geometric microliths - asymmetrical trapezoid and triangle, beveled tip of the blade treated with the end face, the lateral incisors with retouch; some tools were polished. These types of tools were found at all known sites of Trans-Urals region, but in different combinations.