New evidence on the chronology of sites of the Baraba Neolithic culture

Field studies of 2018-2019 at the sites of Tartas-1 and Ust-Tartas-1 (burial ground “Ust-Tartasskie Kurgany”) in the Right-Bank Irtysh region have resulted in new concepts, finds, and a series of dates. In terms of structural features, functional purpose, and finds, pits 1383 and 1508 at the Tartas-1 site were similar to the previously studied Early Neolithic pits. Three samples were taken from pit 1383 for radiocarbon analysis, and one sample was taken from pit 1508. Four new dates which have been obtained from the materials of the Neolithic complex at Tartas-1, were in the chronological range of the eighth-seventh millennium BC. The planigraphic position of pit 66 at the Ust-Tartas-1 site, its stratigraphic cross-section, complex of finds, accumulation of fish remains at the bottom, and addition of two hare skeletons arranged head to tail, have made it possible to identify the object as Early Neolithic. Two samples from the pit have been dated, and the dates correspond to the eighth-seventh millennium BC. The chronological column of 19 dates is available for dating the new Baraba Early Neolithic culture. These dates were obtained using the samples from the Tartas-1 site in laboratories in Germany and Russia. The density of the radiocarbon dates makes it possible to consider the Tartas-1 site a reference chronological “benchmark” for the new Early Neolithic culture which existed in the seventh millennium BC extending into the eighth and sixth millennium BC. The time when the Early Neolithic objects existed at the Tartas-1 site, is confirmed by the dates from other sites: Vengerovo-2 and Ust-Tartas-1.