Reused broken tools of the Neolithic from the Northern Angara region. Evidence from the Ruchey Smolokurny site of 2010-2011

Ruchey Smolokurny is one of numerous sites investigated during large-scale rescue excavations in the flood zone of the Boguchanskaya hydroelectric power plant in the Northern Angara region. This is a multilayered archaeological site. Its sediments reveal several lithological units containing artifacts from Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Middle Ages. Cultural and chronological attribution of the Neolithic and Bronze Age horizons was based on comparison ofpottery fragments with published materials from other sites of the region. The Medieval component was identified by specific metalwork and pottery fragments. In 2010-2011, it was discovered that the Neolithic horizon had the largest area and the most numerous collection of finds. Its stone industry included cores for producing blades and flakes, rich toolkit (end- and side-scrapers, knives, borers, burins, arrowheads, insert tools, leaf-shaped bifaces, etc.), and large amount of debitage. The chronological markers in the pottery collection were vessels of the Posolsk and Aplinsk traditions. Some fragments were completely covered with reticulate imprints. During processing stone finds from the Neolithic horizon, it was observed that broken polished tools (adzes, axes) were always remodeled into different tools, such as end-scrapers, planers, chisel-like tools, bifaces, and even cores. After analyzing the tool collection with traces of grinding (intact tools, products on their basis, fragments, and spalls), it has been suggested that active practice of remaking allowed ancient inhabitants of the site to save various types of raw materials and time for their search and creation of preforms. In this context, remodeling of broken items was not a random or one-time decision but a logical stage in the existence of all tools, not only polished.