Discovery of a cultural layer at the Sukhaya Mechetka middle Paleolithic site in 2022

In 2022, the Lower Volga Paleolithic research team of the IAET SB RAS, participating in the integrated Lower Volga expedition organized by the IHMC RAS, the study of the Sukhaya Mechetka Middle Paleolithic site located at the northern outskirts of the city of Volgograd, was continued. The research was aimed at searching for the cultural layer of the site, which, according to the first researcher of the site, S.N. Zamyatnin, should extend deeply into the bedrock deposits of the right side of the Sukhaya Mechetka ravine. The studies conducted in previous years have allowed us to obtain the detailed analytical results on the material composition of all deposits of sediments forming the starboard side of the Sukhaya Mechetka ravine. This primarily concerns the lower part of the section, where a series of three buried soils is distinguished-the cultural layer studied at the site by the expedition led by S.N. Zamyatnin in 1952 and 1954 was confined to the middle buried soil. The 2022 work conducted for the first time at a new stage of studying the Sukhaya Mechetka site were aimed at searching for an area of the site with a well-preserved cultural layer. As a result of the work, an undisturbed section of the cultural layer was discovered in the western part of the site adjacent to Excavation I of1954. The condition of lithic artifacts, faunistic remains, and other elements of the cultural layer completely conform to S.N. Zamyatnin ’s descriptions. The condition of the identified layer part allows planning further work for studying the Sukhaya Mechetka cultural layer at a new methodological level by using modern capturing methods and to resume full-scale comprehensive studies of the site in general.