Upper Paleolithic subsistence practices in the southern Russian Plain: paleolandscapes and settlement system of Kamennaya Balka sites

In this article, the methodical and practical problems of creating reconstructions of the subsistence practices and settlement systems for Lowland Upper Paleolithic sites are discussed. Sites of the Kamennaya Balka district are located in small valleys on the right bank of the Lower Don River near its mouth. The environment of the area of the archaeological sites was investigated with combined geological-geomorphological, pedological, paleozoological, and pollen methods. The paleolandscapes and paleоgeographic reconstructions of the main stages of the relief and landscape development of the sites area as the mutual features of the subsistence strategies in this region for the period of 17,000–14,000 BP are described. The complex of paleoecological research of the Kamennaya Balka clearly show that the “steppe zone” did not exist as a single entity, but it was divided into numerous separate loci with their specific features of occupation and cultural adaptations. Our investigations gave a principally different picture of vegetation and climate. During three periods of settlement at the Kamennaya Balka II, paleoecological conditions changed but in a general way remained favourable.