Stone age
Paleolithic age
Stone age in Zabaikalye is the period of 800-400 thousand years ago when one of the centers of inhabitance of ancient people was the territory stretching from South-Siberian mountains in the north to the Tibet and plains of China in the south. The representatives of this culture were ape-man whose remains had been found in the cave of Chzhoukoudyan not far from Beijing. One of the camps of Ashelsky epoch was found near the village Zasukhino in Zabaikalye. During the Kazantsen interglacial age period (about 120-70 thousand ago) south Siberia was inhabited by representatives of the next step in the evolution of Neanderthal men. More than 20 camps of ancient men were discovered on the shores of the Angara-river and Baikal Lake. Neanderthals hunted wooly rhinoceroses, bisons, horses - the inhabitants of open steppe spaces. The climate in that period was warm and humid sometimes chilly.
About 40 thousand years ago camps of Homo Sapiens appeared in Zabaykalye, their culture got the name of late Paleolithic period. Its period coincided with Karginsky inter glacial age period and the last freezing. Zabaykalye remained free from ice in that time large herbivores animals had wandered in open spaces of Zabaykalye, many of these species disappeared later as mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, bisons, noble and huge deer, horses, antelopes. Such fauna attracted people who lived in large communities and hunted huge animals.
Middle Stone Age (or Mesolithic Age)
With the appearance of Homo sapience the material culture started to change. Warming that started 12-14 thousand years ago created a background for current weather conditions. Glaciers had disappeared and forests took their places. Prevalence of cold steppes was changed by the domination of dark-coniferous forests. Mammoths, wooly rhinoceroses and some others species of huge- hoofed animals disappeared, but the number of deer, elks, roe, birds of duck and black-cock breeds increased. Rivers and lakes became abundant in fish.
The settlements in Oshurkovo, Kunaley, Ust-Kyakhta and others found on the territory of Zabaykalye date back to the Middle Stone Age. The majority of known settlements from the period of 13-8 thousand years ago were located on the banks of large rivers and their tributaries in places convenient for fishing, also near watering place or on the way of seasonal migrations of animals. People started using bones to make awls, polishings, harpoons, fishing hooks, needles, bases for complex tools. Many bone needles of that time do not differ in size or shape from the modern metal ones. The main invention of Paleolithic age -a bow with arrows - became widely popular during the Middle Stone Age. The bow allowed individual hunting in remote areas.
As people started using stone during the Mesolithic age in Zabaikalye, cultures that use stone instruments were formed: Selenginsky, located on the banks of the Selenga-river and Chikoysky, located on the eastern tributaries of the Selenga.
During the Middle Stone Age a man tamed a dog, that became his true friend in hunting. Ancient sculptures, engravings on bones depicting fish, snake or mammoth appeared were found in this area.
The disappearance of large animals allowed people to divide into small mobile groups. They mastered pen hunting and family societies had well adapted to nature environment by this time. Settlements during the Middle Stone Age contained only up to 3 dwellings. Small groups were more mobile in comparison to large groups of top Paleolithic age. Smaller groups were able to move constantly, following the animals. At that time the first traits of nomadic life appeared. Later they became the ground of nomadic culture of people in Central Asia.
The Neolithic Age
The important phenomenon of the new age was the so-called "Neolithic revolution". People turned from hunting, fishing and collecting to growing cultivated plants and breeding domestic animals. More than 200 monuments of Neolithic age were discovered on the shores of rivers and lakes in Buryatia. They were large settlements with funeral complexes that appeared again in ершы period, drawings on the rocks usually depicting different hunting scenes or taiga animals. Ceramic crockery with round or pointed bottom was also found. The Neolithic camps were discovered on the shores of Yeravninsky Lakes, the Temnik, the Kurba, the Ingoda, the Vitim rivers and other places. The greatest cemetery of ancient hunters and fishermen was found on the Feofan Mountain in the Selenga River delta. The Neolithic Age in Central Asia coincided with the period of blossoming of civilization to the north of Equator where first cities were built and grandiose pyramids were created in Egypt, while ancient people armed with stone axes still wandered on the shores of Baikal Lake.
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