The multi-layered settlement of Khrinnyky-1 (Dubno
district, Rivne oblast) is one of the best-researched sites of the Volhynian
Upland, where archaeological materials from the Late Paleolithic to the Late
Middle Ages were found. Since 1993, it has been studied by the Volhynian
Archaeological Expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the National
Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The works of 2022 continued the excavation of the
highest part of the settlement on the left bank of the Styr River.
In addition to various movable materials, primarily
ceramic, 654 artifacts made of Turonian flint (the fourth subtype of Western
Volhynian flint) were obtained, which is deposited in the form of nodules
near the site and was used by its ancient population to produce various tools.
The flint complex includes three patinated products
belonging to the Swiderian site of the Final Palaeolithic.
The collection of 74 artifacts of the Volhynian-Lublin
culture is more informative. The initial stages of the flint knapping technique
of the population of the ancient settlement took place outside the boundaries
of the area defined above, as indicated by the quantitatively insignificant
finds of single-platform cores, blades, and flakes. In the list of household
tools, a prime position is occupied by products with one- and two-sided
retouched side edges, prepared, mainly from the backs, with dentate
(dominating) and scaly retouch, with an almost complete absence of straight
retouch. Quantitatively, burins, mostly dihedral ones, are inferior to them but
almost double the presence of end scrapers. A similar phenomenon is typical for
the flint industries of the later Malice and early Volhynian-Lublin cultures of
the Volhynian region.
The most important achievement of the 2022 field
season was the study of the flint-knapping center of the Lezhnytsia group,
discovered in the previous year. 577 artifacts were found, and together with
the materials from the area examined in 2021, the collection includes 1006
pieces.
The analysis of artifacts from the Early Scythian
period made it possible to reveal for the first time the content of
flint-knapping of this community, which was almost unexplored. It was possible
to significantly expand the range of recognized work tools, where, in addition
to the previously known sickles and percussors, retouched flakes and parablades
of various types, end scrapers, notches, drills, etc. were distinguished.
At that
time, the «preserved base» technique, which originated in flint-knapping at the
end of the 3rd millennium BC, continued to be used everywhere
in Europe. It consisted of four technological stages: 1) extraction of raw
materials; 2) formation of proto-forms of bifacial products (sickles, axes,
spearheads) from cores or from their longitudinally knapped parts; 3) bringing
these items to completion, first by percussion, and at the end by pressure; 4)
production of tools from flakes and parablades obtained in the process of flint
knapping with their appropriate retouching.
