More precisely - in the area of the village of Kostenki, Voronezh region, about 40-odd millennia ago.
A group of scientists from Russia and Germany, after many years of research, came to the conclusion that it was the Russian territory that was the cradle of European civilization. The results of the latest research have proved that a person of the modern Caucasian type arose by the 50-40th millennium BC. and originally lived exclusively within the Russian Plain, and only then settled throughout Europe.
According to the British BBC radio, scientists made such conclusions after examining a human skeleton, discovered in 1954 near Voronezh in the ancient burial site of Markina Gora (Kostenki XIV). It turned out that the genetic code of this man, buried about 28 thousand years ago, corresponds to the genetic code of modern Europeans. To date, the complex "Kostenki" near Voronezh is recognized by world archaeologists as the most ancient habitat of a modern man, a Caucasian.
The research was carried out at the famous Max Planck Institute for Anthropological Evolution in Leipzig. The peculiarity of the just completed work of scientists was to get the most ancient DNA from the bones of the skeleton and decipher it. At the same time, one of the main tasks was to separate the most ancient DNA from traces of DNA from people who have worked with the skeleton from Markina Gora for the last 60 years.
As it turned out, the ancient man discovered near Voronezh belongs by its genetic code to haplogroup Y2, which is very rare among the modern population of the Earth, although it is more represented in Europe than in other parts of the world.
According to the latest research, about 30 thousand years ago a new wave of immigrants came to Europe, belonging to another haplogroup - N. It is this group that now constitutes the bulk of the population of modern Europe. Thus, scientists conclude that it is the modern territory of Russia that could be the cradle of European civilization.
A perfectly preserved skeleton of a 20-year-old man was buried on the banks of the Don on Markina Gora about 30 thousand years ago. It is unique because it allows you to accurately date the age of a representative of one of the most ancient European peoples.
In 1954, during excavations of the Upper Paleolithic site of Markina Gora (Kostenki XIV), about 32 thousand years old near the village of Kostenki on the Don River (Voronezh Region), archaeologist Alexander Rogachev discovered a perfectly preserved skeleton of a 20-25 year old man in a shallow oval grave.
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The skeleton of an ancient Paleolithic man from Markina Gora was investigated by Russian scientists, who found that the buried person was 20-25 years old, his height was low - about 160 cm. In terms of body structure and appearance, he was no longer fundamentally different from modern people. Casts of the internal cavities of the skull and its structure indicate that the brain of an ancient man is identical in its anatomical characteristics to the brain of our contemporaries. The structural features of the skeleton made it possible to recreate some of the lifestyle features of the first people. They were quite harmoniously developed. Their hands were already capable of performing a variety of, including very complex, actions. Apparently, they actively walked and ran.
In the appearance of a person of the Paleolithic of the Russian Plain, Caucasian characters prevailed.
Although some features characteristic of tropical groups are found - a very narrow cranium, a low and narrow face, a sharp prognathism (protrusion of the face forward), a very wide nose.
Judging by the strongly twisted position of the skeleton and traces of red paint on the bones, the body of the deceased was swaddled or tied and covered with ocher. There were no items in the grave, but in the cultural layer with which the burial was associated, tools of the Early Upper Paleolithic period related to the Aurignacian culture were found - plates, scrapers, incisors, as well as animal bones (mainly wild horses).
Scientists managed to reconstruct the clothes of ancient people using the rows of bone beads and polar fox teeth preserved on the remains. In general, the costume is presented as a deaf clothing of the Arctic type, consisting of a leather (suede) or fur shirt like a malitsa worn over the head, leather long pants and leather shoes like moccasins sewn with them. The headdress was a hat embroidered with polar fox teeth.
Olga Tyagnibeda
Kostenki is an archaeological site located in the village of the same name on the right bank of the Don, in the Voronezh region. First discovered in 1879, but the first excavations began in the 1920s. On an area of 10 km², more than 60 sites were found, the age of which ranges from 45 to 15 thousand years. Judging by the artifacts found, our ancestors had a developed culture and art. This sensational discovery casts doubt on the theory that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and from there migrated to the north of Eurasia.
History is rich in discoveries! If you ask yourself where the historical center of Europe is and travel back to antiquity, to the Paleolithic era, you can find evidence that this point is located near the village of Kostenki, Voronezh Territory. The new film by the writer Alexander Lapin invites us to travel to one of the most important milestones in the history of human civilization - to the moment of its inception. Archaeological excavations have shown that it was here, on the site of the village of Kostenki, that more than 50,000 years ago there was an ancient settlement that was the prototype of the future cities of Russia and Europe … Kostenki became a kind of cradle of civilization, from where Europeans first set out to conquer foreign lands …
It is generally accepted that the Russians are a young nation. By the time of Christmas, the ancient Romans managed to sink to the bottom of luxury and debauchery, and on the territory of Russia there was no state, no culture, no writing. According to the textbooks, the ancient Slavs up to the 9th century are wild cave tribes. Is it really? It turned out that the Russian history written by the Germans and Poles back in the 19th century is far from being true in everything. As it turned out, even 6 thousand years ago, when the Sumerian civilization was just emerging, people on the territory of the modern Urals were so developed that they knew such sciences as metallurgy …
Svetlana Lisichkina