Topical issues in the study of the early Aeneolithic of the Don forest-steppe (chronology, periodization, synchronization)

For a long time, the Eneolithic of the Don forest-steppe remained one of the least studied epochs in the archaeological scheme of the region. However, since the late 1960s, sites with materials of the Eneolithic have been actively explored on the territory of the Voronezh and Lipetsk Regions. By the 1980s, researchers had a concept for the development of copper-stone age cultures within the system of the Mariupol cultural-historical region of the Dnieper-Don-Ural interfluve, which is still relevant today. The criteria for distinguishing the Eneolithic era in the steppe and forest-steppe spaces of the East European steppe and forest-steppe were substantiated. The idea of their synchronization with complexes of the Tripolye A period was designated. The early Eneolithic in the Don forest-steppe was marked by the appearance of a population with specific ceramics of Nizhnedonskaya culture. Questions of the chronology of the early Eneolithic were solved exclusively by methods of analogies with the materials of neighboring territories and synchronization with the local Neolithic complexes. The paper deals with the problems of chronology, periodization and synchronization of materials from the early Aeneolithic of the territory of the Don forest-steppe. The focus is on the absolute dating of the Nizhnedonskaya culture of the Mariupol cultural-historical region and its synchronization with the early Tripolye Culture. According to all the data available to date, the region’s early Eneolithic can be dated from 5300 to 4250 BC.