ИСТИНА

The Kubenskoe Lake is a large water-pool of glacier origin situated to the south from latitude 60° North in the European Russia. Around 170 archaeological sites have been registered in the area (from the Mesolithic to Early Mediaeval time). The Mesolithic materials originate from 10 sites and 4 of them are from the archaeological complex Minino, which represented both by artifacts and human remains. At Minino I and II burials were revealed in the Mesolithic cultural deposit. This is few groups of asynchronous burials performed according to different burial rites (among them 22 single burials, 5 paired burials and 2 triple ones). There were not too many convenient places to settle near the marshy sides of the lake; therefore those suiting habitation was settled repeatedly. For some burial goods parallels can be pointed to Veret’e and Butovo archaeological cultures. But the majority of objects date from a wide chronological span from the second part of the Mesolithic till the Early Neolithic. The finds from the Mesolithic sites enable to reconstruct some details of the ancient population’s everyday life. The anthropological materials, which were studied in bioarchaeological context, enlarged the reconstruction in details. The 39 individuals were investigated by different methods. Several significant variations are noted. A series of male skulls from Minino finds undoubted analogies with the synchronous population of the nearest territories of northern-eastern Europe and more ancient Paleolithic hunters. In the early stages of the development of the region, the population demonstrates high life expectancy, but in the final of it these values decrease. Isotopic analysis of human bones gives the data of diet changing over time. The complex of data give a possibility to discuss some tendency of the changes in everyday life of local hunters-gatherers and fishermen.