During excavations of peat bog and cave sites various Early Mesolithic projectile points of the Urals were
obtained. Nowadays these artefacts include bone arrowheads and harpoons. Stone projectile points of this
period have not been found yet. Early Mesolithic bone arrowheads were found at the site Syun II in the
southeastern Urals, the bottom layers of the Beregovaya I and II sites in the Gorbunovo peat bog, and in
Lobvinskaya cave in the middle Trans-Urals as well as in Shaitanskaya cave in the northern Trans-Urals. 55
Early Mesolithic arrowheads are known. They comprise three typological groups – needle-shaped, narrow
flat, and one-winged projectile points. Massive needle-shaped arrowheads obviously emerge first.
Needle-shaped arrowheads with one long slot and short ones without slots are dated to the early to middle
Preboreal period. In the second half of this period narrow flat symmetric and asymmetric arrowheads with
and without slots were used together with needle-shaped ones. Asymmetric slotted arrowheads are a specific
Urals type not known in other areas. One-winged arrowheads with a barb or without it also emerge at that
time.
Harpoons were also used during the Early Mesolithic in the Urals. Uni-lateral harpoons with a widened
base with a notch were found in the bottom find level of the Beregovaya II site. The technological scheme
of the manufacture of bone arrowheads was already established during the Early Mesolithic in the Urals. It
could be traced here also during the Middle and Late Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic. Many types of Early
Mesolithic arrowheads in the Urals are similar even in detail to Mesolithic arrowheads from Eastern Europe.
This is evident not only in the shape of arrowheads, but also in the technology of their manufacture. It indicates
population contacts across the Urals and Eastern Europe since the Early Mesolithic. At the same time
specific types of artefacts such as narrow flat asymmetric arrowheads indicate different traditions among
population of these territories, too. Comparable differences are observed between several regions of Eastern
Europe, indicating that several groups comprising a cultural unity existed in this territory – including the
Urals – during the Mesolithic.
Savchenko, S.: Early Mesolithic bone projectile points of the Urals, in: Gross et al. (edd.), Working at The Sharp End at Hohen Viecheln, Untersuchungen und Materialien zur Steinzeit in Schleswig-Holstein und im Ostseeraum, Vol. 10, pp. 367–382, DOI: 10.23797/9783529018619-15.