ON THE QUESTION OF THE UNITY OF CRITERIA OF NEOLITHIC EPOCH FOR THE CULTURES OF NORTH AND SOUTH

The first archaeological periodization by H. Thompson was founded on the turn of the materials from which tools were made. J. Lubbock has introduced a new criterion in the periodization of the Stone Age - improving of methods of processing tools that allowed him to identify the Neolithic. By the opinion of Ethnographer L. Morgan, the way of getting livelihood was laid in the base of the periodization. As markers separating one stage of development from another, he have been used an archaeological features of secondary importance. For Neolithic pottery was such a sign. G. Child used the non-arheological periodization of G. Morgan. G. Childe named the producing economy the main criteria of Neolithic. Spreading of the views of G. Child in Western Europe has led to the fact that most of the Neolithic cultures of the forest zone are no longer considered as such. In the Soviet Union, and then Russia has evolved a concept according to which the population of forest crops by developing appropriating economy has reached the same level of social development that the Neolithic cultures with generating economies. Among foreign scholars this view most consistently advocated by M. Zvelebil. However, this argument is based on the concept of subjective interpretation of archaeological artifacts. Common features in the level of development of the cultures of North and South, are generally fixed on the basis of similarity of archaeological (technological) and socio-cultural characteristics, but this similarity is due to various reasons, which lead to different consequences. The transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic in the forest zone was carried out not in the revolutionary but in the evolutionary form. If the "revolution" has taken place, then it occurred earlier in the Late Mesolithic, when transition passed from specialized hunting migratory animals to complex hunting- fishing economy. This "Mesolithic revolution" produced demographic growth of Neolithic population, the increase of which was primarily due to favorable natural conditions of Atlantic optimum rather than to improvement of tools and methods of obtaining food. Whereas in the cultures of the South it was the exact opposite. Comparison of socio- economic development of the Neolithic population of the North and South has deep meaning only in terms of the concept of a single line of evolutionary development of human society, according to which the population of different regions held the same stage of development. If we consider that the evolution of the character wore a multi-line, then this comparison is not valid. In our opinion, the whole complex of archaeological materials suggests ways of multiline development of the Neolithic population of different natural areas, the similarity between them is very general in nature.