Ancient History of Kenozero

The history of development in the region goes back to antiquity. The earliest sites of primitive man in Kenozero belong to the beginning of the post-glacial period and date back to the 7th-6th millennia BC.

They are located on relatively high sand terraces. Back in the XIX century. V.F. Miller found flint knife-like plates and cores typical of the middle Stone Age on Medvezhye Island. Later a plate arrow tip was found in the same place. On the Pesyan cape, at the mouth of the Volosheva river, at the mouth of Ken river and near the village of Morshikhinskaya, Mesolithic sites were discovered. There archeologists found instruments of labour, made in the «loose» technique (attachment to the bone base of the flint plate, which performs the role of the blade).

In the fifth millennium BC began the last stage of the Stone Age — the Neolithic. This is the time of the most primeval sites of the Kenozero, among which are Vershinino, Ust-Pocha, Kositsyno and Chelma I. Pottery was invented, and tools made of stone became even more perfect. The region’s oldest shale processing workshop dates from the Neolithic Age, discovered on a spot at the riverhead of Volosheva river. Several whole axes and other chopping tools were found here, as well as thousands of slate debris.

In the beginning of the second millennium BC the Bronze Age begins. People began to inhabit long-term dwellings buried in the ground, which were located in groups on high coastal terraces. Remains of semi-dwelling houses, in which the floor was below the surface of the earth, were found near Pashkov lake, near the village of Poromskoye. Dimensions of such dwellings are small — an average of 4×7 meters. In the Bronze Age, smaller dishes were made, the ornament covered only the upper part of the vessels, the number of ornamental elements increased, and became more colorful and complex.

Monuments from the early Iron Age are also present in Kenozero The most characteristic of them is located near the riverhead of Pochi river in Pochozero lake. It dates from the middle of the 1st millennium B.C. — the middle of the 1st millennium A.D. During the excavation in one spot ceramics, characteristic for this period, were collected. «Late Kargopol culture». These vessels have a profiled throat, an with ornament only in the upper part, and often with textured round neck of the vessel.

In the sixth to eighth centuries proto-sami, who settled these lands, ousted the Finno-Ugric tribes. The last ones were few, did not build large settlements, engaged in hunting, river and lake fishing. The Finno-Ugriс people left a rich, bright toponymy — Chazhenga, Mailahta, Tambich-Lahta, Chelma.

Sources:
1. Foss M.E. The most ancient history of the North of the European part of the USSR, materials and research on archeology of the USSR. Issue. 29. M., 1952.
2. Cretsky Yu.M. Kenozerye: history and culture (essays, materials, research) / editing V.N. Matonina. Arkhangelsk, 2005.