New Data on the Chronology of the Initial Neolithic Gromatukha Culture, Western Amur Region

Since its discovery in the early 1960s, the chronology of the Neolithic Gromatukha culture in the Western Amur Region has undergone  radical changes. After the appearance of a series of carbon dates  based on charcoal and organic remains in clay texture, its initial  attribution to the Early and Middle Neolithic (second half of the 5th  to 4th millennia BC) was replaced by a much earlier estimate (from  15–16 to 8 cal ka BP). As a result, Gromatukha became not only one of the most ancient Early Neolithic cultures in the Amur Region, but also one with the earliest pottery among forest and riverine hunter-gatherer cultures. To date, its absolute chronology is based on 34  dates including 9 derived from charcoal, 8 from organic remains in  clay texture, and 17 from charred remains on pottery samples. The  latter are analyzed in this article. The comparison of chronological  limits of Gromatukha culture demonstrates that the widest of them concern dates based on organic remains in clay texture (16,260–8010 cal BP), narrower limits relate to estimates based on charred  remains on pottery (15,010–9550 cal BP), and narrowest limits, to  those based on charcoal (14,820–11,200 cal BP). New series of  dates based on charred remains on pottery indicate a span of 5460  years, which is 2790 years less than that based on organic remains  in clay texture, and 1840 years more than what the charcoal-derived estimates suggest.