page 16–30                                                                                                                                                                                        RUS

https://doi.org/10.20874/2071-0437-2026-73-2-2 

УДК 910.3   EDN: CYDJGN

  http://www.ipdn.ru/_private/a73/16-30.pdf

Paleogeographic reconstruction of the formation of the first terrace of the Vitim River in the context of the evolution of the Mamakan Geoarchaeological Region  

Aleksei V., Tetenkin, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Irkutsk, Russia, altet@list.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2448-3580

Anastasia V., Arzhannikova, Doctor of Geological and mineralogical Sciences, leading researcher, Institute of the Earth Crust SB RAS, Irkutsk, Russia, arzhan@crust.irk.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7576-1029

Sergey G., Arzhannikov, PhD in Geology and mineralogy, leading researcher, Institute of the Earth Crust SB RAS, Irkutsk, Russia, sarzhan@crust.irk.ru,  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4389-3684

Aleksei A., Chebotarev, PhD in Geology and mineralogy, Junior Researcher, Institute of the Earth Crust SB RAS, Irkutsk, Russia, che@crust.irk.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9061-8765

Contrary to conventional assumptions about the Holocene age of the first floodplain terrace of the Vitim River, a study of sites within the Mamakan Archaeological Ensemble (located in the lower reaches) — including Kovrizhka IV, Invalidny III (locations 3 and 4), and the Pavlova sites — reveals that the transition from floodplain to terrace occurred at varying intervals during the period 13.6–10.6 cal ka BP. These findings prompted the authors to seek an explanation and to reconstruct the history of the formation of the first terrace in relation to the location of archaeological sites. To establish a correlation between events and processes, data from a remote section of the first terrace — the Ballaganah site — were also incorporated into the analysis. This section is located 170 km upstream from the Mamakan River, on the left bank of the Vitim River. The research combined sedimentological analysis (to determine sediment genesis) and radiocarbon dating. It has been established that the final formation of the first terrace occurred at different times across the study area: at Kovrizhka IV, approximately 13.6–13.4 cal ka BP; at Invalidny III (location 4), approximately 14–13 cal ka BP; at Pavlova, approximately 11.9–10.9 cal ka BP; and on a broader scale along the Vitim River, approximately 10.6–9.6 cal ka BP. The final formation of the first terrace is associated with the completion of glacier melting and the weakening of the river's hydrological regime. Furthermore, records from Kovrizhka IV, Kovrizhka V, and Invalidny III (location 4) document not only phases of sedimentation but also episodes of erosion during the evolution of the floodplain and terrace system. Human occupation of the area, initially along the floodplain margin and later on the terrace, dates back to 19 ka BP at Kovrizhka IV and extends through to the Bronze Age at Invalidny III. The main advantages of coastal settlements were logistical, including their optimal positioning along seasonal human migration routes and hunting routes, access to distant resource procurement routes, fishing, opportunities for communication with neighboring populations, and availability of lithic raw resource from pebble beaches. This settlement history highlights both the human preference for riverside habitation, — driven by a multitude of reasons — and the adaptabi-lity of human populations to evolving floodplain-terrace environments.

Keywords:  Baikal-Patom plateau, Mamakan Geoarchaeological Region, first terrace, floodplain, riverbed processes, Late Pleistocene, Holocene, Paleolithic, Neolithic.

© Tetenkin A.V., Arzhannikov S.G., Arzhannikova A.V., Chebotarev A.A.,  2026

Funding. The study was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation № 24-27-00024, https://rscf.ru/project/24-27-00024/.

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