The article is based on archaeological materials of the Carpathian-Dniester region (Molodova I, Brynzeny I, Kosouci, Mitok-Malul Galben, Klimeuts II sites), compared with ancient art objects of other regions, as well as with ethnographic data of peoples who preserved elements of ancient beliefs and rituals, and traces the formation of creativity from its origins to the creation in the past. the Upper Paleolithic period of certain canons in the visual arts. The strict subordination of all the components of fine plastic works used in primitive syncretic artistic actions allows us to put forward a hypothesis about the appearance of signs-symbols of art in the Moutier era, which in subsequent periods revealed their deep meaning due to religious beliefs.

Keywords: Moutier era, Upper Paleolithic, Bronze Age, griffads, angular ornament, triangles, cross, color symbolism, female images, amulet, bear cult, pantomime and choreographic actions.

Introduction

Monuments of artistic creativity of the Paleolithic period of the Carpathian-Dniester region are well known, but until now the semantics of their figurative sphere has not yet attracted the attention of researchers. In this article, based on comparative historical and semiotic research methods, an attempt is made for the first time to reveal the significance of art monuments in the spiritual life of the population of the Carpathian-Dniester region in the context of Western European art.

Works of art from the Moutier era and the early stage of the Late Paleolithic

The analysis of the dwelling of the Molodov I site described by A. P. Chernysh, which is recognized as one of the reference monuments of the Mousterian era in Eastern Europe, and the artifacts found in it leads to a new vision of the Mousterian culture. The dwelling was an artificial oval-shaped fence. Specially selected mammoth bones were used as building materials: 12 split skulls, 34 shoulder blades and pelvic bones, 51 limb bones, 14 tusks, and 5 lower jaws. Traces of 15 mostly oval-shaped bonfires were preserved inside the fence (Chernysh, 1960; Molodova I.., 1982, p. 20, 23).

According to N. D. Praslov, the oval shape of the object with the display of specially selected large mammoth bones and 15 bonfires (some were located directly at the display of bones or along the line of their accumulation) inside it, "complicate the understanding of this dwelling" [1984, p.109]. Obviously, the numerical values of the presented bones are not random either: they are multiples of 3, 5, or 7, or form groupings of these numbers. B. A. Frolov convincingly wrote about their magical significance [1981, pp. 58-105].

Noteworthy is the shoulder blade with rifled lines-parallel, intersecting, forming a cross, with pits, traces of black and red paint (Fig. 1, 1) [Molodova I..., 1982, p. 54, Fig. 22].

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1. Shoulder blades and rib of a mammoth from the Molodova I site (from [Molodova I..., 1982, p. 54, Fig. 22; p. 65, fig. 27; p. 55, fig. 23)]. 1 - shoulder blade with cut parallel lines, intersecting lines forming a cross, with pits, traces of black and red paint; 2-shoulder blade with parallel, intersecting, zigzag lines, pits, traces of black and red paint, figures of a deer or elk in the center, near which there is a recess; 3 - edge with images of parallel lines, traces of black and red paint;, intersecting, snake-and zigzag lines, triangles, and shapes with a diamond-shaped completion.

On the other shoulder blade, you can also see parallel, intersecting lines, pits, zigzags, traces of angles and sharp angles drawn in black paint. In the center, there is a not very clear figure of a deer or elk, near which there is a depression. The serpentine lines are noteworthy (Fig. 1, 2) [Ibid., p. 65, Fig. 27].

Parallel, intersecting, snake-like rifled lines and zigzags are plotted on the edge of the mammoth [Ibid., p. 55, Fig. 23] (Figs. 1, 3). It is impossible not to notice a small figure made up of two parallel lines, ending in a diamond-shaped formation. Its similarity to the image of an animal on the right distal end of a longitudinally dissected bison bone from the Pronyatina mousterian site near Ternopil (Ukraine) [Sytnik, 1983, p. 44, Fig.4] may indicate the formation of some semantic image traditions. In a few millennia, the unique mammoth tusk amulet will also feature sharp-angled symbols, parallel lines, dots (pits), and ovals (Ketraru, 1989, Fig. on page 6]. Schematic images of birds are also applied to the mammoth's rib and shoulder blade.

Parallel lines on mammoth bones and on the walls of Mousterian caves have also been found in different versions in Europe. A.D. Stolyar gives the most interesting examples and their interpretations, including the opposite ones, belonging to different scientists. He adheres to the opinion of researchers who believe that "for notches and regularly arranged cuts, the numeral meaning cannot be considered an exception; starting with Mousterian, people may have felt the need to count lunar months and years" [1985, pp. 127-128]. A. D. Stolyar does not reject the assumption that Mousterian images are semantically connected in the form of parallel images. notches with cave bear griffads [Ibid., pp. 131-132]. He refers to the opinion of archaeologists about the active settlement of caves in Moustya, for which it was necessary to drive a powerful animal out of the cavity with the help of slingshots, clubs, throwing stones and fire, it was not easy and often not without losses. The result of the "desperate struggle of man with this horror of caves" in the event of victory was not only meat, skin, bones, but also, most importantly, the release of a natural shelter for parking, which means an opportunity for survival [Ibid., p. 172].

According to A.D. Stolyar, the parallel lines engraved on the bones found in the La Ferrasi burial next to a man, possibly a hunter, resemble the traces left by the terrible paw of a cave predator [Ibid., pp. 124, 131, 132]. The bear occupied a special place in the life of the population of the Carpathian-Dniester region, as can be seen from artifacts from the Trink II grotto, among which there is a "massive point from the ulna of a cave bear" [Anisyutkin and Borziak, 1985, p. 17], as well as from the image of a bear in the Chokura-2 grotto [Molodova I..., 1982, p. 55]. Noteworthy is the skull of a bear found next to the remains of a bonfire in the very center of Molodov I's dwelling. "It is possible," suggests A. P. Chernysh, "that it overlapped the top of the dwelling" [Ibid., p. 25].A.D. Stolyar writes about the use of the beast's head "as a decisive semantic symbol" [1985, p. 196]. Taking this into account, we can assume that the incisions on the shoulder blades and rib of the mammoth from the Molodov I site (Fig. 1) were symbolic images of the cave bear's claw marks. At the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, they are transformed into rhythmic parallel lines, and they also appear on female figurines that may have had a connection with hunting magic.

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Sharp angles depicted on the shoulder blade and rib of a mammoth can be considered as part of a triangle, which is recognized as a contour-sign symbol of the entire female body. A.D. Stolyar also managed to reveal the feminine nature of the "corner" ornament [1972a, p. 213]. On the shoulder blade of the mammoth (Fig. 1, 2) and on the rib (Fig. 1, 3), it is represented by a zigzag line.

Analogs to the images of the cross on the shoulder blades are known in monuments of the Mousterian era in other territories. Engraved crosses are depicted on limestone tiles from the Don Cave (Georgia), on a fragment of the lower jaw of an animal from Vilna (Germany); a drawn cross - shaped figure is applied to a nummulet from the Tag Cave (Hungary) [Stoljar, 1985, p. 127, figs.91-93]. Already " about 250-300 thousand years ago, the Acheulean man, as it seems, already drew the attention of his relatives to something with the help of lines arranged in a special way. This is the engraving on the flat side of a bull's rib from the Acheulean layer of Pesch del Aze in France "(Filippov, 1997, p. 19). All these images allow us to speak about the "iconic creativity" of people of the Mousterian era, which, according to the research of A. D. Stolyar, manifests itself as a "genetic development of the Mousterian symbolic prototype" [1985, p. 129]. "Being an important mechanism of cultural memory, symbols transfer texts, plot schemes and other semiotic formations from one layer of culture to another... On the one hand, permeating the thickness of cultures, the symbol is realized in its invariant essence. In this aspect, we can observe its repeatability. The symbol will act as something heterogeneous to the surrounding text space, as a messenger of other cultural eras (other cultures), as a reminder of the ancient ("eternal") foundations of culture. On the other hand, the symbol actively correlates with the cultural context, transforms under its influence, and transforms it itself. Its invariant essence is implemented in variants. It is precisely in the changes that the "eternal" meaning of a symbol undergoes in a given cultural context that this context most clearly reveals its changeability" [Lotman, 1992, pp. 192-193]. The iconographic immutability of symbols in later cultures, where they appear in the context of an expanded and formed image system, allows us to get closer to deciphering the semantics of these symbols.

It seems that in the most ancient period, people were given certain signs-symbols that over the next millennia in different regions of the world revealed their secret meaning. The cross is one of them. It is depicted on the walls of caves in Antalya (Mellart, 1982, pp. 79-80), and on a Bronze Age barrel found in a burial ground in Tuva (Devlet, 1976, Tables XIII, 4). The cross is formed by two superimposed "birds" symbolizing women with images of sharp corners and a meander from the settlement of Mezin (Ukraine) (Stolyar, 19726, Fig. 18). On the walls of the Chatal Guyuk sanctuary, the largest Neolithic settlement in the Middle East, "next to the double axe, in addition to female figures, there are three crosses made up of two double axes superimposed on each other and one of four female figures" [Brentjes, 1976, p. 89]. B. Brentjes believes that widespread in the Middle East, in addition to female figures, there are three crosses. In the cult images of Asia Minor, Iran, and Crete, the double axes were "in a certain connection with the' great mother ' and with the cult of the dead, as on the famous sarcophagus from the Agia Triad. In Knossos, along with the cross, they stood in the chapel of the mother goddess " [Ibid., p. 89].

In the wavy lines on the shoulder blades and rib, you can see images of snakes, also associated with the image of a woman. A. P. Chernysh carefully interprets the depression on the shoulder blade, which is located next to the figure of a deer or elk (Figs. 1, 2), as a sign of the female sex (Molodova I.., 1982, p.64). Note that this depression, like the described dwelling, is oval in shape. It is possible that the Mousterian inhabitants of the Molodov I site saw in the depressions of this shape a symbol of a woman: Homo sapiens of the late Paleolithic also perceived the cave with petroglyphs of animals and symbolic signs "as a woman, at least in some parts of it. ... Equivalence: the feminine sign-rana-opens up an interesting network of comparisons. If a bison can have both a vulva and a wound on its side, then we have access to the real metaphysics of death" (Leroy-Gourand, 1971, p. 89).

In the context of these considerations, schematic representations of birds on the ribs and shoulder blades of a mammoth no longer seem random. Through the image of a bird, primitive man expressed his ideas about "souls" as life principles, which were quite logically associated with the image of "women in general". The cycle of "life and death in social existence"was associated with it. The scene of the death of a hunter, captured on the wall of the Upper Paleolithic cave of Lascaux (France), can serve as a visual embodiment of this worldview. The image of the hunter is conveyed in the form of a bird-like disguise of a "dead man", and next to it the" soul "is designated as something material, i.e. a" bird " that left the body (Stolyar, 1985, p.254). The origin of "if not completely animistic beliefs, then animistic ideas", according to V. P. Alekseev, is evidenced by the rather complex dwelling of Molodov I, for the inhabitants of which the number and order of mammoth bones and animal heads were of particular importance, excluding the possibility of seeing in them "only meat reserves" [1984, p. 162].

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It is impossible to ignore the numerous pits on all three objects described by A. P. Chernysh. A.D. Stolyar connects the "ras" hypothesis with the pits, which "is confirmed both by the perspective of the Upper Paleolithic and by sources retrospective in relation to Mustier" [1985, p.126]. Analyzing the pits on" the most ancient statue in the world", a clay bear of the Montespan cave, where only the claws were carefully sculpted, A. D. Stolyar proves that the bear "was hit with spears and javelins just as it happened during a real hunt." In this, the researcher sees the evolution of "the Paleolithic ritual attitude to the image and the means used in this process" [Ibid., p. 196]. Perhaps something similar was reflected in the symbolic pits on the shoulder blades and rib of a mammoth from the Molodov I site.

A. P. Chernysh writes about red and black paints that were applied to bone objects with traces of notches, lines, pits, zigzags [Molodova I..., 1982, p.55]. As suggested by A. D. Stolyar, "the use of red paint in the moustache most likely meant blood-of course, the blood of an animal, and sometimes, apparently, of a person" [1985, p. 134.]. Although the Mousterian people belonged to a completely different branch of human development than the later Upper Paleolithic people, their symbolic signs revealed their semantics in the works of late Paleolithic art. A. P. Okladnikov suggested that a woman from Lossel holds a rhyton with fresh blood in her hand, " she, like reindeer herders and hunters of the North, performed anointing and libation"[1967, p. 79]. The stability of the symbolism of red and black paint and its filling with a new meaning is observed for many subsequent millennia. Of course, in each region the meaning was manifested in its own way. The Mesolithic petroglyphs of Kogul Cave (Spain) show the figures of women in bell-shaped skirts in black and red paint. Their upper body is exposed. Women dance around a small nude male figure. According to G. Obermayer, "there are also figures of hunters chasing deer and wild bulls with bows in their hands" [1913, Fig. According to Z. A. Abramova, this scene had " a magical meaning... to ensure the fertility of women and animals" [1966, p. 86].

A comparative historical approach reveals that "the same characters-animals, people, fantastic creatures, etc. - are repeated in images belonging to obviously different cultures that do not touch each other in time and space" (Sher, 1980, p.11). Based on the semiotic approach, Ya. A. Sher considers images on monuments of ancient fine art "as elements of texts"... in the context of the ritual in which they could be created" [Ibid., p. 10].

Yu. M. Lotman draws attention "to the specific mechanisms of the relationship between the text and its addressee" and "to how the message affects the addressee, transforming his appearance. This phenomenon is due to the fact that every text (especially artistic text) contains what we would prefer to call the image of the audience, and that this image of the audience actively affects the real audience, becoming a kind of normalizing code for it. This latter is imposed on the consciousness of the audience and becomes the norm of its own self-image, being transferred from the field of text to the sphere of real behavior of the cultural collective. Thus, a relationship is formed between the text and the audience, which is not characterized by passive perception, but has the nature of a dialogue" [1992, p. 161].

This is confirmed by ethnographic sources. As P. notes: According to Wingert, all forms of visual art were inextricably linked with ceremonies and rituals and were directly or indirectly their plastic embodiment [Wingert, 1962, p. 35]. The most ancient Paleolithic drawings, which reproduced not the whole image of an animal, but only one of its characteristic features, for example, croup, horns, etc., according to S. N. Zamyatnin, "could reach from the "artist" to the "viewer" only in the process of some joint action that made it clear what was happening to them." what is depicted" [1961, p. 52]. It is possible that the ritual side of the animal's cult was connected with the parallel lines that reproduced the bear's griffads. All this suggests that two shoulder blades and a mammoth rib engraved with various lines, zigzags, sharp corners, crosses are peculiar symbols of the oldest "pantheons", and the dwelling of the site of Molodov I with its specially selected mammoth bones and a bear skull that overlapped the top of the dwelling could be a kind of dwelling-sanctuary of the " great mother"in which certain rituals and magical rites were performed. But it is impossible to say what they were and how they were performed. It is well known that parallels between the rudiments of early Paleolithic art, even the highly developed Late Paleolithic art, and ethnographic materials can be very conditional. Millennia of human development could not pass without a trace for artistic creativity. But without ethnographic materials, it is impossible to form even an approximate idea of the semantics of its original forms.

V. R. Kabo sees " in many ethnographically attested zoographic cults, first of all in the bear festivals of the peoples of the North and the Far East: the ritual killing of the beast as a condition for its subsequent rebirth, and between them, the death of the bear and the death of the bear."-

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between the death and rebirth of the beast is its collective eating" [1991, p. 48]. People believed that killing and eating the beast took place "at the level of the macrocosm - cosmos, mesocosm - society, microcosm - man", as B. Lincoln writes (see: [Ibid.]).

Considering the origin of the bear ritual, G. M. Vasilevich emphasized that it was performed only on a bear killed in a den. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Evenks of Siberia recorded a long magical rite of " burial "(flaying the carcass), after which a bear festival took place, which lasted for several days and ended with the funeral of a bear's skull. The shaman arranged kamlanie. A deer was slaughtered to purify those who were buried. "It was believed that after this, the bear's soul became an intermediary between the ekshari (master spirit of the Upper World) and people." The skin from the bear's head was passed to the shaman. In a bearskin suit, the shaman kamlal searched for the soul of the sick person (performed "treatment") [1971, p. 160, 162].

T. Andrews, who developed a system of teaching "energy" dance, writes about shamans, keepers of secret knowledge, "in the power and art of reincarnation of which the tribe firmly believed. The rhythm of their dance naturally coincided with the rhythms of nature. With the help of magic dance and various ritual costumes, shamans could cross the border between the real and the other world" [1996, p. 95].

From ethnographic sources, it is known that people who remained at the primitive stage of development carefully prepared for bear hunting. For example, hunters of the Sioux tribe (North America), who preserved the primitive way of life until the second half of the XIX century.before going hunting, they performed the "bear dance", which was accompanied by a song dedicated to the "bear soul". It was believed that then the bear was more quickly given into the hands of hunters. Wearing bear masks, people imitated the animal's movements. Some imitated its running, others depicted how, sitting on its hind legs, the bear warily watched the approach of the enemy [Catlin, 1876, p. 245]. For the same purpose, the Kwakiutl Indians (North America) showed how the bear, sitting on its hind legs, moved its powerful body: from time to time it roared and scratched the ground with its paws. In another dance, the Indians depicted an angry bear walking on all fours, tearing the ground with its claws (Boas, 1897, p. 467).

S. A. Tokarev considered the burials of cave bears and other animals made by humans to be more convincing evidence of the existence of religious beliefs in the Mousterian era than Neanderthal burials, which "could be one of the sources from which such ideas later developed" [2005, p. 33]. Numerous Mousterian-era burials found in Europe and the Middle East show that the beliefs were widespread. A detailed analysis of 18 of them allowed A. P. Okladnikov to conclude that all those buried "face either east or west, but not south or north" (1952, p. 167). The researcher explains that such coincidences in the position of the bones "can not be explained by chance. They obviously point to some common features of Mousterian burials related to the attitude of people of that time to the dead and their ideas about death" [Ibid.]. A. P. Okladnikov also considers other features that could not be accidental: "the combination of a boar's jaw and a Neanderthal skeleton in the Mugharet es Skhul cave. Even more interesting is the same combination of human and animal bones in Teshik-Tash" [Ibid.]. A. P. Chernysh (Molodova I..., 1982, p.95) also wrote about the ability of the inhabitants of the Molodova I parking lot to navigate around the cardinal directions.

Burials of representatives of the Mousterian era have not yet been found on the territory of Moldova and adjacent regions. But this does not mean that they did not exist or not. The Mousterian people buried their relatives mainly in caves and grottos that could have been destroyed in the Paleolithic and Mesolithic times; for example, only the Brynzena I grotto remained from the huge cave (Ketraru, 1989, p. 5). Therefore, it can be assumed that the Mousterian people of the Carpathian-Dniester region also performed rituals, performed rather complex rites in preparation for hunting, burying animals and relatives. Important elements in them were pantomime-reincarnation in the depicted creature, which has a cognitive impact, and dance, which infects with powerful emotional energy. Judging by the symbolic images on the mammoth bones, the Mousterian's pantomime and choreographic performances were not yet subject to certain canons.

Evidence of the formation of these canons are works of art of the early stage of the Late Paleolithic. According to N. Ketraru, the amulet from the grotto of Brynzena I, carved from a mammoth tusk, "consists of two parts. The upper one is a flat keel-shaped plate, triangular in cross-section, with a round through hole in the upper tapering part... In the middle, it forms two truncated cones. The lower part of the amulet has the shape of an irregular triangle. The upper part of the triangle is almost flat, the lower part is rounded" [Ibid., p. 7]. The lower part of the amulet resembles the left end of a longitudinally dissected bison bone from the Pronyatina site (Ukraine). Similar double triangles with rounded corners are indicated in incisor beads

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bison found in a dwelling on the Mezhirich monument (Ukraine) (Pidoplichko, 1976, fig. 82). In shape, the Brynzena I amulet resembles anthropomorphic female figurines from Mezhirich, in which the upper part of the body, neck and head are strongly stylized and stretched up. Evidence that these are female figures can be found in the "so-called shameful triangles" sharply emphasized on two figurines [Ibid., p. 203, fig. 80]. "On the right side of the upper keel part (amulet from the grotto of Brynzena I.-E. K. a dotted pattern consisting of small pits arranged in four rows is applied. In the first (upper) row there are 27 pits, in the second - 10, in the third-9, in the fourth, badly damaged lower row there are only 3 pits... The same point indentations are also applied on the surface of the lower triangular part of the figure: two rows of indentations are made on the left and lower edges, and three on the right. The junction of the keel part with the triangle is marked by three rows of pits located in a semi-oval. In the rows made along the edge of the triangular part of the figure, there are up to hundreds of pits, however, given the damage in this place, it should be assumed that there were much more of them. There are only 78 dimples in the three rows of the semi-oval " [Ketraru, 1989, pp. 7-8]. N. A. Ketraru notes rounded, irregular dimples-depressions, many of them even resemble an oval. Traces of red and dark red paint (ochre) were found on the bottom and side walls of the depressions [Ibid.].

Researchers note that "in the Bronze Age art of the Fore-East, the torsos of different animals are like two triangles" (Kamenetsky, Marshak, and Sher, 1975, p. 68). Images of animals in Saimala-Tash attract attention. "All four animals have the same body, as if composed of two triangles or, possibly, of two concave arcs with triangles enclosed between them" (Sher, 1980, p.28). It is not difficult to draw an analogy between these figures and the two truncated cones in the upper part of the amulet from the Brynzena I grotto.

This amulet, which lies in a cultural layer with a mixed industry, in which "there are objects typical, on the one hand, for the Moutier era, and on the other - for the initial stage (Aurignacian) of the Late Paleolithic", evidence of the early stage of development of the Late Paleolithic, suggests the preservation at the early stage of the Late Paleolithic signs - symbols of the era moutier. Judging by the presence of animal bones next to the amulet, and signs of long - term use on it [Ketraru, 1989, pp. 6-8], many significant symbols of the Moutier era were concentrated in this artifact from the Brynzena I grotto. In the amulet, these symbols appeared in strict subordination. A flat, triangular cross-section plate denoting an elongated body, which is connected by a semi-oval with two triangles, creates the basis for a multi-valued conditional image of a woman. From the combination of the semi-circle in the lower part of the figure with the upper round through hole, which in cross-section looks like two truncated cones, it can be assumed that the amulet embodies the image of a woman, perhaps a mother goddess or priestess performing hunting and other rites. This hypothesis is supported by points located on the pointed ledge in the form of semi-ovals with red ochre on the sides, their number is a multiple of 3 and 5. According to ethnographic data, Siberian women have been the guardians of the lunar calendar since time immemorial. By the phases of the moon, they calculated the time of delivery. Pregnancy lasts for 10 lunar months, and in the middle of this period, the first movement of the child in the mother's womb occurs [Frolov, 1981, pp. 78-79].

The magic combination of the numbers 3 and 4 can be judged by the famous bone engraving from the French Raimondin grotto. There are three figures that look like women, and four, possibly male, in total.

2. Late Paleolithic art objects. 1-a female statuette from the Kosoutsy parking lot (according to: [Borziyak and Kovalenko, 1990, p. 19, fig. 6, 2]); 2-an amulet-pendant made of marl from the Kosoutsy parking lot (according to: [Ibid., fig. 6, 4]); 3 - an amulet-pendant from the parking lot Mitok-Malul Galben (right bank of the Prut) (according to [Borziyak, 1989, p. 17, fig. 3, 6]); 4-fossil "sea urchin" (according to [Borziyak, David, Obade, 1992, p. 87, Fig. 7, 32]).

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seven. It is known that " the Sumerians used a single cuneiform symbol for the number 7 and the universe. This, obviously, is the meaning of Pythagoras 'words:" Everything is the number 7" "[Ibid., p. 83]. An example of a plastic embodiment of the magical unity of masculine and feminine principles is a female statuette from the Late Paleolithic site of Kosouci on the Middle Dniester (Fig. 2, 1) [Borziak and Kovalenko, 1990, p. 19, Fig. 6, 2]. In the image of the head, it looks like a sculpture of a woman from Savignano (Italy). The heads of both figurines resemble the head of a" combined " anthropomorphic sculpture from the area of Lake Trasimene (Italy). The essence of the latter, according to A. D. Stolyar, "consists in combining both female and male attributes in one work, which is achieved by various methods of synthesis... Usually these are images of female figures with a phallus in place of the head" [1985, p. 245].

Taking into account the magical significance of the works of Paleolithic art, it can be assumed that the statuette from the second cultural layer (its absolute age is 18,200 ± 300 years) (GIN-4148) [Borziyak, 1989, p. 12] of the Kosoutsy site, which combined the feminine and masculine elements, as well as other figurines similar to it in plastic, it could be the subject of a cult and is associated with the rites of a female deity who gives fertility to women and animals.

The hypothesis about the existence of rituals associated with female amulets in the Paleolithic can be supported by a pear-shaped mammoth tusk pendant with an artificial ear, which is a miniature schematic figure of a sitting woman, found at the Molodova V Late Paleolithic site... On the surface of the product, there is an ornament in the form of thin drawn lines (amulet?)" [Multilayered Paleolithic site Molodova V..., 1987, p.34], possibly a bear's griffad.

In the same second layer of the Kosoutsy parking lot, a marl amulet-a pendant with multi-valued symbols of female magic-was found. Its oval shape is combined with the shape of a hole drilled "from two sides in such a way that two incomplete cones are formed with their vertices facing each other" (Fig. 2, 2) [Borziyak and Kovalenko, 1990, Fig. 6, 4 on p. 19; p. 20]. The shape of the hole is the same as in the amulet from the Brynzena I grotto. The dots on the Kosouc amulet indicate two triangles connected by sharp angles; above them is a serpentine line made up of dots, extending beyond the ledge, which at one end seems to fix the vertex of the triangle, and the other overlaps the anthropomorphic figure (?) with closed legs. Another triangle is formed between the wing-shaped arm and the body (?). Researchers note on the amulet areas that are colored black, as well as patches of ochre [Ibid., 1990, p. 20], which can also be associated with female magic. It is symbolic that the number of dots in each line is a multiple of 3, 5, and 7. The notches around the perimeter could mean griffads. The ledge may have been a symbolic image of one of them. On the smooth, polished back side of the amulet "there are faint traces of wear, which probably occurred when wearing the amulet on fur clothing" (Borziyak, 1989, p. 16).

There are similarities between the pendant amulet from Kosouc (Figs. 2, 2) and the pendant amulet from the multi-layered Paleolithic site Mitok-Malul Galben on the right bank of the Prut (Figs. 2, 3). The latter is made "from the chalk crust of a flint nodule... dated 20,945 ± 850 years ago (GX-8503)" [Ibid., 1989, p. 18]. Both amulets are oval in shape. The Kosouc amulet "has two wide but shallow recesses in the lower part" (Borziyak and Kovalenko, 1990, p. 20), while the Mitok-Malul Galben amulet has one recess, but it is deep. Note that "the incisions on the edges of the amulet are made in the same way as on the amulet from Kosouc" [Borziyak, 1989, p. 18]; this indicates the connection of these griffad incisions with hunting magic. Symbolic drawings of griffad notches cover the amulet on both sides. On its edges there are seven notches, on the concave part - nine. Symbols of the genetic memory of the cave bear's terrible claws were supposed to promote hunting luck. Nine notches (a multiple of 3) on the oval symbolized the feminine principle. The magic of the number 7 was also preserved: it is recorded in notches resembling griffads around the edges of the amulet. It can be assumed that amulets with griffad notches applied to them from the grotto of Brynzena I, from the sites of Kosoutsy and Mitok-Malul Galben were used to increase the power of female magic during rites of influence on hunting luck. Rites related to female magic are well known from archaeological and ethnographic sources (Zamyatnin, 1961; Brodrick, 1948). According to A. P. Okladnikov, in the reliefs of Lossel, as in some Yakut rites, "the same scene of the magical killing of a deer unfolds, in which the hunter was only an instrument of witchcraft killing animals. The main role belongs to the conjuring women - participants of the ritual, and the supernatural forces behind it" [1967, p. 79]. Z. A. Abramova suggests "that the image of a woman of slender, elongated proportions could be related to hunting. It is quite possible that young women themselves took an active part in hunting, girls could be credited with special success, and those women who "sat by the hearth" performed rituals that contributed to this success" [1966, p. 86]. An amulet in the form of an elongated figure from the grotto of Brynzena I could represent such a woman or girl.

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The upper cultural layer of the Upper Paleolithic site of Klimeuti II is dated to 20,350 BP (LU-2481) (Borziak, David, and Obade, 1992, p. 92). The accumulation of cultural remains included mainly mammoth bones, flint products, sandstone and limestone stones. According to the researchers, it was a "rounded formation" with a diameter of 9,5-10,0 m from mostly large mammoth bones installed along the perimeter - tusks, jaws, and bones. The location of bone remains, the presence of a focus in the center, although small in size, and skulls along the inner perimeter of the cluster suggest that the object is one of the varieties of land dwellings [Ibid., p. 77]. In the context of this article, of particular interest is the head of an anthropomorphic statuette modeled from the fossil shell of a "sea urchin" found in the area of accumulation of bone remains, "apparently, which has traces of ornament and is also painted with red ochre" (Fig. 2, 4) [Ibid., p.87, Fig. 7, 32]. The spherical shape of the find resembles the head of the "Venus" from Willendorf. At the same time, a complex hairstyle or headdress on the head of the Climeuc II consisting of ten triangles with smoothed corners, the tops of which touch a semi-oval convex pommel with two rather large deep pits, evoking the eye sockets of a female figure from the Brassampouille parking lot (France), symbolizes a semantically complex image of a woman.

Thus, it can be assumed that the image of a woman served as the embodiment of the most important ideas of a person of the Paleolithic era about life and death, the well-being of the whole family and an individual. The main "priestess" was both the leader of the clan and the earthly personification of the Mother Goddess herself. Her magical connection with animals, with the moon, and possibly with the cosmos was expressed in special rites, syncretic artistic actions, in which all the main types of artistic creativity found expression. Visual art not only fixed the semantics of the rite in signs and symbols, but was also an effective part of it, according to which, to a certain extent, one can imagine the movements of dance and pantomime performed simultaneously with the creation of drawings accompanied by music. The nature of this music can be somewhat understood from the flutes found at the Upper Paleolithic site of Molodov V [Multilayered Paleolithic site Molodova V..., 1987, p. 58, 71], which "belong to the subgroup of reed instruments with side holes that determine the pitch, that is, they are similar to pipes" (Bibikov, 1981, p. 87). Using the example of the so - called musical bones collected at the Mezinsky site, S. N. Bibikov was able to show the presence of a whole "orchestra" of wind and percussion instruments among Cro - Magnons and reveal the semantic meaning of the ornaments applied to them-complex combinations of sharp angles and a meander [Ibid., pp. 51-98].

Unlike Mustier, the Upper Paleolithic era was characterized by fairly strict canons in the visual arts and in the performance of rituals and rituals. Evidence of this is not only a pear-shaped mammoth tusk pendant (a miniature schematic figure of a seated woman from Molodova V), amulets, the head of an anthropomorphic statuette from the "sea urchin", but also rhythmically accurate incisions on animal bones and bone products from the sites of Klimeuts II and Kosoutsy, symbolizing the cosmogonic worldview of stone man in numbers and intervals. centuries.

Conclusion

The analysis of works of art of the Paleolithic period of the Carpathian-Dniester region in the context of a fairly well-studied Western European artistic creativity of this period expanded the idea of the origin of art at the earliest stages of human development. Comparison of works of art from the Moutier era and the early stage of the Late Paleolithic with ethnographic data of peoples who preserved elements of ancient beliefs and rituals allowed us to trace the appearance of signs-symbols of art, which in subsequent periods revealed their deep meaning due to religious beliefs.

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The article was submitted to the Editorial Board on 23.12.09.

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