Introduction

In 1985, we published the first article on primitive aquaculture [Rakov and Brodyansky, 1985] and a year later - its popular presentation [Brodyansky and Rakov, 1986]. As the first argument proving the cultivation of the Pacific oyster (Crassostrea gigas), the species composition of mollusks presented in shell heaps on the shores of Peter the Great Bay was given: oysters absolutely dominated, although Gray's mussel, three species of scallops, spizula, cockerel and various other commercial mollusks live and are very numerous in the bay. The second argument is the age composition of the oysters produced. There were no shells of fingerlings in the waste from fishing or their share was very small (Cape Shelekh - 4 %, Naizdnik Lagoon-10 %), despite the fact that in the modern oyster beds of Peter the Great Bay, juveniles (cham) account for up to 60% of the total number (Fig. 1). There were practically no shells of old ones either. shellfish (more than three or four years old), whereas in modern populations you can always find oysters aged 10-15 years and older (oysters often live more than 40-50 years). The obvious sorting of the catch was confirmed both on the Sandy Peninsula and at the mouth of the Gladkaya River. In subsequent publications, we gave detailed arguments for the existence of primitive aquaculture in Eastern Asia (Brodyansky and Rakov, 1996, 1997; Rakov, 2003; Rakov and Brodyansky, 2006; etc.). The observations made were related to the Yankovo culture; its modern dating is from the 8th-1st centuries. Yankovtsy sowed barley, millet, raised pigs, cows, ate dog meat, caught approx. 30 species of fish (sea, passing, river) were hunted for ungulates, marine animals, waterfowl and hog birds. In this complex economy, the cultivation of oysters by people familiar with metals (cast iron and bronze products along with tools made of stone, horn, and bone) did not seem to contradict the general level of culture. Contemporaries of the Yankovites in China bred fish, grew seaweed in shallow waters.

In 1987, research began on a multi-layered monument in Boysman - Boysman Bay. Its lower layers are formed by layers of shells; 99% of them are Crassostrea gigas leaves from nearby oystercatchers found under the Riazanovka riverbed. First radiocarbon dates obtained from shells for the lower three layers, - 6 500, 6 200, 5 829 l. n. On average, oyster leaves were 1% under one year of age and 14% under two years of age, while the rest (85 %) were older and ranged in size from 8 to 22 cm (Brodianski and Rakov, 1992, p. 30).

We came to the conclusion that oyster cultivation was already practiced in the Neolithic period. Subsequent long-term excavations of the Boysman II monument under the leadership of A. N. Popov made it possible to identify and study the Boysman Neolithic culture (Popov, Chikisheva, Shpakova, 1997; Brodianski, 1996), which was attributed by A. N. Popov to the Middle Neolithic and dated 6 825 - 4 470 L. N. (more than 40 dates) [2006].

Boysmans hunted marine animals: larga, seals, sea lions, gray whales, sharks (bones and sculptural images of these animals were found); deer, roe deer, wild boar, elk, birds; lo-

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1. Oystercatcher and other organisms on the surface of the shells of" wild " Pacific oysters (according to (Washington Department..., 2004)).

wili in a large number of pilengas and 17 other fish species. Monument to Boysman II-a fishing camp on the shore of the lagoon. On the excavated site of 400 m2 (the total area of the monument is 600 m2), two dwellings were discovered, two burial grounds - 12 burials of 36 people, ritual complexes, shell layers (up to 106 layers with a thickness of 1.2 m), 42 species of mollusks were identified in them; Crassostrea gigas leaves account for 98-99% in each of the six powerful layers of shells.

In 1991-1993, we sorted and counted oyster flaps: by size, age, and separately upper and lower flaps. X-rays showed that the clams were exposed to heat - an effective way to open the shells and extract the meat. Oyster meat contains a high amount of glycogen, protein and fat, it is nutritious and healing. One adult clam produced 25-35 g of meat. Oyster clusters are highly productive, comparable to the productivity of highly industrial livestock farms. A square meter of modern oyster farm in Peter the Great Bay produces a maximum of 2-3 kg of oyster meat. Oysters live in brackish water reservoirs at a depth of no more than 7 m, mostly from 3 m to the water's edge. On oyster beds, mollusks are firmly fused with each other, juveniles are attached to adults; because of the sharp edges of the valves, it is almost impossible to separate them. With the help of a wooden stick or special forceps, the fused oysters are removed from the water in whole piles, and then sorted. If juveniles attached to empty shells or separated from adult mollusks are placed back in the water, they usually all survive and continue to grow. In addition, oysters retain their viability even after being exposed to the air for two to three weeks.

In recent decades, in many countries of the world, natural oysters are practically not extracted in the sea, but only cultivated, because it is much easier and more efficient to grow them than to fish. Today, more than 2 million tons of oysters are grown annually, which is about 1.5 % of the total volume of biological resources withdrawn from water. There are many ways of cultivation, including very primitive and archaic ones that have developed since time immemorial in various areas of the World's oceans. The Far East had its own characteristics of oyster cultivation, taking into account physical and geographical conditions (the magnitude of tidal fluctuations in sea level, ice formation, the presence of natural substrates-collectors for collecting larvae and growing spat, etc.).

The almost complete absence of oyster leaves in the shell layers of the Boysman II monument for up to a year, as well as their small percentage in the Yankovsky shell heaps, indicate that the mollusks were sorted before they were put into boiling water or a fire. At the same time, young leaves of the non-commercial bivalve mollusk Trapezium liratum, which lives only on oyster shells, are well preserved at the Boysman II monument.

The above observations formed the basis for the conclusion we made back in the 1980s: oyster heaps of two coastal crops - Boisman and Yankovsky-are monuments of aquaculture, or oyster farming.

Aquaculture

Subsequent studies of previously obtained materials and new observations made it possible to comprehensively argue for the existence of ancient aquaculture in the Boisman and in a number of neighboring Neolithic cultures of Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Here are our arguments.

1. There is an absolute predominance of oyster flaps in the shell layers. In Boisman Bay, there are large colonies of Gray mussels, the largest accumulation of Sakhalin spizula in Primorye, significant accumulations of scallop, nearby, in Lake Baikal. Large reserves of corbicula - all these types of mollusks were extracted by Boysmans, but their share together with other commercial species (meretrix, anadara, etc.) was insignificant (no more than 1.5% of the total mass of shells).

2. The age composition of discarded oyster flaps indicates selective sorting : there are practically no juvenile shells in the Boysman strata.

3. In the lower layer there were still oyster wings up to 30 cm long, in the second - fifth layer there were shells of two - to four-year-old mollusks,

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2. Method of bottom oyster cultivation (according to Garrido-Handog, 1990).

5 - 12 cm long. In the 1920s, when the local population extracted oysters from oyster cans, their size reached 27-31 cm (Razin, 1928).

4. On the leaves there are no or strongly smoothed radial ribs, there are no spikes and festoons, the ratio of the height of the shell to the length is approximately 2: 1, the area of attachment of the lower leaf is small (5-20 %), there are clear prints of attachment to other shells. According to all these characteristics, Boisman (and Yankee) oysters differ from oysters from natural or" wild " oysters. All the studied shell heaps contain exclusively lagoon forms of these mollusks.

5. Oysters from natural populations usually have remnants and traces of epifauna on the surface of their flaps (houses of polychaete worms, barnacles, colonies of bryozoans, sponges, etc.). Large shells are usually affected by borers. On the leaves of shell heaps, these signs are rare, which is typical for cultivated mollusks.

6. Almost all layers are dominated by upper leaves; on the Sandy one, they are twice as large. The lower ones are more convex and have a larger surface area, so they were used as collectors for attaching larvae or for collecting spat. In China and other countries, most shells are returned to the sea.

7. The total volume of shell heaps on the coast of Peter the Great Bay is not less than 150 thousand m3 (this is without taking into account the destroyed ones), they contain shells of approximately 1.5 - 2 billion tons. adult oysters. The commercial stock of these mollusks in the bay does not exceed 5 million; the annual production in the 30s of the XX century was 50-60 thousand tons. Shell piles could only be formed by cultivating oysters. The productivity of a cultivated plantation increases from 2-3 to 25 - 30 kg of meat per 1 m2 (Fig. 2). In the Gulf of Posieta, to fill the Yankovsky shell heaps, it would be necessary to fish an area of 150 km2 annually, but this is unrealistic. In the case of extensive aquaculture, 50 ha of plantations (0.5 km2) are sufficient to produce a yield of 2 tons per 1 ha, which is close to the area of existing oyster farms.

8. Oyster reefs - artificial plantations. Bioherms were found in the Naizdnik Lagoon 20 m from the Yankovskaya shell pile, in the Riazanovka riverbed 170 m from the Boysman II monument (the date of 6,100 BP obtained from the reef sash [Mikishin et al., 2002] coincides with the dating data of shells from the lower layers of the monument). Six drilled wells have shown that these reefs are 1.5 to 5 m wide, rise 0.5-1 m above the river bed and go to a depth of 3.4 m; they stretch for hundreds of meters. An oyster reef was found in the channel of the Gladkaya River (across it): length 80 m, width 6-8, thickness 2 m, the date 4,480 ± 90 BP was obtained from the leaves (SOAN-4174). The same reefs are found at the mouth of the Tsukanovka River, the age of the shells is 4,100 ± 65 years (SOAN-3762). There are still oyster reefs in the Expedition Bay. Drilling showed that their bases go to a depth of up to 12 m. Dates from the upper parts of these reefs were found to be in the range of 5-4 Ka BP.

9. The bottom system of oyster breeding, created by the Boysmans and Yankees, was preserved in the world until the middle of the XX century. In the United States, oyster reefs are still used off the Atlantic coast. Bottom culture consists of placing on the bottom of the substrate (reservoirs) for settling planktonic larvae. Stones, sticks, and clam shells (the same oysters) were used as collectors.

10. Introduction and acclimatization of Crassostrea gigas were discovered in ancient times on Sakhalin (Lake Nevskoe, Gulf of Patience) and on the western coast of the Tatar Strait (Sovetskaya Gavan and Chikhacheva bays) (Rakov, 2001). Near the mouth of the Poronai River, 27 settlements with shell heaps were found on narrow sandbanks separating brackish Lake Nevsky from the Gulf of Patience (Vasilevsky and Golubev, 1976, pp. 11, 131-133, 159; Fedorchuk, 1998, p. 153). Hundreds of tons of Crassostrea gigas shells were deposited in them, despite the fact that the nearest live oystercatcher was preserved in Busse Lagoon, 320 km away, and the northern limit of the oyster range is 500 km to the south. These mollusks reproduce at water temperatures not lower than 18-20°C, and at temperatures below 15°C their larvae die. In the Gulf of Patience in August (the warmest month), the average water temperature is 9°C. During the climate change period-

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It was 1-2°C higher than the Holocene chemical optimum. Along the eastern coast of Sakhalin, the cold East Sakhalin current runs from north to south, preventing the introduction of oyster larvae into the Gulf of Patience. The only possible conclusion: oz. Nevsky was inhabited by oysters in ancient times by people who introduced and acclimatized Crassostrea gigas. From there, this mollusk apparently got into the bays of Sovetskaya Gavan and Chikhacheva, where oystercatchers have survived to this day.

11. On the Boisman II monument, models of boats of two types were found carved out of horn: with a shallow cockpit - for swimming on the lagoon and with a deeper one - for going out to sea (Brodyansky and Rakov, 2003). So the Boysmans had boats to work on oyster boats.

These arguments are exhaustive evidence: the Boysmans were engaged in aquaculture. Perhaps there are no wooden tongs or levers for pulling oyster drusas from the reefs. We hope that skeptics will not require us to produce Neolithic wooden tools. But, perhaps, among the horn products, there is also a model of such a tool.

Archaeological and historical context

The Boisman culture in Primorye was replaced by native Zaisanov culture-more numerous farmers, pig breeders, and fishermen. In the south of the region, at the mouth of the Gladkaya River (Zaisanovka-7) and in Posyet, two Zaisanov shell heaps were discovered. In them, oyster flaps are interspersed with a mass of rapana shells - the main oyster exterminator. Obviously, the Zaisanovites used the oyster reefs left by their predecessors, but they were not engaged in oyster cultivation and protection, so the oysters became objects of the rapan invasion.

According to T. A. Chikisheva and E. G. Shlakova, the Boysmans are Arctic Mongoloids (Popov, Chikisheva, and Shpakova, 1997). Among the works of art of the Boisman culture, images of Beringian mythology are presented: A raven, a dissected wolf, a loon, a "seal bringing a whale", a Mistress of the sea. The picture is complemented by the maritime orientation of the economy. The culture can rightly be called Proto-Beringian. In Primorye, Boisman ceramics are found in the area of the village. Olga (Blue Rocks). In the Gulf of Vladimir, there was a powerful oyster pile; the settlement of Rakushka was even named after it. The shell from this pile, unfortunately destroyed, is dated to 6 000 AD. The currents could not bring oysters into Vladimir Bay; it is probably a trace of the Boysman advance to the north.

In the north of the DPRK, the Sophohan multi-layered monument is known; its two lower layers are Boisman (Kim Yong Gang and So Kuk Tae, 1972). To the south, in the lower layer of Osanni, ceramics close to the Boysmanian type were found [Muze..., 1984, 1985]. Even further south, such ceramics are found in the lower layers of the Tonsamdong shell pile (Lee Sung-kyung, 1996).

In Japan, 3 thousand shell heaps are known, mainly Dzemonsky. One of the most detailed reports on the Jomon period (Kobayashi, 2004) does not contain any information about aquaculture. The Kasori Museum catalog [Kasori..., 1992] reports about 1000 shell heaps on the coast of Tokyo Bay. Among them, there are giant ones, for example, Nakazato with an area of 4.4 hectares and a capacity of 4.5 m, it was called a "seafood processing plant" (Kozhevnikov, 1998, p. 54, 165). According to Hiroko Koike's calculations, oyster beds in Tokyo Bay, from which oysters were extracted, were located within a radius of 15 km, which made it possible to visit the plantation and return home in one day (Hiroko Koike, 1986). The massive shell heaps on the Tokyo Bay coast are undoubtedly monuments of Neolithic aquaculture.

Significant kyokkenmedings are concentrated on the Liaodong Peninsula and islands near it (Xiaozhushan, Lishishan, Guojiacun, Yujia); evidence of agriculture and animal husbandry has been found in them [Brodyansky, 1995, p.111], but there are no data necessary to identify aquaculture. The same situation is observed in South-East Asia (Mc Duong, 1978, p. 128; Boriskovsky, 1966, p. 72-101; Higam, 1984). On the Atlantic coast of Europe, shell heaps have been the focus of archaeologists ' attention since the first exploration of Danish Kjekkenmedings. Their predominant species is often oyster, and most likely they were cultivated oysters (Zvelebil, 1986; Price and Petersen, 1987). Powerful shell piles of oyster flaps are also known on the American continent.

Modern aquaculture is a powerful producer of food and a variety of raw materials, a progressive industry around the world. Sometimes, however, aquaculture is understood as the whole complex of bioresource enrichment-from protection to reproduction (Vinogradov, 1978). We believe that a narrower understanding of the term, including the introduction, preservation of juveniles, their seeding and rearing, is also legitimate. In the case of the Pacific oyster, this entire cycle has been carried out and controlled by humans since the Neolithic; minimal evidence has been collected for the Sea of Japan basin, and exhaustive for the Boisman culture. We believe that in the Neolithic period, in addition to agriculture and cattle breeding, a third branch of food production was created - aquaculture.

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The article was submitted to the Editorial Board on 25.01.07.

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