Память Великой Реки (What the River Dniepr Remembers)

The old Dniepr Memory (Translation of the Ukrainian text of the film into English) It is always very interesting to know something about history of the native country, about what was happening here on the Dniepr bancs in the ancient times. Except scientists (historians, archaeologists, geologists and paleontologists) some other people tray to solve this mystery. They are amateurs – people, who do wish to discover and announce to their compatriots knowledge about ancient history of their native country. The film is a trial of one of such amateurs to reconstruct as far as it is possible the mental pictures of the life which took place on the Dniepropetrovsk region territory during glacial period and earlier. In 1996 together with his friends he made an exhibition named “The Great River Memory” in a room of Dnieproptrovsk State University. This exhibition is base of this film. The text of narrator in the film complicated mechanical systems creation methodology I have a hobby. On our region territory I am collecting fossilized animals bones and traces of ancient people’s activity. The aim of the work is to reconstruct the life history on our territory, because that may be interesting for people of our town and somebody else. To avoid great mistakes while definition of the found things I took lessons and field practice in the Historian Museum archaeological department and its expeditions. Many times I took part in the work of archaeological expeditions under supervision of professor Dmitriy Telegin too. I want to narrate you about these search results. The search lasted for 16 years and the collected material we put in the base of the exhibition named “The Great River Memory”. I will start from the town history. The town Dniepropetrovsk (in the past Ekaterinoslav) had been established 200 ears ago on the place where the river Samara falls into the Dniepr. Here the Dniepr turns on the south and brings its water to the Black Sea. In all the times here near the fall of Samara there was wade, which was always used by people. People of the stone age, People of the Bronze Age, Indo-European people, that were going on the Nord and on the West and incalculable other people of the Iron Age - all of them crossed the Dniepr in this place. So this place for very long time was of strategic importance. And may by even sow 17-th century Pole government decided to build there a stronghold, which was destroyed later by Zaporozhsky Cossacks. The ruins of that fortress walls one may see on the right high side of the river. This is the only historical object belonging to the Middle Ages in our region. Other historical objects older than 200 years are absent in our region. Near the left side of Dniepr aside of the wade was standing an island. That was a very comfortable place to stay for a wile and representatives of the nations passing this place camped on that island if they stayed here longer than one day. The cultural layers of Igren keep memory about them. This is way I believe and may by more others are inclined to believe that the cultural layers of the Igren are very important memorials in Europe. A big quantity of dwelling-places people of Stone Age and Bronze Age were discovered by many investigators and archeological expeditions in nadporozhie (that is between Dniepropetrovsk and Zaporozhie). They were searched and described, but higher of Dniepropetrovsk the river sides were not searched and were flooded when the Zaporozhskaya hydroelectric power station building was finished. So all the archaeological memorials which were on the river sides were flooded too. Later they were partially ruined and they are being destroyed now, because the building organizations continue to take river sends of the ancient riversides in large quantities. In 1980 year, when my children become big enough and when they become very interested in history, I decided to undertake methodical search of the river sands with the purpose to collect reminders of the ancient people and their kits, which they lost or ejected on the riverside. That was as interesting as useful. At that time in different places of the riverside one could see a large hills of the sand. Towboats were brining great barges with sand to the places of their unloading. Building firms used the sand to fill up the lowlands and build on them the residential districts. The river sand was taken out by large floating machines on a significant depth (till 20 meters). That was a great possibility. To look into the depth of millenniums was a very simple thing: for that it was necessary only to get up on a river sand hill and to be able to recognize on it everything what abandoned from the ancient people activity. In due course we learned that. It was only to wait till a hard wind will blow off that hill and blow the light sand from its surface away. After that on the hill surface the heavy fraction remains. This is the same what one may see on the screen. The bigger remainder