Mezine


Mezine or Mezyn is a place within the modern country of Ukraine which has the most artifact finds of Paleolithic culture origin. The Epigravettian site is located on a bank of the Desna River in Novhorod-Siverskyi Raion of Chernihiv Oblast, northern Ukraine, near the village of Mezine. The settlement is best known for an archaeological find of a set of bracelets engraved with marks possibly representing calendar lunar-cycles. Also found near Mezine was the earliest known example of a meander pattern as described by Marija Gimbutas, as part of a decorative object dated to 10,000 BCE. It was described as an object carved from ivory mammoth tusks to resemble a bird.
The bird is understood as an inherently shamanistic animal, often being a symbol of the soul or of the spirit experienced in flight.

Second site

The site now known as Mezin 22 was found in the Dnieper valley of Ukraine in 1908. At this site, archaeologists discovered a shelter constructed of mammoth bones and skin, showing the importance of the mammoth to nomadic European cultures of the early Holocene.

Symbolism

On Mezine and other sites at Yeliseevici and Timovka, Joseph Campbell comments: