Archaeologists note that they all belong to the period of the Molo-Sheksna interglacial period, which lasted practically from 50—48 millennia BC. up to 24—23 millennia BC).

«Kostenkovo-Streletskaya culture of the early period of the Late Paleolithic, leading its beginning from the Mousterian era» (which ends with the end of the Mikulinsky interglacial), reached by the beginning of the Ostashkovsky glaciation (24—23 millennia BC) «an amazingly high degree of development, not inferior to in many respects to later archaeological cultures.»

Thus: «Achievements of the material and spiritual culture of the population of Eastern Europe during the Molo-Sheksna interglacial period underlie, in turn, the highest flowering of the late Paleolithic culture of this region, which took place in the early period of the Ostashkov glaciation.»

Archeology confirms that by the beginning of the cold snap, vast settlements existed in the center and north of the Russian Plain, which «testify to the complex domestic and economic activities, the high level of culture, reflected not only in numerous remarkable works of art, but also in a highly developed and varied homebuilding technique. These monuments allow us to draw a definite conclusion about the significant population of the preglacial zone of the Ostashkov glacier at a time when the climate became more severe. The population led a sedentary lifestyle and provided itself with stocks of vital resources for the winter.»

Archaeologists speak of «long ground dwellings with hearths in the center, surrounded by small dugouts in combination with storage pits.» In these «strong and long-term dwellings of the population of the Russian Plain» there are a large number of «grater pestles and real grain-grinding slabs of granite, quartzite and Shoksha sandstone. Cooking plant foods in ordinary ways, similar to those used in agricultural crops, in the Paleolithic is a rather rare phenomenon, but not exclusive».

The authors of «Paleolithic USSR» emphasize that «Finds of pestles-blackfishes are known in the Late Paleolithic monuments of other regions, but, perhaps, only in the south-west of the Russian Plain, they are found in such quantities, starting from the Mousterian industries and passing like a red thread through almost all the different cultural and different times of the Late Paleolithic industries».

They testify that: «In recent decades, important data have been obtained that already in the Middle and especially in the Late Paleolithic (recall that this is the ancient Stone Age from 70 thousand BC to 12 thousand BC) forms of complicated gathering began to be widely used related to the processing and preparation of plant foods. Primitive archeology now possesses massive and indisputable materials proving a long prehistory of agriculture, which began at least from the end of the Middle Paleolithic era. In the south-west of the Russian Plain, for three or four tens of millennia, peculiar stone, sandstone pestles-grains in the form of small tablets, usually found together with stone slabs, developed and improved… The wide distribution of these tools indicates that the emergence of agriculture is preceded by various forms developed, complicated gathering associated with the preliminary complex processing of the collected plant food in the form of edible roots and grains».

40—50, and maybe 70 thousand years ago, the population of the Russian Plain (our ancestors, by the way) collected cereals and ground them with grater pestles on stone graters, getting flour. Then the question arises – what were these cereals? The answer is given by the atlas-monograph «Paleogeography of Europe over the last hundred thousand years», where on the territory of the Russian Plain, during the Valdai glaciation, along with forests of birch, pine and spruce, stretching from the Carpathians to the Middle Pechora along the south-west-north east, there are huge meadow grass steppes stretching far to the north. It must be assumed that the grasses in these steppes were endemic to these latitudes, which require 18—20 hours of indirect solar irradiation and an abundance of moisture in the soil for normal vegetation. Such «plants of long daylight hours» (according to academician LS Berg) are rye, barley, oats, wheat, flax and peas. It is they who, apparently, made up the ancient meadow grass steppes of high northern latitudes.

And if this is so, then the grain had to be collected. And women, of course, did this, since even at the beginning of the 20th century, as «stingy songs» testify, this work was performed by

«girls, young people» (recording by Shane P. V., late 19th century):

«Wheat in the field

Ripe stood.

May, may,

Mayu, green!

Ripe stood

Waving a spike

Waving a spike

Her voice was hooting.

«Girls, young men,

Come out, reap!

I cannot stand, wave a spikelet!».

 
Or:
«We reaped, we reaped
Reaped, reaped, —
Young reapers
Sickles gold».
 
 
Or:
«Petrova’s wife
On your own
I went out early
Daughters-winches
Quail Daughters
I took it out with me.
«Reap, daughters-in-law,
Reap, daughters!
Winch daughters
Quail Daughters!».
 

And, finally, a full description of the process, which, apparently, has not changed in its structure from the Paleolithic to the present day, since this record was made in 1964 in the Pskov region (from E.F. Razumova):

«А я, молодЕнька, рожь топчУ.

Рожь топчУ, рожь топчУ.

Травку-муравку вытопчУ,

ВытОпчу, вытопчУ.

ЗеленОе жито вырастёт,

ВырАстет, вырастёт.

А я, молодЕнька, буду жАть,

БудУ жать, буду жАть.

И да в снОпочки вязАть,

Да вЯзать, да вязАть.

И в сарай буду возИть,

Да вОзить, да возИть.

Да на раЮ буду садИть,

Да сАдить, да садИть.

Да сАдить, да садИть.

И цепами буду молотИть,

МолОтить, молотИть.

У печи буду сушИть,

Да сУшить, да сушИть.

В квашне буду творИть,

Да твОрить, да творИть.

И рабочих всех кормить,

Всех кОрмить, всех кормИть».

Note that the Pskov dialect word «ray, paradise» is a barn (riga, threshing floor). In Sanskrit, «rai, paradise» is abundance. But in ancient times, the idea of abundance was most likely associated with grain, and therefore with its storage – the barn. After all, it is no coincidence that we still say that «bread is the head of everything», we call a generous person «hospitable» and greet guests with «bread and salt»».

It must be thought that in the Paleolithic of the Russian plain, grain collected by women in meadow grass steppes, consisting of wild sowing rye (found in the 19th century in the Kanin tundra), wild sowing wheat (a wild type of sowing spelled found in the Middle Urals), wild sowing oats, wild sowing barley, wild peas (found in the 18th century by academician I.

Lepyokhin in the Kanin tundra) and wild flax (found in the 18th century by academician I. Lepyokhin in the Kanin tundra, in the 19th century – on Timan), had to be dried and stored.

The ears were dried in sheaves, most likely in that archaic type of barn, which survived in the Russian North until the beginning of the 20th century and was called «shish». Indeed, even in the «stubble» song, recorded in the Pskov region in 1964, it is said that the sheaves should be «plant in rai», that is, placed on top of the barn’s poles, in the buried hole of which a fire was burning at that time.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that they bring the rune «Ir», which looks like a schematic representation of an ancient barn (shisha), and emphasize that the rune «Ir» is a sign of the feminine, and «in one ritual spell, the rune» Ir «is understood as» Comprehensive.»

So, after the «rai» – the barn, the grain had to be saved. Let us once again recall the long ground dwellings «of the Paleolithic inhabitants of the Russian Plain. These were very impressive structures. So in the 30s of the 20th century P. P. Efimenko, the remains of a large ground dwelling, 31 meters long and 8 meters wide, with eight hearths along the central axis and a complex heating system were uncovered in layer I of the Kostenki 1 site. Near the dwelling there were small dugouts and pits – storerooms. Let us remind you that back in the late 19th – early 20th centuries, such pits were arranged in the barn (in the barn, in the barn). They were coated with clay, then burned with straw, and covered with straw or sheaves from above.

Probably, the structure of communal grain pits came from the depths of thousands of years of Paleolithic antiquity without any significant changes.

But where there is a lot of grain, as noted earlier, mice always appears, the number of which grows exponentially over time. And in order to preserve the grain for themselves, our ancestors had to make every effort. They attracted the natural enemies of mice – owls – to the barn. How this was done, we do not know. Most likely, the owls flew in on their own. After all, mice are their natural food. And people, in gratitude for the saved harvest, began to worship owls. And women – grain collectors and housewives – gradually merged with the image of an owl – the keeper of the barn, and hence the harvest. And since it was women who were responsible for the fertility of the fields, burning straw, drying grain on fire and cooking food on fire, the duet woman – owl naturally turned into a trio: woman – owl – fire. And all this was connected with the barn. But even at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in barns: they washed like in baths, gave birth, they brought the deceased there and put straw (corn or pea) under his head.

Therefore, the image of a woman – an Owl, already in ancient times, united not only with fire, but also with water, straw, ash and ash, life and death. Already in the cultural layer of the Upper Paleolithic Mezen site in the Chernihiv region, there are figurines made of mammoth bones, which «some researchers call «birds», and others – «emale figurines». Neolithic images of women with the head of an owl found in the Russian North (6—4 thousand BC) were mentioned earlier. In Tripoli (Eneolithic 4—3 thousand BC), female figurines with owl heads were sculpted by adding grain and flour to soft clay, and such images of goddesses were found at every grain mill in the «sanctuary of bread» found by archaeologists. And here it makes sense to cite one of the mysteries that existed in the Totemsky district of the Vologda province at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (materials of the Ethnographic Bureau of Prince V. N. Tenishev):

«The owl flew out

From the red window

Sela Owl

Four pillars».

Here, the owl symbolized the «rug of bread taken out of the oven».

In Tripoli, the belly of the owl-headed goddess of bread is sometimes guarded by two snakes. Goddesses with snakes will also go through millennia, reaching the beginning of the 20th century in North Russian embroidery. Summing up the above, we can say after Robert von Ranke Graves: «Ancient Europe did not know any gods, there was only one Great Goddess, and only she was revered as immortal and unchanging.» The only addition to this text will be – Eastern Europe, since Western Europe until the turn of 4—3 thousand BC the Indo-Europeans with their Great Goddess Mother Sova did not know, and they, in turn, did not live in Western Europe.

Over time, the ancient deity of earth, abundance, fire and water, life and death Owl-Mother-in-law received many different names: Gaia, Aditi, Rhea, Cybele, Astarta, Ishtar, Lilith, Ma, Divia, Rato, Lato.

Academician B. A. Rybakov wrote: «The area of ethnographic veneration of mother Lada is very wide: it completely includes the entire land of the Balts – Hyperboreans (both in the Latvian-Lithuanian and Slavicized Great Russian part), the entire territory of the Proto-Slavs and all areas of later Slavic settlement. In the Bronze Age, the cult of Lato reached Greek Crete, where it met with the local cult of Demeter and Persephone. It is possible that the primitives knew the cult of Lato (Latona) – Lada.»

It was already noted earlier that the two daughters of the titan Kay, whom ancient Greek mythology placed on the shores of the Kronian (Arctic) Ocean and whose city the Vologda ritual song calls «our homeland», Leto and Asteria were embodied in the images of quails. It was in the images of a quail and a quail that Zeus and Leto were married – the parents of Artemis and Apollo of Hyperborean.

But here we have a Russian Christmas song recorded in the middle of the 20th century in the Kirov region:

Dil-dil, quail,

Yes Lada, young!

Yes there, yes I flew here,

Yes dil-dil, quail,

Lada, young!

Yes, yes, yes, I gave wings to this,

Yes dil-dil, quail,

Lada, young!

Lada-quail, probably at a later stage of plow farming, became another image of the bird goddess associated with the Earth and the live.

But she still could not replace the Owl-Mother-in-law until the end. The owl Mother Goddess, in the process of migration of the peoples who worshiped her, had new names: the Sumerian-Akkadian Ereshkigal, depicted with an owl in his hand; Lilith – Ishtar – Astarte with owl quills and paws, standing between two owls; Egyptian Neith with her later hypostasis – Nephthys, whose most ancient name sounds like Lun (that is, Owl); The Great Mother of the Gods Rhea – Cybele, on the armrests of the throne of which were placed two owls; «Owl-eyed» Tethys-Tefida, wife of the Ocean; Hera – «Mother-in-law», according to one of the versions of the myth – the granddaughter of «owl» Tethys; and, of course, «owl-eyed» Athena, about which they write the following: «Athena is one of the most important figures not only in Olympic mythology, she is equal in importance to Zeus and sometimes surpasses him, rooted in the most ancient period in the development of Greek mythology – matriarchy. In power and wisdom, she is equal to Zeus… her place is closest to Zeus… The ancient zoomorphic past of the goddess is indicated by her attributes – a snake and an owl. Homer calls Athena „owl“, the Orphic hymn – „motley snake“ … Athena goes back to the image of the goddess with snakes of the Cretan-Mycenaean period. An owl and a snake guarded the palace of the goddess with the shield of the Mycenaean time – the prototype of the Olympic Athena… Athena herself was thought of as fate and the Great Goddess – the mother, who is known in archaic mythology as the parent and destroyer of all living things.»

Recall that in the tradition of Russian Christmas-time fortune-telling about the fate of the Owl heralds both death and the birth of a child.

Speaking of ancient Greek Athena, the Encyclopedia of Myths notes the following: «The powerful, terrible, owl-eyed goddess of the archaic… she demands sacred reverence for herself, no mortal can see her.»

Note that the most ancient Egyptian goddess of the first dynasties (beginning of 3 thousand BC) – Nate (Neath) was an analogue of Athena. Recall that it was her image in the temple of Sais that was always covered with a veil. The name of Nate’s late hypostasis, Nephthys, sounded like «Lun.» Nate herself was the patroness of the city of Lunit, which the ancient Greeks also called Latopolis – the city of Lato (Lunit).

Let us specially repeat that Herodotus identified Neith with Athena, and that the Hittite-Hurite goddess «Shavushka» (Owl) is close to Neith. In connection with the city of Lunit, we present the text of a Russian ritual song, which became by the beginning of the 20th century children’s nursery rhyme»:

Owl is an owl, big head,

Sits on an oak tree, turns his head.

Little owl, little owl – a big head,

Where have you been, who have you seen?

I flew, owl, a big head

To a feast, to a gazebo.

They saw me as a little owl – a big little head,

Two white moon, two lovely friends.

Loonies are also owls, one of their varieties. Apparently, their name directly unites these birds with the Moon, with lunar cults.

In this context, it is interesting that the image of the Sumerian Ishtar (Lilith) with owl’s wings and paws, standing between two owls (beginning of the 2nd millennium BC), is perceived as a direct illustration of the above «nursery rhyme».

Perhaps it was this structural scheme, born in deep Paleolithic antiquity, then, with the development of cattle breeding and the domestication of the horse, was replaced by the one we know well – the Mother Goddess with two horses or two riders on the sides.

Note that Athena was called: Pandros (All-Moist), Aglavra (Light-Air), Agravla (Poleborozdnaya).