Semyonov Sergei Aristarkhovich

Semyonov Sergei Aristarkhovich

Main article: Paleolithic in Russia

Sergey Aristarkhovich Semenov is the patriarch of Soviet and Russian trasology.

Increased attention to the remains of Paleolithic dwellings and settlements with a detailed study of the cultural layer in order to identify structural details was accompanied by persistent searches for new ways to study production activities. In this regard, then, in the 1930s, studies of microscopic traces of wear on stone tools began in order to study their functional purpose. S.A. Semenov then began to prove the possibility of using traces from use on stone tools to determine their functions. "In particular, " he wrote , "P.P. Efimenko in 1934 selected several flint guns from Kostenok I with traces of wear and tear of their work in the form of filling in certain areas. This material was used for our first studies "(Semenov S.A., 1957, p. 7). The study of mass material and the use of purposeful experimental observations made it possible to develop a method for the functional analysis of stone tools, which soon received universal recognition among specialists around the world. Deepening and expanding research in this direction on the basis of trasological and experimental data, attracting anthropological and ethnographic data, S.A. Semenov developed important provisions on the kinematics of manual labor, which ensured the disclosure of many aspects of domestic economic activity. All this made it possible to formulate the main technical trends or general patterns in the development of primitive stone tools: a decrease in the friction factor, differentiation of labor functions, expressed in the specialization of guns, an increase in power load on the gun, an increase in the speed of movement of guns in the labor process, etc. In his research, S.A. Semenov sought to reveal the meaning and role of labor, in particular, stone tools as means of labor in anthropogenesis and in the further historical development of people.