Yurii Heorhiiovych Kolosov (to the 100th Anniversary of His Birth)

Kolosov Yurii Heorhiiovych — prehistorian, Palaeolithic archaeologist, Doctor of History, born on March 21, 1924 in Kyiv, died on March 1, 2002. Participant of the World War II, lieutenant major, artilleryman, fought on the Baltic and 2nd Ukrainian fronts, was repeatedly wounded. He was awarded the Orders of the Patriotic War, I and II class, and many medals. He graduated from the Faculty of History of Kyiv University (1949). Since 1949, he had worked in the Crimea and the Urals, at the Integrated Research Karst and Speleological Station (KNIKSS) at Moscow State University (later the Crimean Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences). Since 1952, he had worked at the Department of History and Archaeology of the Crimean Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and from 1954 to 1998 — at the Prehistory department of the Institute of Archaeology of the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences (later — the Department of Stone Age Archaeology of the IA NAS of Ukraine). He is a specialist in the Palaeolithic of Ukraine, a recognised expert on the Palaeolithic of the Crimea, and a discoverer and researcher of many dozens of Palaeolithic sites. The multilayered Neanderthal sites of Zaskelna V, Zaskelna VI, Sary-Kaya, Chervona Balka, Alioshyn Grot, Prolom I and II, Kabazi II and V and others discovered and explored in the 1970s and 1980s by the Crimean Palaeolithic Expedition led by him are part of the golden fund of national and European Palaeolithic studies. He made a significant contribution to the enrichment of the source base on the prehistory of Ukraine, in particular to the study of the Middle Palaeolithic of the Crimea, worked fruitfully in the field of cultural differentiation and periodisation of the Middle Palaeolithic sites of the peninsula, technology and typology of lithic artefacts, and developed the issues of interaction between early man and the environment. He is the author of 110 scientific works, including monographs on topical issues of Palaeolithic studies. Kolosov’s research largely determined the direction of studies of the Crimean Palaeolithic in the second half of the 20th — first quarter of the 21st centuries and undoubtedly represents a separate independent chapter in the history of Eastern European Palaeolithic studies. Zaskelna VI (Kolosovskaya), one of the sites he spent many years of his life researching, is named in his honour.