The structural and chemical composition of the colored layer located on the surface of a female statuette made of a mammoth tusk from the East Gravettian site of Kostenka 1, layer I, age of 23-21 thousand years, was studied using the IR reflection spectroscopy method. The site is located on the territory of the village of Kostenka in Khokholsky district of Voronezh region of Russia. The statuette was at the bottom of a storage pit with remnants of red paint. The paint layer on the figure consists of alumina and gypsum, the coloring pigments are mainly iron oxides. The obtained data allow to suggest that the technology used by the Paleolithic artist in painting the statuette of the Paleolithic Venus included a stage of preliminary preparation of the surface — priming of the treated surface using gypsum.

Zolotarev V. M. Khlopachev G. A. National Research University ITMO, St. Petersburg, Russia. Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences Peter the Great (Kunstkamera), St. Petersburg, Russia. Fragments of mammoth tusk and handicrafts made from this material, discovered during excavations of the Upper Paleolithic site of Yudinovo (outskirts of the village of Yudinovo, Pogarsky District, Bryansk Region, Russia), were studied by vibrational spectroscopy. The site consists of cultural horizons of different times, 15,000-13,500 years ago. (lower) and 12,500-12,000 years ago. (upper). The influence of the burial conditions on the relative content of A1, A2 and B carbonates and molecular water in the studied samples was studied. It is shown that the samples from the upper and lower cultural horizons of the site correspond, according to the classification of carbonate distribution, to apatite crystals of the A-B CAp type. The factors influencing the spectroscopic characteristics of the samples have been established, of which the lithological and moisture characteristics of the enclosing sediments should be considered the main ones.