Abstract
The Amur locations of the petroglyphs of Sikachi-Alyan (the Khabarovsk Territory) stand out among the sites with rock art in Russia and the world for their “mobility”. Petroglyphs are found here on boulders located in the floodplain of the river Amur and are annually exposed to floods and ice drifts. It is quite obvious that in this case the boulders can move, and the petroglyphs can be destroyed. However, until recently, it was not possible to obtain quantitative characteristics of these movements, which led researchers to erroneous conclusions about the nature of the movement of boulders. Within the framework of a joint project of the Institute of Archaeology Russian Academy of Sciences and the Khabarovsk Regional Center for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments to monitor the state of petroglyphs of the Lower Amur and Ussuri at the Sikachi-Alyan I and Sikachi-Alyan II sites in 2017–2021 aerial photography was carried out with a UAV, based on the results of which digital relief models were built for the areas of boulders with petroglyphs in the floodplain. Comparison of these models made it possible to objectively determine the numerical characteristics of the movements of boulders with petroglyphs and assess the degree of impact of floods and ice drifts on the preservation of the rock art site.
Keywords
Rock art, petroglyphs, monitoring, destruction factors, the Lower Amur.
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