Experimental Study of the Middle Paleolithic Technique from the Chagyrskaya Cave Assemblages in 2017

The article presents first and preliminary results of experimental study conducted as a part of the multidisciplinary exploration of the Middle Paleolithic complexes in Chagyrskaya Cave in 2017. Research program included physical simulation of mineral raw material knapping and stone tools production, as well as experiments on manufacturing bone tools and using the resulting bone replicas for processing organic and non-organic materials available to the inhabitants of Chagyrskaya Cave. The experiments on processing stone tools by retouchers made of long bones of large mammals have made it possible to identify the sequence traces of utilization and compare the results with the tools from the archaeological assemblage of Chagyrskaya Cave. This data forms the basis for the further experimental trace analysis of the Middle Paleolithic complexes from the Altai Mountains

Between Denisovans and Neanderthals: Strashnaya Cave in the Altai Mountains

peer reviewedNew data from Strashnaya Cave have revealed previously unknown complexity in hominin occupation of the Altai Mountains, including the first regional evidence for the presence of anatomically modern human

Taphonomie et paléobiologie des Néandertaliens de la grotte de Chagyrskaya (Altaï, Russie)

Localisé au cœur de l’Eurasie, l’Altaï sibérien constitue actuellement la frange extrême-orientale de l’aire de répartition des Néandertaliens. Parmi les gisements de cette région livrant des restes humains rapportés à cette lignée, la grotte de Chagyrskaya (Altaï, Russie) recèle la collection paléoanthropologique la plus riche. Ce corpus fait l’objet de nombreuses recherches croisées à partir des données paléogénétiques et culturelles signalant une certaine proximité entre les individus de ..

The Neandertal bone industry at Chagyrskaya cave, Altai Region, Russia

peer reviewedFor a long time, the rich bone industries of the Upper Palaeolithic were opposed to the opportunistic Neandertal bone tools among which the bone retoucher was the most common type. The recent finding of a few shaped bone tools into Mousterian contexts has been taken as an emergence of a “modern behaviour”. However, this outlook is based on biased corpuses. On one side, the large number of unshaped bone tools recently discovered in Upper Palaeolithic assemblages leads us to reconsider what a bone industry can be. On the other side, the increasing discoveries of bone tools in more ancient contexts indicates that this type of production is not strictly linked to Homo sapiens. Chagyrskaya cave, located in the Siberian Altai, brings us the opportunity to discuss this question. Dated around 50,000 years BP, the site yielded a local facies of Mousterian lithic industry associated to several Neandertal remains. A technological and functional analysis of the faunal remains reveal more than one thousand bone tools. Most are retouchers, but a significant part belongs to other morpho-functional categories: intermediate tools, retouched tools and tools with a smoothed end. Even though these tools were mainly manufactured by direct percussion, their number and the recurrence of their morphological and traceological features lead us to consider them as a true bone industry. Far from the Homo sapiens standards, this industry has its own coherence that needs now to be understood

Not so unusual Neanderthal bone tools: new examples from Abri Lartet, France

peer reviewedNeanderthal bone tools are often seen as negligible, consisting mainly of retouchers made from diaphyseal fragments and recognizable by their impact marks. One category, however, stand out, consisting of elongated pieces with blunt ends, most often on ribs, whose shaping involved scraping and abrasion and which are regarded as anticipating Upper Paleolithic. They are termed lissoir (smoother or burnisher) by typological analogy, although the diversity of their active ends suggests a greater functional diversity than this designation implies. Their apparent standardization results from the use of anatomically suitable blanks that only required the shaping of an active end. Mostly reported in older publications as isolated finds, they are beginning to be found in greater quantities through the careful examination of faunal remains. We describe here a series partly published in the 1970s, completed by new pieces thanks to a recent reassessment of the assemblage, and we consider it in a broader perspective

Neanderthal subsistence at Chez-Pinaud Jonzac (Charente-Maritime, France): A kill site dominated by reindeer remains, but with a horse-laden diet?

During the MIS 4 in Southwestern France, Quina Neanderthal from the north of the Aquitaine was characterized by a hunting specialization on the reindeer and the lack of diversity in their diet. They developed task-specific locations dedicated to the capture, the butchery, and the consumption of reindeer, and the whole society seems, in this region, to be dependent on this food resource. In this context, the site of Chez-Pinaud at Jonzac (France) occupies a specific place. First, interpreted as a reindeer kill and butchery site, the recent recovery of the site underlines the importance of the large ungulate (horse and bison) to the faunal spectrum (30% of the NISP). Considering the quantity of meat and grease that these species can provide to hunters, the new zooarchaeological analyses suggest that at least the horse may have played a major role in the diet of the Neanderthal population. Since Jonzac is one of the largest sites for this period, these results relativize the importance of reindeer specialization of the Quina population and the lack of diversityl in their diet

Stone tools reveal epic trek of nomadic Neanderthals

Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) fossils were first discovered in western Europe in the mid nineteenth century. That was just the first in a long line of surprises thrown up by our closest evolutionary cousins. We reveal another in our new study of the Neanderthals who lived in Chagyrskaya Cave in southern Siberia around 54,000 years ago. Their distinctive stone tools are dead ringers for those found thousands of kilometres away in eastern and central Europe

Multidisciplinary Studies of Chagyrskaya Cave – A Middle Paleolithic Site in Altai

The monograph discusses key results obtained in a multidisciplinary study of assemblages recovered from Chagyrskaya Cave, a unique Middle Paleolithic site of North Asia. This publication presents archaeological, anthropological, palynological, palaeontological, geological and paleogeographical data, as well as absolute age determinations. Investigations undertaken during 2007–2015 enable reconstruction of the Neanderthal subsistence strategies in the Altai Mountains foothills over several millennia. The book is addressed to scientists who study human prehistory

Bone needles from Upper Palaeolithic complexes of the Strashnaya Cave (North-Western Altai)

peer reviewedPaleolithic sites in Altai became widely known not only due to the unique paleoanthropological remains, but also because of the discovery of the traces of the non-utilitarian activity of the earliest ancient humans. In the Initial Upper Paleolithic complexes from the Denisova Cave, a numerous assemblage of ornaments and tools made of bone and antler was discovered. Up to the latest research stage the finds of bone tools were unique among the regional Initial and Early Upper Paleolithic. This situation changed with the discovery in the Upper Paleolithic assemblages from the Strashnaya cave of bone tools including various pendants, needles, points and perforators. One of the most impressive part of the bone industry from the Strashnaya cave are two bone needles. The first proximal-medial fragment of the needle with the eyelet was found at the bottom part of the Upper Paleolithic deposits (layer 33). The second find, a distal fragment, originated from the layer 31а in the upper part of the profile. The main stages of both needles manufacture and utilization were reconstructed. Taking in account the available radiocarbon dates, bone needles from the Strashnaya cave fit into a chronological interval of 44 to 19 kyr. A comparison of the bone needles with the needles from the Paleolithic sites from nearby territories made it possible to reveal analogies in the Initial and Early Upper Paleolithic complexes of the Denisova Cave, the Talbaga site (Transbaikal region ), and in the assemblages from Middle Yenisei Upper Paleolithic sites (Lystinka, Afontova Gora-2)

Reconstruction of the bifacial Technological sequence in Chagyrskaya Cave assemblage

There are three main cultural traditions in Altai’s Late Middle Paleolithic, dating back to MIS4: Denisovan, Kara-Bom, and Sibiriachikha. The Denisovan and Kara-Bom types are technologically and typologically similar and characterized by Levallois and flat parallel flaking, Levallois tools, notched and denticulate tools, as well as simple scrapers. The Sibiriachikha type significantly differs from them due to radial and predominantly orthogonal flaking accompanied by specific tool kit. In the Sibiriachikha assemblages, predominant are convergent tools such as déjeté scrapers and retouched points, typical for the European Micoquian assemblages, associated with Neanderthal human remains. The Sibiriachikha assemblages are characterized by the presence of tool-marker – plano-convex bifaces. The article presents research focused on the reconstruction of bifacial technology and conducted by means of scarpattern analysis, experiments, and mathematical statistics. The research results allowed reconstructing and verifying the main technological stages in bifacial production, distinguishing two main technological sequences of bifacial production via plano-convex and plano-convex alternate techniques. In order to treat complete pebbles, the ‘long’ sequence was used, characterized by a significant amount of technical spalls and waste products such as cortical and partly cortical, fasonnage spalls, and bifacial thinning spalls. In order to produce bifaces from flakes and thin plaquettes, the ‘short’ sequence was used, characterized by fewer technical spalls and waste products. The experiments allowed verifying the obtained results and distinguishing concrete tools used in bifacial production. The combination of statistical analysis and scar-pattern analysis indicated isolated occasions of change in archaeological bifaces