Anthropological finds in the mesolithic layers of the Dvoynaya cave (North-Western Caucasus)

The paper describes results of the study of two separate paleoanthropologicalfinds in the Mesolithic layers of the Dvoynaya cave (North-Western Caucasus). By doinga complex expertise, the scholars managed to identify two female proximal phalangesof two individuals of different ages. The level of morphological differences suggeststhat there was a high individual variability of the Mesolithic population living in thisregion and, most likely, one population group was replaced by another group duringtransition from the Early to the Late Mesolithic. Consequences of ritual truncation of littlefingers described for the Mesolithic females of the Crimea have not been identified inthe Dvoynaya cave finds, though specific structure of one of the phalanges may imply thatthe movement of this finger was restricted for a long time