Faunal remains from the Pleistocene deposits in the Chagyrskaya Cave (evidence of 2024)

The Chagyrskaya cave is located in the Northwestern Altai on the Charysh River. It is a key site of the Sibiryachikha phase of the Middle Paleolithic in the Altai. This article presents new faunal evidence from the site. In the field season of2024, over 13,700 animal remains were extracted from Pleistocene layers 6a and 6c/1. Compared to layer 6a, layer 6c/1 contained a higher share of bone remains with anthropogenic modifications, mostly observed on bison remains. During accumulation of layer 6c/1, the cave was inhabited by the groups of Neanderthals specialized in hunting bison herds which migrated along the Charysh River valley. Despite this hunting specialization, the Neanderthals of the Chagyrskaya cave also hunted other mammals, such as horses, mountain goats, and argali, as evidenced by butchering traces on the bones. For the first time at this site, cuts were found on a bird bone. Layer 6a revealed greater predator activity and fewer human traces than layer 6c/1. It may be concluded from the distribution of the main taxa in accordance with layers and their state of preservation that the lower part of layer 6a was partially mixed with deposits of layer 6c/1. This is confirmed by presence of bones with traces of consumption by the Neanderthals and tool marks in layer 6a as well as high share of bison bones without traces ofpredator activities in layer 6a. The amount of carnivore remains in layers 6a and 6c/1 was approximately the same (18.8 and 21.5%). Most of the time the Chagyrskaya cave was inhabited by foxes, gray and red wolves, and clans of cave hyenas.