Paleoenvironment, the stone age. Рубрика в журнале - Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia
The Early Paleolithic Age site and the bifacial lithic industries of Southeast Asia
Статья
Бесплатно
Статья научная
This article discusses difficulties in the use of Japanese archaeological terminology, especially with regard to the Jōmon period. The history of the notions of “style”, “type”, and “form” is outlined, which are the most adequate concepts for the interpretation, classification, and description of new styles of the Jōmon pottery. The evolution of the terms is traced using the works by Yamanouchi Sugao and Kobayashi Tatsuo. Their basic views on the typology of Jōmon artifacts and the notions behind the key terms are described.
Бесплатно
The Vengerovo-2A Neolithic cemetery, Southwestern Siberia: results of a multidisciplinary study
Статья
Бесплатно
Статья научная
Over the recent decade, abstracts of many thousands of folktales recorded in Europe and Asia have been added to our Electronic Catalogue of World Mythology and Folklore. Their analysis reveals systematic parallels between the traditions of Western Eurasia and America, those of the Plains Indians in particular. Such motifs are especially apparent in Ancient Greek mythology (Phaethon’s fall, Pasiphae and the bull, cranes attacking dwarfs, etc.). Although they have been known since the 19th century, no explanation for them could be proposed for a long time. The situation changed thanks to recent advances in Siberian paleogenetics. Before the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum, Eastern Siberian populations (Yana RHS and Malta) exhibited European affinities. By the mid-Holocene, population replacement occurred. It was not abrupt, but eventually resulted in a breakup of the initial cultural continuum spanning the Eurasian boreal zone and later extending to the New World. Many of the Western Eurasian–American motifs are episodes from stories of adventures. On the other hand, parallels between traditions of the Indo-Pacific rim of Asia and America mostly relate to motifs that are mythological in the narrow sense (etiological and cosmological), including early ones, evidently stemming from Africa. From the Hunno-Sarmatian, if not Scythian age onward, Southern Siberian and Central Asian motifs had been transferred to Western Eurasia on a large scale. Classical sources mirror an earlier stage of European mythology, hence the difference between the Ancient Greek set of motifs and that peculiar to later European traditions.
Бесплатно
The earliest Paleolithic assemblages from Denisova cave in the Altai
Статья научная
The article presents the results of multidisciplinary studies of the Early Middle Paleolithic assemblages from the lower part of the Denisova Cave Pleistocene sequence in the East Chamber and the Main Chamber of the cave. Data on geochronology, small and large vertebrate fauna, palynology, stratigraphy and micromorphology of sediments containing the earliest archaeological fi nds at the site, as well as on petrography, traceology and archaeozoology are presented. We des cribe human fossils and aDNA studies based on them. These materials demonstrate that the fi rst inhabitants of the cave and those associated with the Early Middle Paleolithic traditions were Denisovans. On the basis of the collection, which includes over 35,000 artifacts, the technology and typology of the Denisova industry are reconstructed. We focus on the comparison of the Denisova Early Middle Paleolithic with chronologically closest industries of North and Central Asia. The most similar industry is the Acheulo-Yabrudian of the Near East. Parallels concern primary reduction techniques and tool types. A hypothesis explaining the appearance of Middle Paleolithic traditions in Southern Siberia is proposed. We demonstrate continuity in the evolution of the lithic industries of Denisova up to the autochthonous emergence of the Upper Paleolithic ca 50,000 years ago.
Бесплатно
The early Neolithic complex on the Tartas-1 site: results of the AMS radiocarbon dating
Статья
Бесплатно
The incipient Neolithic of the Kurile islands: the culture of long barrows
Статья научная
This study introduces a recently discovered Neolithic culture of insular Northeast Asia. The initial stage of the Kurile Neolithic is described using findings from the 2019–2020 excavations at Kitovyi-2 and -4 on Iturup Island, the Greater Kurile Chain, Sakhalin Region. Several types of Neolithic feature were first revealed on the Kuriles by excavating large areas. The site includes dwellings mostly of two types–terranean with wooden frames that are not dug into the ground, and semisubterranean. Artifacts include linear-relief pottery and retouched bifacial stone tools on flakes and entire singularities, processed by advanced polishing. For the first time on the Kuriles, long barrows encircled by basalt plates along the perimeter were detected. These structures with evidently non-utilitarian enclosures made of plates, tentatively identified as places for cremation burials and funerary rites, indicate symbolic behavior. On the basis of this key criterion, we propose to attribute Kitovyi-2 and -4 to the culture of long barrows. Stratigraphic evidence, supported by radiocarbon analysis, allows us to establish the initial stage of the Kurile Neolithic, dating to 13.0–8.5 cal ka BP.
Бесплатно
Статья
Бесплатно
Статья
Бесплатно
Upper Paleolithic of the Yenisey: new discoveries, old debates
Статья научная
This paper integrates the results of studies relating to the Upper Paleolithic of the Yenisey, collating traditional ideas with fi ndings made in the latest decades. Excavations on the Upper and Middle Yenisey are being carried out by several research teams. Sites representing the hitherto little known Early Upper Paleolithic (Yasnoye I, Afontova Gora II-Sklon) have been discovered, but so far the fi ndings do not suffi ce for their cultural attribution. The key site for that period in the region remains Malaya Syia, for which a series of new dates ranging between 34–29 ka has been generated. Traditions revealed there continued at a later site, Sabanikha. The Middle Upper Paleolithic is characterized by the prevalence of various blade industries, which in most cases cannot be separated into clear-cut groups resembling archaeological cultures. Certain industries are archaic, with Mousterian-like lithic assemblages and elaborate bone and tusk processing (Kurtak IV). During the later phase of the Pleistocene, along with cultures such as the Afontova and Kokorevo, blade industries survived, continuing traditions of the preceding stage (Golubaya I, Maltat, Konzhul). A peculiar variant of the Upper Paleolithic has been identifi ed, combining features of both cultures and a series of foliated bifaces (Kuibyshevo II). Discussions are ongoing around the effect of various factors on the cultural differentiation, including the relationship between the Afontova and Kokorevo cultures.
Бесплатно
Статья научная
Primary reduction techniques used at the site of Kara-Bom in the Altai Mountains, are analyzed using the refi tting method. In previous studies, the Kara-Bom assemblages provided the basis for reconstructing the evolution of lithic industries in the Altai Mountains over most of the Middle Paleolithic and at the early stages of the Upper Paleolithic (ca 60–30 ka BP). Under the new stratigraphic subdivision of Kara-Bom, four habitation stages are described. The refi tting of artifacts from the Middle Paleolithic (MP2) layer indicates Levallois unidirectional convergent fl aking aimed at producing points and blades as a co-product of reduction sequences. Based on cores and groups of spalls from the Upper Paleolithic layers UP2 and UP1, the variation of Upper Paleolithic reduction techniques is reconstructed and a conclusion is made that signifi cant changes in core reduction occurred: the Middle Paleolithic (Levallois) fl at unidirectional technique gave way to bidirectional volumetric subprismatic and prismatic reduction of the Upper Paleolithic type. The Kara-Bom assemblages appear to have been stable variants of blade technology aimed at producing large and medium-sized blades as well as reduction of narrow-faced cores aimed at producing bladelets. The comparison of Kara-Bom with contemporaneous industries of northern and eastern Central Asia suggests that the earliest Upper Paleolithic assemblages (before 35 ka BP) show a marked predominance of the Kara-Bom-type reduction techniques.
Бесплатно
