A new middle Paleolithic object Darvagchai-karier-2 (the Republic of Dagestan)

We present here the research results of Middle Paleolithic surface complexes from the new Darvagchai-karier-2 site. These materials is related to Final Middle Paleolithic and supplement the factual material of this cultural and chronological range at the territory of North Eastern Caucasus. The Lavallois knapping technique and typical Middle Paleolithic tool assemblage characterize the lithic material. Medium size artifacts predominate; they were made of homogenous raw material, have the similar rate of surface preservation and were knapped in a single technical tradition. These techno-typological characteristics permit to compare this material to make it possible to known stratified complexes of the Final Middle Paleolithic Darvagchay-Bay-1 site. According to the available data, we can not find the direct analogies between Middle Paleolithic material from the Gedzhukhskoe reservoir and well-known Middle Paleolithic sites in the Caucasus, in spite of their significant number and technical and typological diversity within their groups. It can be associated with a partial representation of the Dagestan industries and with the cultural diversity at that time, which does not exclude the existence of the specific Middle Paleolithic culture in this territory. We suppose the specific Paleolithic character of Seaside Dagestan, according to technical and typological features of stone industry with strongly marked Levallois traits. This study, associated with middle stage of the Middle Paleolithic, permit to come closer to problem solution how the modern human appeared and developed. It will give an opportunity to reconstruct the cultural historical process in this territory during the Neo-Pleistocene, and correct the boundaries between cultural and historical Paleolithic stages in the Caucasus and the Aral-Caspian basin.