Size of ostrich eggshell beads and pendants as a cultural marker in the Upper Paleolithic-Mesolithic of Northern and Eastern Asia

The Initial Upper Paleolithic in Eurasia is chronologically and culturally separated into a technocomplex that can be identified using markers such as volumetric laminar knapping technology, specific tool types, and personal ornamentations. One of the main types of personal ornamentations in IUP of Northern and Eastern Asia were ostrich eggshell beads. However, this type became transitional from the viewpoint of further evolution of material culture and continued to be produced up to the Neolithic. This type was represented in the vast territory, including Altai, Cis-Baikalia, Transbaikalia, Mongolia, and China and was considered as persistent, excluding probable transition from hand to multi-rotating drilling in the Final Upper Paleolithic. Our study includes a new approach to understanding whether the tradition of ostrich eggshell beads production was homogeneous in the Northern and Eastern Asia at all stages of the Upper Paleolithic-Mesolithic. We have generated and analyzed a database that includes 119 artifacts with known metric parameters. The statistical analysis of external and internal diameters of the beads indicates such trends in the technology as following proportions of perforations, size differentiation of the beads and the pendants. The main result of this study reveals the existence of two traditions in ostrich eggshell bead-making: one was discovered in Siberia and Mongolia in the Initial to Late Upper Paleolithic, while the other one was found in Northern China. Changes in the size of the beads were only observed in the Final Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic.