Results of archaeological survey in the area of the Gedzhukh reservoir (Republic of Dagestan) in 2020

The Caspian Dagestan was one of Neanderthal refugia in Eurasia. A whole cluster of the Middle Paleolithic sites in the Darvagchay geoarchaeological region, discovered in the last decade indicates the habitation of Neanderthal populations in that area over a long period of time. This article presents the research into the Middle Paleolithic complexes from the new sites of Darvagchai-karier-3 and Darvagchay-karier-4 with the material evidence of the Final Middle Paleolithic, elucidating this cultural and chronological period in the Northeastern Caucasus. The archaeological evidence obtained demonstrates the overwhelming dominance of the Levallois technique in a relatively small Middle Paleolithic toolkit. All artifacts belong to the same technical tradition and were made of the same raw materials with the same preservation degree of the surface. These technical and typological features make it possible to correlate this material evidence with the previously known stratified complexes from Darvagchay-zaliv-1 andDarvagchay-karier-2 of the Final Middle Paleolithic. Currently, a cluster of sites with stone industries of the Final Middle Paleolithic has been discovered in the Darvagchay geoarchaeological region. Specific technical and typological aspects of stone industry with the pronounced Levallois features and absence of the Upper Paleolithic features makes it possible to suggest a specific appearance of the Paleolithic in the coastal Dagestan. New information on the Final Middle Paleolithic is an important step towards solving the problem of the emergence and subsequent development of the anatomically modern humans, making it possible not only to reconstruct cultural and historical processes in the region in the Neopleistocene, but also adjust the boundaries of cultural areas and chronological periods of the Paleolithic in the Caucasus and Aral-Caspian basin as a whole.