Theriofauna from the holocene deposits of Kaminnaya cave (Northwestern Altai)

The Holocene layers in Kaminnaya Cave comprise the chronological period from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages. Over 11,000 bone remains from 11 layers have been identified. They belonged to at least 33 species of domestic and wild mammals. The layers also contained bones offish, amphibians, birds, and humans. Almost 2/3 of bone remains occurred in layers 1-3 (from 3200 BP to ethnographic period). The number of bones which belonged to hunting species was more than four times greater than number of bones of domestic animals, which makes Kaminnaya cave very different from other cave sites in the Altai. Apparently, this relatively remote cave was mostly visited by groups of hunters and less often by shepherds. In terms of domestic animals, on average, the layers contained the following remains (in the descending order): small cattle (44.3 %), horses (38.6 %), cows (10.8 %), and dogs (4.2 %). Remains of red deer (48.6 %) and roe deer (45.7 %) were absolutely predominant among wild mammals. Several dozen bones each belonged to a wolf, brown bear, and sable. Individual bones belonged to musk deer, elk, aurochs (?), Siberian mountain goat, and argali. Most of pig remains probably belonged to their wild form. Judging by their size, almost all bear bones belonged to small adult females. The Holocene sable of the Altai had a larger size of the body than the contemporaneous sable of Central Siberia. Based on the size of skeleton bones, the Holocene red deer was 5.7 % larger than modern park red deer. Holocene red deer in the Northwestern Altai (Kaminnaya cave) and Central Altai (Kucherla) did not differ in body size.