Upper palaeolithic bifacial points from Denisova cave

The Altai tradition of manufacturing thin foliate bifacial points and ovoid bifaces demonstrates a clear connection with the culture and subsistence strategies of the most ancient Upper Palaeolithic human population of this region. Today, the issues of cultural and chronological attribution and specificity of this tool category as well as the study of its role in the economic and hunting activities of the population in general require profound studies of the primary source base and generalization of the available information based on new archaeological and natural science data. The authors attempt to systematize the collection of the Upper Paleolithic bifaces from Denisova Cave, which is the most extensive and has not yet been the subject of the special study. We identified and refitted 13 bifacial tools of varying degrees of fragmentation from collections from the Main Chamber, the South Chamber, and the Entryway zone of the cave. All products have been defined as bifacially prepared points and side-scrapers of the biconvex leaf-shaped/ovoid morphological group. The working strategy of most bifaces aimed at producing a symmetrical elongated leaf-like shape suggests that the artifacts were possibily used as points. Parallels for the large and small leaf-like forms from Denisova Cave can be found in the Initial and Early Upper Palaeolithic assemblages of the Northwestern and Central Altai. Occurence of intact ovoid bifaces in the Denisova collection was not confirmed; all the available fragments of rounded outlines correspond to the basal parts of the leaf-shaped bifaces in morphometric parameters.