Early Upper Palaeolithic in the Russian plain: Streletskayan flaked stone artefacts and technology.

Early Upper Palaeolithic in the Russian plain: Streletskayan flaked stone artefacts and technology. The artefact See artifact. assemblages from early Upper Palaeolithic sites ineastern European Russia contain flint tools of more Middle Palaeolithictype. With these artefacts are bifacially thinned triangular forms thatmay represent the first use of this technology in the area, and perhapsanywhere in Europe. Introduction Early Upper Palaeolithic sites in Eastern Europe Eastern EuropeThe countries of eastern Europe, especially those that were allied with the USSR in the Warsaw Pact, which was established in 1955 and dissolved in 1991. show clearcultural variations that allow us to indentify a series ofarchaeological cultures. The Kostenki-Streletskaya (Streletskayan) is ofparticular interest. It was originally distinguished by A.N. Rogachev(1957) on the materials from the Kostenki-Borshchevo region. It was notlong before this material became well-known beyond Russia (e.g. Klein1969, Kozlowski J., Kozlowski S. 1975; McBurney 1976). In the1970s-'80s one of Rogachev's students, M.V. Anikovich,continued to investigate this archaeological culture In addition to its usual meaning in social science, in archaeology, the term is also used in reference to several related concepts unique to the discipline. Archaeological cultureThis article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. using new methodsand techniques (Anikovich 1977; 1992; Rogachev & Anikovich 1984).The following is a summary of what the authors currently know about theKostenki-Streletskaya archaeological culture with a focus on bifacialtechnology of the flaked stone assemblages. Geographical distribution the natural arrangements of animals and plants in particular regions or districts.See under Distribution.See also: Distribution Geographic The known Streletskayan sites are concentrated in theKostenki-Borshchevo area of the Middle Don Region (Figure 1): Kostenki1, Layer V; Kostenki 6 (or Streletskaya 2); Kostenki 11, Layer V; andKostenki 12, Layers Ia and III (Figure 2). Other Streletskayan sites areSungir in the Klyazma Basin (Bader 1978), Biryuchya Balka on the LowerSeverski Donets (Matyukhine 1990; 1994), and Garchi 1 on the Lower Kama,in the Ural Region (Guslitzer & Pavlov 1993). Chronology Streletskayan chronology is based on the sequence of UpperPalaeolithic sites in the Kostenki-Borshchevo region (Figure 3), datedby the stratigraphy stratigraphy,branch of geology specifically concerned with the arrangement of layered rocks (see stratification). Stratigraphy is based on the law of superposition, which states that in a normal sequence of rock layers the youngest is on top and the oldest on the of loessic colluvium col��lu��vi��um?n. pl. col��lu��vi��ums or col��lu��vi��aA loose deposit of rock debris accumulated through the action of gravity at the base of a cliff or slope. containing humic hu��mic?adj.Of, relating to, or derived from humus.Adj. 1. humic - of or relating to or derived from humus; "humic acid" beds and, insome places, in situ In place. When something is "in situ," it is in its original location. buried soils. On a second Pleistocene terrace,humic beds overlie o��ver��lie?tr.v. o��ver��lay , o��ver��lain , o��ver��ly��ing, o��ver��lies1. To lie over or on.2. To suffocate (a baby, for example) by accidentally lying on top of it. the upper alluvial complex, and are subdivided byloessic colluvium and volcanic ash See under Ashes.See also: Ash lens (Hoffecker 1987: 274).Streletskayan sites are included in both Lower and Upper humic beds. Until recently, both humic beds were thought to have been derivedfrom a soil of Bryansk age, usually correlated with Stillfried B,Denekamp, Arcy etc. (Klein 1969: 48). New data shows the geological ageof the Lower humic bed must be earlier: no younger than theHengelo-Podradem oscillation (Anikovich 1993: 13). Analysis of aKostenki volcanic ash showed it is of Italian origin and most likelyrelated to catastrophic eruptions in the region of the Flegrey Fields nolater than 35,000 b.p. (Medekestsev et al. 1984). This indicates thatthe earliest Streletskayan sites (Kostenki 12, Level III and Kostenki 6)are older than 35,000 b.p. Streletskayan assemblages identified in thebottom of the Upper humic bed (Kostenki 1, Layer V; Kostenki 11, LayerV; and Kostenki 12, Layer Ia) are dated to the very beginning of theBryansk interstadial. In particular, this is shown by radiocarbondeterminations (Table 1). [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] Sungir is the youngest known site of the Kostenki-Streletskayaculture with its cultural layer associated with the upper part of theBryansk buried soil. The geological ages of Biryuchya Balka and Garchi 1are as yet unknown, and radiocarbon dates are absent. Cultural stages and tool typology typology/ty��pol��o��gy/ (ti-pol��ah-je) the study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. typologythe study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. Chronology and some flaked stone typological traits of theStreletskayan industries allow us to identify four stages in thedevelopment of the Kostenki-Streletskaya archaeological culture. Stage 1 is represented by two sites in the Kostenki-Borshchevoregion, Kostenki 12, Layer III and Kostenki 6 (or Streletskaya 2), bothin the Lower Humic bed. Materials from Kostenki 12, Layer III are mostcharacteristic. The assemblage is extremely archaic in both technologyand typology. Blades are nearly absent: only three tools are made onlarge blades or blade-flakes; the rest are on tabular fragments andflakes. Of 1100 stone artefacts reliably associated with this layer, 160are considered tools. Most of the types are Middle Palaeolithic,including sidescrapers, both single and double (some convergent and someoval), and Mousterian and Quinson points. Knives were made on tabularpieces of yellow flint with bifacial retouch along one edge. Moretypical Upper Palaeolithic tools are also present, endscrapers being themost characteristic. They are small with continuous edge retouch,producing a roughly triangular form. Two thick `chisels' are verydistinctively Streletskayan. Burins are virtually absent. Four othertools are atypical scaled pieces. The most characteristic tools arebifacial points (n=25). They include triangular points with concave ConcaveProperty that a curve is below a straight line connecting two end points. If the curve falls above the straight line, it is called convex. bases, considered typical of the Streletskayan (Figures 4 & 5);`poplar-leaf' points (Figure 6), double-pointed pieces etc. Many ofthem are unfinished pieces, which makes it difficult to make exacttypological assignments. Along with bifacial leaf-points, oval bifacesare known from Kostenki 12, Layer III. Stage 2 is best represented by the assemblage from Kostenki 1,Layer V. Of the 2500 stone artefacts recovered from this layer, 150 aretools. The knapped stone technology is the same as Kostenki 12, LayerIII, although the number of tools on blades is somewhat higher. Thisindustry differs from Stage 1 mainly in an increased relative quantityof typical Upper Palaeolithic tool form categories as well as theirincreased standardization. For example, the endscrapers resemble thosefrom Kostenki 12, Layer III, but their shapes are more standardized.Short triangular scrapers along with large and small cordiform cor��di��formadj.Heart-shaped. endscrapers are characteristic. Burins are rare, but transverse burinsare noteworthy as a specific `Streletskayan' type. Borers andscaled pieces are typical. Bifacial tools (n 50) are in most cases thesame types as in Stage 1, but triangular points with concave bases aremore frequent and occur in a variety of sub-types, distinguished bysize, proportions, and base shape. Miniature points deserve specialmention as possible arrow-points. Asymmetrical bifacial knives andbacked bifacial knives with convex blades appear. Mousterian types arerepresented by sidescrapers, Mousterian points and Quinson points. The industry from the Upper Palaeolithic site of Garchi 1, on theLower Kama, northern Ural Region, in spite of its long distance fromKostenki, is the closest typological analogy to Kostenki 1, Level V (itcontains the same types and sub-types of endscrapers, triangular points,sidescrapers, etc.). This leaves no doubt that Garchi 1 belongs to Stage2 of the Kostenki-Streletskaya archaeological culture, though itsgeological age is still unknown (Guslitzer & Pavlov 1993). Stage 3 is represented by materials from Biryuchya Balka. Thismany-level site was discovered in 1987 by A. Matyukhin in the lowerreaches of the Severski Donets and the materials are still being studiedby him. The authors do not know the exact number of cultural layers ortheir geological ages. Inspection of some of the collection leaves nodoubt that at least one of the layers is Streletskayan. The richcollection of more than 600 stone tools (Matyukhin 1990) includesfeatures characteristic of Stage 2 (triangular and cordiformendscrapers, triangular bifacially thinned points with concave bases,and thick `chisels') and features characteristic of the final stage(4) of the Kostenki-Streletskaya archaeological culture (see below).This mixture allows the assemblage to be treated as Stage 3. Stage 4 of the Streletskayan is represented at the site of Sungir,in the outskirts of the town of Vladimir in the Klyazma River The Klyazma River (Russian: Клязьма) is a river in the Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Vladimir Oblasts in Russia, a left tributary of the Oka River. The length of the river is 686 km. Basin,northeast of Moscow (Bader 1978). The rich collection includes tens ofthousands of artefacts, of which 2000 are tools. While retainingfeatures typical of the Kostenki-Streletskaya culture, Sungir also has alarge number of distinctive properties. There is an increased percentageof blades while the number of bifacial tools decreases sharply. Thereare only two sub-types of triangular points and only one type ofbifacial leaf-point (almond-shaped points with rounded bases). Few ofthe approximately 400 endscrapers are like those characteristic ofKostenki 1, Layer V. Most are oval, round, or carinated car��i��nat��edadj.Carinate. and made onparallel-sided blades. There are also approximately 300 burins, thefirst time they are numerous in a Streletskayan assemblage. Scaledpieces ([+ or -] 300) are more common and more standardized than in thepreceding stages. However, `archaic' aspects of the assemblage keepthe principal typological features seen in the preceding stages,although it makes up a much smaller percentage. This `typologicalstability' of the Mousterian component is a very important featureof the Streletskayan. The development of the Streletskayan was from flake- to blade-basedtools, an increase in Upper Palaeolithic-type tools, and a relativedecrease (in percentage) in Mousterian forms, which neverthelesscontinue throughout Streletskayan development. There is a sharp decreasein bifacial forms toward the end as well. In a general sense the Kostenki-Streletskaya culture undoubtedlybelongs to the Szeletoid technocomplex. In its final stage, clearlyAurignacoid features appear to be mixed with Szeletoid characteristics(Grigor'ev 1990). Streletskayan bifacial flaked stone technology The technology of bifacially flaked artefacts in the Streletskayanis complex and varied. Bifacial flaking includes simple edge shaping,bulbar bulbar/bul��bar/ (bul��ber)1. pertaining to a bulb.2. pertaining to or involving the medulla oblongata.bul��baradj.1. Resembling or relating to a bulb. thinning, complete surface shaping, and intensive thinning. Thisfinal category is of particular interest. Bifacial flaking of stone artefacts, which began in the LowerPalaeolithic, was done to varying degrees throughout the MiddlePalaeolithic. Of particular interest in the Streletskayan is intensive,all-over, bifacial thinning. To accomplish this with any degree ofconsistency requires specialized margin platform preparation. Not allwell-made bifacial forms resulted from thinning processes (see Figure 6for an example). Bifacial reduction of a piece is considered thinningwhen proportionally more material is removed from the surface of thepiece than from the edge (Figure 7). Examination of a number of bifacially flaked artefacts, fromseveral sites, as well as a small collection of bifacial debitage The term debitage refers to the totality of waste material produced during lithic reduction and the production of chipped stone tools. This assemblage includes, but is not limited to, different kinds of lithic flakes, shatter, and production errors and rejects. fromKostenki 1, Level V, has resulted in the following observations. Therewere two basic approaches to the production of the triangular, indentedbase points. The first was the reduction of an unmodified piece of rawmaterial or a thick flake. The second was the use of a relatively thinflake-blank. The extremely important assemblage from Biryuchya Balka includes awide range of forms representing all stages of bifacial thinningreduction. Unfortunately, the authors have only been able to make acursory examination of some of these materials. Bifacial thinning wasbeing done systematically; many bifaces were broken during manufacturewith typical breaks including perverse fractures (Crabtree 1972: 82-3)(Figure 8a) and end shock (Crabtree 1972: 60-61) (Figure 8b). Marginswere thin, and individual platform preparation was being done during thelater stages of thinning. Chalk flint of excellent quality was beingused, and the sizes and forms of the raw material should not have placedany restrictions on the production of these bifacial artefacts. In contrast to Biryuchya Balka, the bifacially thinned artefactsfrom Kostenki 1, Layer V were mostly made from multicoloured cherts thatoccur in fairly small angular pieces in glacial deposits. Severalfinished pieces and a collection of debitage were available for study.In every case, the finished pieces and the debitage were produced fromchert chert:see flint. that had been heated in such a manner that the flakability of thematerial was not damaged and was probably substantially improved. Nounequivocal evidence that this was intentional heat treatment wasobserved, but it is very difficult to imagine a natural situation wherethis would be obtained. The debitage, primarily from late-stage thinning and shaping,consistently exhibits carefully prepared platforms. Preparation includedbevelling, isolation and moderate to heavy grinding (Figure 9). Flakescar patterns on the flakes and finished bifaces indicate that there wasno specific pattern of removal. The isolation of some platforms, theevenness of the final margins and the thinness of the edges andplatforms indicate that flaking was highly controlled and probablyaccomplished with an antler or bone billet. Some edge retouch,especially at the basal corners and tip, may have been done by pressureflaking. That the triangular, indented-base Streletskayan `points'resulted from a highly controlled, complex bifacial thinning technologyis very clear. It is even likely that this technology included pressurefaking and intentional heat treating of raw material or blanks. Thedegree to which bifacial thinning was employed may be observed byexamining the resulting thickness-to-width ratios (Table 2). Within aquite wide range (2.9 to 10.6), the average (5.4) compares veryfavourably to bifacially thinned artefact types in the Solutrean insouthwest France (5.1); sample from illustrations in Smith (1996) andwith palaeoindian types in North America North America,third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. (Figure 10). In fact, theaverage Streletskayan point is relatively thinner than Hell Gap pointsfrom the Casper Site (Frison 1974:81) and Clovis points from the Fennand East Wenatchee caches (unpublished data assembled by the seniorauthor). On the other hand, all of these samples are relatively thinnerthan a group of fully-bifaced artefacts (not including handaxe forms)from Middle Palaeolithic (Mousterian) assemblages in the former SovietUnion; sample drawn from illustrations in Palaeolithic USSR USSR:see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (Boriskovskii 1984).maximum maximum w/ththickness widthKostenki 1, Level V0.6 4.4 7.30.4 3.4 8.50.4 3.0 7.50.3 1.8 6.00.5 2.7 5.40.5 2.6 5.20.7 2.5 3.60.9 2.6 2.90.5 1.8 3.60.3 1.8 6.00.5 2.7 5.40.3 2.3 7.7Kostenki 11, Level V0.6 4.7 7.80.35 3.7 10.6Biryuchya Balka0.6 3.6 6.00.6 3.5 5.80.7 3.9 5.60.8 3.5 4.41.2 4.9 4.0Sungir0.45 3.5 7.70.6 2.5 4.10.6 3.0 5.00.5 2.6 5.20.9 2.8 3.10.6 3.7 6.10.5 2.9 5.8average0.57 3.1 5.4Table 2. Dimensions of finished Streletskayanbifacially thinned triangular points. Bifacial thinning, a complex and difficult flaking procedure, hasinherent risks and often results in failure. This risk is greatlyreduced by careful preparation of the platforms and careful spacing ofthinning flake removals. It is also advantageous to have high-qualityraw material that fractures evenly but maintains strength andflexibility. Conclusions Typologically and chronologically the Streletskayan derivesdirectly from Middle Palaeolithic archaeological cultures in easternEuropean Russia and through its approximately 10,000 years ofdevelopment, slowly takes on characteristics of Upper Palaeolithicassemblages. Of particular interest is the presence of a sophisticatedbiface thinning technology that persisted throughout the Streletskayan.Although it is probably derived from an earlier Middle Palaeolithicbiface technology, the development of thinning methods clearly sets itapart. The use of carefully prepared platforms (including grinding andisolation) along with the possible pressure flaking and intentional heattreating of raw materials (observed only at Kostenki 1, Layer V) in theEarly Upper Palaeolithic of Eastern Europe, indicates this specializedtechnology was developed well before the much better known Solutreantechnology of southwestern Europe. This may help shed some light on theorigin of Solutrean biface technologies.Acknowledgements. This article is the result of a long collaborativeeffort between the authors with input from a number of colleagues.Funding for travel to Russia was provided by an International ResearchExchanges (IREX IREX International Research & Exchanges Board ) grant with additional support from the Crow CanyonArchaeological Center with sposorship by The Institute of MaterialCulture History (N. Praslov) and the Kostenki Museum Preserve (D.Volkov). Much of the writing took place at the Kostenki Museum Preservefield camp in 1992 and 1994. Access to the Kostenki collections wasprovided by the Institute of Material Culture History, Russian Academyof Sciences, St Petersburg, The Museum of Ethnography, St Petersburg,and the Kostenki Museum Preserve. Access to the Biryuchya Balkacollections was made possible by A.E. Matyukhin. Line drawings were doneby E. Giria and B. Bradley. 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