Fig 28 - uploaded by Pavel Nikolskiy
Content may be subject to copyright.
Upper Palaeolithic mammoth ivory technology as a sequence of important steps. A-locate and select; B-kill and transport; C-prepare and keep; D-manufacture whatever is required.
Source publication
Processing of mammoth ivory is recognized widely as one of the most important characteristics of the material culture of the ancient man. In fact, the production of ivory tools is the most important innovation of the Upper Palaeolithic. The Yana site materials provide exceptionally rich and complete data set for understanding of the ivory technolog...
Similar publications
Earliest human Arctic occupation
Paleolithic records of humans in the Eurasian Arctic (above 66°N) are scarce, stretching back to 30,000 to 35,000 years ago at most. Pitulko et al. have found evidence of human occupation 45,000 years ago at 72°N, well within the Siberian Arctic. The evidence is in the form of a frozen mammoth carcass bearing many s...
Several Carbon datings concerning different parts of the mammoth’s skeleton in the Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology of Monaco had permitted to obtain an approximate age of 30.000 yrs BP. This dating seems relatively coherent despite the post-depositional problems of the skeleton and the museographic chemical treatments of the bones.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is recognized as a cold and dry period that marks the maximum southward extension of the Scandinavian Inlands in Europe. In Asia, the ice sheet did not expand from the Arctic into Siberia, yet the LGM had a significant impact at high latitudes and elevations, as well as in regions with a co...
NOTE: Figure previews were blacked out during conversion of the pdf to the Researchgate website -- they do appear when the full text of the paper is viewed.
This paper illustrates death positions of lightly scavenged or unscavenged large mammal carcasses, providing context for interpreting the body positions of mammoths, such as the frozen carcasse...
Processing of mammoth ivory and manufacturing of diverse ivory artefacts is widely recognized as one of the most important characteristics of the material culture of ancient humans. These technological skills reach their greatest extent and development shortly before the Last Glacial Maximum but are recognizable until the Pleistocene-Holocene bound...
Citations
... Результаты серийного датирования материалов из Янской стоянки, радиоуглеродный возраст которой хорошо обоснован, все же не позволяют пока поставить вопрос об определении циклов обитания на стоянке. Имеющиеся датировки уверенно согласуются между собой, но не образуют отчетливых кластеров, которые могли бы свидетельствовать о наличии здесь в пределах одного горизонта различимых на уровне разрешающей способности 14С метода циклов заселения, которой эксплуатировался лишь как источник ценного сырья биогенного происхождения (бивней и длинных костей мамонта) [Pitulko, Pavlova, Nikolsky, 2015]. Дальнейшее развитие янской культуры приводит, возможно, к появлению на приморских низменностях памятников типа Берелёха. ...
The article presents an overview of the main results of experimental and traceological studies of the Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic assemblages from extreme Northeast Asia. The research was based on materials from archival and published written sources. All fifty-year history of regional traceological studies we divided for two chronological stages, which differ in the nature of the sources and the methodology used. The first stage covers the chronological interval from the 1960s to the 1980s. In this period S.A. Semenov and N.A. Kononenko carried out the first functional studies of stone and bone artifacts from Kamchatka, Chukotka and the Kolyma. In the 1960 – the 1970s the founder of the experimental traceological method S.A. Semenov conducted a functional and technological study of stone ornaments and tools from burial of the Ushki-I site, cultural layer VII (Kamchatka), and collection of bone artifacts from the Bochanut (Lower Kolyma) and Ust-Mil II (Aldan river) sites. In 1989, N.A. Kononenko did a large-scale study of archaeological collections from the Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites of Kamchatka and Chukotka (Ushki-I, Kymyynonovyvaam, Puturak, Sredneye Ozero V). The most extensive and representative results were obtained when studying the stone artifact collection from Ushki I site, cultural layer VI. The subject of the analysis were wedge-shaped microcores and their preforms, core preparation flakes and microblades, end- scrapers, side-scrapers, choppers, bifaces, flakes and other types of artifacts. The researcher identified new functional types of tools, obtained information about the discrepancy of some stone artifacts typological definitions with their real function and purpose, described the peculiarities of the tools repair process in the industry of Late Ushki culture. At the second stage (1990–2010), there is an intensification of experimental and traceological studies of archaeological collections from regional archaeological sites. During this period, the functional and technological analysis of the Final Pleistocene and Early Holocene assemblages of Arctic Siberia and Chukotka was carried out by E.Yu. Girya, G.A. Khlopachev, L.G. Chaikina, and I.V. Makarov. Investigations of archaeological collection from Zhokhov Mesolithic site carried out by E.Yu. Girya played a pivotal role in the history of the regional traceological studies. The researcher clarified and expanded the scientific concepts about the methods of preparation and use of insert tools, revealed the burins on microblades with a ground edge, specified the main categories of stone tools technologies. E. Yu. Girya did experimental and traceological research of Zhokhovs artifacts made of organic materials – wooden sledges, tools from tusk, antler, and bone. The study of archaeological industries from the Arctic zone of Northeast Asia – the Zhokhov and Yana sites, – continues at the present stage of the development of traceological direction research. A series of studies is devoted to the analysis of Pleistocene animal’s bones artifacts with traces of hunting, cutting and splitting, which are obtained from paleontological and archaeological sites. The author of this article carried out a functional and technological study of the Final Pleistocene assemblages from the Ushki-I (Kamchatka) and Kheta (Upper Kolyma) sites.
Keywords: Northeastern Asia; Upper Palaeolithic; Mesolithic; experimental traceological analysis; traceology.
This paper reports the results of an in-depth analysis of the frozen remains of a woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) named Zhenya, which has been dated to 48,000 cal BP. The carcass, found near the mouth of the Yenisey River in eastern Siberia, was a juvenile male whose ontogenetic age at death was 8-10 AEY. Its reconstructed live height at the shoulders (pSH 227.4 cm) was the equal of some adult female woolly mammoths and extant elephants. The large stature and a flaked off tusk tip that matches breaks on tusks of male African elephants are indirect indications that this mammoth most likely had reached sexual maturity, had been expelled from its maternal herd, and had been in at least one fight with another male.The mammoth's bones were relatively healthy, although some had minor lesions. Rudimentary upper second molars (M2/m2) were present, but no lower second molars were found in the alveoli, and the left tusk had never developed. Despite the abnormal development of the upper and lower second molars, the cheek teeth which were in wear (Dp4/dp4 and M1/m1) showed normal function without any indications of developmental delay.The completed growth of the light-colored dentin bands on the tusk strongly suggests the Fall of the year was the season of death. This season is also supported by accumulated fat in the upper parts of the torso, indicative of physiological preparation for the winter ahead. The few minor traces of carnivore scavenging, the little disturbed condition of the carcass, and the absence of bone modifications made by human actions, along with the social status of this young male animal, are interpreted here as highly probable evidence that the Zhenya Mammoth died from unrecoverable injuries inflicted during a bull-to-bull fight.The mineralogical analysis of site sediments revealed that the mammoth's burial in situ took place in the Yenisey River valley seasonally inundated by the river, which together with Fall's freezing temperatures protected the carcass from scavengers. An analysis of ancient DNA provides strong support for Zhenya's mitochondrial lineage within the deeply diverging clade III haplogroup B.
