Geo-archaeological investigations of Palaeolithic sites along the Ural Mountains – On the northern presence of humans during the last Ice Age

Abstract

We review geo-archaeological results from six Palaeolithic sites along the western flank of the northern Ural Mountains. The oldest traces of human activities, dated to around 36–35 14C ka BP (43–40 cal ka), were found in alluvial strata at Mamontovaya Kurya at the Polar Circle - their connection to cultures further south remains uncertain. Slightly younger artefacts were found at the site Zaozer’e, nearly a thousand km further to the south, where a rich archaeological assemblage, dated to 34–33 14C ka BP (39–37 cal ka), was uncovered from underneath several meters of loess. The assemblage contains some small “Middle Palaeolithic like” bifaces alongside distinct Upper Palaeolithic traits, such as well-defined blades. This site also contains some perforated “pendants” made of freshwater molluscs. At the Byzovaya site, located at 65°N and radiocarbon dated to about 30–29 14C ka BP (34–32 cal ka), more than 300 artefacts and several thousand animal remains, mostly of mammoth, were incorporated in coarse-grained debris-flow deposits, sealed by aeolian sand. Pending the results from a new technological analysis of the whole artefact assemblage we can yet not decide whether Byzovaya should be categorized as a Middle- or Upper Palaeolithic site. The finds from Garchi, located in a loess sequence near Zaozer’e, have a similar or slightly younger age than the material from Byzovaya. Also at this site bifacial tools are present; alongside some characteristic triangle projectile points as well as some other elements which have nearly identical counterparts in the Upper Palaeolithic Kostenki/Streletskaya and Sungirian complexes, unambiguously associated with Modern humans. We conclude that the initial human colonisations along the Ural Mountains took place during a relatively favourable period of Marine Isotope Stage 3, when only small mountain glaciers existed in this region. The finds from the Medvezhia Peshera rock shelter have a completely different age (19–16 14C ka BP, 23–19 cal ka) and character, indicating that humans also were present along the Urals close to the Last Glacial Maximum (26–19 ka BP), the coldest and driest period of the last ice age. The few artefacts that were uncovered at Pymva Shor, the northernmost site investigated by us, are probably a little younger than those at Medveshia Peshera, but the timing of human presence is not precisely constrained at this site. In view of the obtained results it appears that humans were at least temporarily present in these northern landscapes from more than 40,000 years ago and onwards.