New insights into the Upper Palaeolithic of the Caucasus through the study of personal ornaments. Teeth and bones pendants from Satsurblia and Dzudzuana caves (Imereti, Georgia).

José-Miguel Tejero,Anna Belfer-Cohen,Guy Bar-Oz,Ron Pinhasi,Ofer Bar-Yosef,Zinovi Matskevich,Nino Jakeli,Tengiz Meshveliani,Marco Peresani

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0258974

Abstract

The region of western Georgia (Imereti) in the Southern Caucasus has been a major geographic corridor for human migrations during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. Data of recent research and excavations in this region display its importance as a possible route for the dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) into northern Eurasia. Nevertheless, within the local research context, bone-working and personal ornaments have yet contributed but little to the Upper Palaeolithic (UP) regional sequence’s characterization. Here we present an archaeozoological, technological and use-wear study of pendants from two local UP assemblages, originating in the Dzudzuana Cave and Satsurblia Cave. The ornaments were made mostly of perforated teeth, though some specimens were made on bone. Both the manufacturing marks made during preparation and use-wear traces indicate that they were personal ornaments, used as pendants or attached to garments. Detailed comparison between ornament assemblages from northern and southern Caucasus reveal that they are quite similar, supporting the observation of cultural bonds between the two regions, demonstrated previously through lithic techno-typological affinities. Furthermore, our study highlights the importance attributed to red deer (Cervus elaphus) by the UP societies of the Caucasus in sharing aesthetic values and/or a symbolic sphere.

Highlights

The discussed assemblages of personal ornaments recovered from Dzudzuana and Satsurblia caves consist of a total of nineteen perforated or grooved teeth, eight perforated or grooved bones and one possibly antler fragment, with a perforation (Table 1)
Personal ornaments are among the cultural features considered as reliable proxies for the emergence of symbolically mediated behaviour (SMB) and complex societies [34, 37,38,39, 42, 55,56,57,58]
This assumption does not detract from the fact that aesthetics had most probably played a role in the production of personal ornaments, as can be observed in extant primeval and complex modern societies

Summary

Introduction

While the chipped-stone techno-typology seems to demonstrate a local development of the region’s EUP entities, the bone tools and personal ornaments show similarities with comparable items from the European and Levantine Aurignacian and some sets from the initial UP of Central and Northern Asia Such analogies suggest a link between the symbolic sphere of cultural entities in the Caucasus, Europe, the Levant, and other Asian regions during the early UP. The importance accorded to the red deer within the symbolic sphere of the Caucasus UP hunter-gatherers is highlighted by the selection of this taxa to fabricate almost 50% of the pendant assemblages In comparison, this taxon comprises only 2% of the total NISP of the faunal remains in the studied layers at Dzudzuana [25], whereas at Satsurblia it includes c. A renewed technological study of the bone tool production technology from several Southern Caucasus assemblages is currently underway

Materials and methods

Results

Discussion