The shouldered points and the Gravettian of the Eastern Carpathian area: insights from Bistricioara-Lutărie III (Ceahlău Basin, Northeastern Romania

Abstract

The Bistricioara-Lutărie III (BL III) Upper Paleolithic site belongs to the dense network of multilayered sites located along the Bistrița Valley, Eastern Romanian Carpathians. Its Gravettian layer with shouldered points (ca. 27 ka cal BP) opens a succession of Gravettian and Epigravettian cultural layers covering the entire timespan of the Last Glacial Maximum. The layer preserves a consistent lithic assemblage almost entirely knapped in allogenous Cretaceous flint, together with poorly preserved faunal remains and in situ habitation/ occupation features. Chronologically, this assemblage fits well within what was defined as a specific cultural package i. e., the shouldered points horizon, generally framed between 29 and 27 ka cal BP. This also seems to apply to several archaeological layers at other multi-layered sites in the region, located along the Bistrița (Poiana Cireșului, Buda, and Lespezi), Prut (Mitoc Malu Galben) and Dniester (Molodova V and Doroshivtsi III) river valleys. In this contribution, we aim at integrating the data provided by older and more recent investigations into a larger, common chronological and cultural framework, and discuss the validity of the shouldered points as Late Gravettian chrono-markers in the East Carpathian area.