Combinatorial nucleus

Description of the artifact

The site presents a combinatorial nucleus discovered in 1986 at the Ust-Karakol-1 site (Anui valley, Mountain Altai; Excavation No. 1; habitat levels 5.4 5.5) in the context of the stone industry of the initial upper Paleolithic of southern Siberia.

The splitting of the object was carried out in wide and narrow planes in the framework of parallel counter cleavage for the production of plates. In a simpler language, looking at the 3D model, you can see the impact pads on the transverse edges of the product, from which the splitting was made by using the impact technique of chipping with a soft bump (from bone or horn). Disposal of the nucleus was stopped due to the fact that the angle between the front and the shock pad did not allow to produce long plates.

The resulting chips were used for the production of leaf-shaped bifaces and tips on the plates with the subthesis of the base, which are important cultural and chronological markers of the Kara-bomov cultural tradition of the initial upper Paleolithic.

Information on the monument in the context of the product

Parking Ust-Karakol-1 is located in the valley of the Anui river in the Altai Mountains. A multilayer stratum with three Paleolithic horizons was revealed here. Cultural layer 3, dated to the 5 th lithological unit due to the significant power, understood conventional horizons. Two dates were obtained from the samples of charcoal from one ha source in two different laboratories. Both definitions-31 410 ± 1160 14sl. B. (Soan-2515) and 29 900 ± 2070 14S L. B. (EGAN - 837) correspond to Karginskaya time in his konowalski stage (Derevyanko and others. 1998а: 114). Based on the analysis of raw materials, planigraphic position of artifacts and their leveling marks within the lithological layer 5, five habitat levels were identified. This article discusses the materials of the levels of habitat 5.4 and 5.5, which lies below the level of habitat dated to the foci (Fig. 3). In these stratigraphic units, a homogeneous industry is distinguished, which differs in its characteristics from the complexes of the early upper Paleolithic of the Mountain Altai, represented in the overlying layers of the 1986 excavation and in the layers 9-10 of the 1993-1997 excavation. the same Parking (Derevyanko, etc. 2003). The primary cleavage of the studied complex is dominated by the production technology of plates with sub-prismatic and combinatorial nuclei, plates-with combinatorial nuclei and nuclei-incisors. For the gun set of the industry is characterized by a specific

"hunting" tools in the form of carefully designed thin leaf and it is retouched under the edge of the plates with additional patascoy base. Typologically striking finds are the cutters, the longitudinal scrapers on the plates. Splitting were separately pebble raw material — siltstone, aleurolite-sandstones and sandstones, to a lesser extent, aphyric effusions, hornfels and orogovevshie rocks, and porphyritic effusive.

The technology of producing plates in the context of the stone industry of habitat levels 5.4—5.5 Ust-Karakol-1 (excavation 1, 1986) assumed similar methods of reduction of prismatic, sub-prismatic and combinatorial nuclei. Analysis of industry plates (75 copies) indicates the use of a variety of methods of correction of the splitting zone, in aggregate or separately (Fig. 8). On the residual impact areas of the plates, traces of reduction of the cornice (6.5%), reverse reduction (17%), combined correction — reverse reduction and/or reduction of the cornice and picketage (50%) are recorded. In the studied industry, a significant proportion of plate chips and a number of technical chips show traces of a combination of methods for correcting the splitting zone. Chips with traces of picketing, as in other industries of the group, are characterized by large size, regular rectangular shape, symmetry of the ribs on the dorsal surface, triangular or trapezoidal cross-section. The residual striking platform plates weakly sloping, have a triangular or patriciavonne in shape. The relief of the sites is mostly slightly convex or straight. On the cores for plate tracks chainage is not fixed

Literature
Derevianko, etc. 1998а: Derevyanko, A. P., Glinsky, S. V., Dergacheva M. I. , Dupal T. A., Efremov S. A., Zenin, A. N., The Krivoshapkin A. I., Kulikov O. A., Malaeva, E. M., Markin V. S., Nikolaev S. V., Nokhrina T. I., Petrin, V. T., Pozdnyakov A. A., Popov S. M., Rybin E. P., Simonov Yu. G., Fedeneva I. N., L. M. Chevalkov, Shunkov M. V. 1998. Problems of paleoecology, Geology and archeology of the Altai Paleolithic. Novosibirsk: SB RAS iaat
Derevyanko and others 2003: Derevianko A. P., Shunkov M. V., Agadzhanyan A. K., Baryshnikov, G. F., malaeva, E. M., Ulyanov V. A., Kulik N. A., Postnov A.V., Anikin A. A. 2003. Natural environment and people in the Paleolithic of the Altai Mountains. Novosibirsk: SB RAS iaat.


Work performed: Seletsky Maxim Vladimirovich.