UST’-KYAHTA-16: LEVALLOIS KNAPPING TECHNIQUE IN THE SOUTH OF WESTERN TRANSBAIKALIA
Abstract
The Ust-Kyakhta-16 archaeological site was discovered in 1990 in the south of Western Transbaikalia, 4 km north of the village of Ust-Kyakhta, in the vicinity of which numerous archaeological studies were carried out in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Ust-Kyakhta-16 is located 45–75 m above the Selenga River, which is significantly higher than the Stone Age sites previously studied in these areas, located up to 15 m above the river. Research at Ust-Kyakhta-16 was conducted in the 1990s. The stone artifacts discovered here were attributed to various stages of the Upper Paleolithic. Among the finds are cores, on the flat frontal surfaces of which a system of knapping blanks is noted, different from the knapping prismatic and subprismatic cores, also found here and in the neighboring locations.
A new approach to the study of archaeological materials from Ust-Kyakhta-16 became possible after the discovery and study of the stone industry of layer 7g of Barun-Alan-1, where the classic version of the Levallois knapping technique is widely represented — removal of flakes from cores with a tortoise-shaped front. A variant of obtaining Levallois points, which was designated as distal divergent, is also presented here. A comparative analysis of the materials from layer 7g of Barun-Alan-1 and Ust-Kyakhta-16 showed that the cores of the two archaeological sites aimed at obtaining points are morphologically and typologically identical. In this regard, Ust-Kyakhta-16 with Levallois materials can be considered as occupying an intermediate position between Barun-Alan-1 and the Mongolian sites of the Orkhon group, where similar archaeological materials are present.
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References
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