Bairaki – a Lower Paleolithic Site on the Lower Dniester

Bairaki – a Lower Paleolithic Site on the Lower Dniester

N.K. Anisyutkin, S.I. Kovalenko, V.A. Burlacu, A.K. Ocherednoi, and A.L. Chepalyga.

Findings of excavations at a Lower Paleolithic site, discovered in 2010 near Dubasari on the Lower Dniester, are described. Earlier, two sites with Lower Paleolithic fl int tools – Dubasari-1 (Bolshoi Fontan) and Pogrebya – were found nearby. The cultural layer, located in the top of the lower buried soil overlying the alluvial deposits of the sixth or seventh terrace of the Dniester, included a few stone artifacts and a fragment of an animal bone. The likely age of this buried soil is estimated at ca 500 ka by geological methods. In the alluvium gravel of the same terrace downstream, three pebble tools including two choppers made of a strong Cosăuţi sandstone, and four fl int pieces were found. Geological observations suggest that this alluvium is more than 800 ka old. So far these are the earliest stone tools discovered in a stratifi ed context in the Russian, Moldavian, and Ukrainian parts of the Russian Plain.

Keywords: Lower Pleistocene, Lower Paleolithic, cultural layer, Lower Dniester valley, southwestern Eastern Europe.