New Dental Finds Associated with the Paleolithic Selenga Culture, Western Trans-Baikal Region
New Dental Finds Associated with the Paleolithic Selenga Culture, Western Trans-Baikal Region
DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.3.003-011
G.D. Pavlenok1 and A.V. Zubova2 1Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia 2Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 3, St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia
We describe human teeth discovered in 2012 during the re-examination of the lithic assemblage and paleontological complex from Ust-Kyakhta-3, in the western Trans-Baikal region, excavated by A.P. Okladnikov. This is one of the key Final Paleolithic sites in this area, having a distinct two-layer stratigraphy, a consistent series of radiocarbon dates, and the largest (and the most representative) collection of artifacts. Dental finds come from layer 1, whose dates range from 11,505 ± 100 to 12,151 ± 58 BP. The finds include fragments of a deciduous left upper second molar of a child aged 11-13, and an incompletely erupted upper permanent molar, possibly from the same child. Morphological comparison of these teeth with those from Malta in the Cis-Baikal region demonstrates considerable similarity. This finding suggests that the populations of Malta and Ust-Kyakhta-3 represent one and the same southern Siberian Upper Paleolithic dental complex.
